Joy In The Morning by PG Wodehouse, author of Something Fresh http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/01/something-fresh-by-pg-wodehouse-one-of.html and an astonishing total of six books included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read that you find on The Guardian site 9 out of 10

 Joy In The Morning by PG Wodehouse, author of Something Fresh http://realini.blogspot.com/2023/01/something-fresh-by-pg-wodehouse-one-of.html and an astonishing total of six books included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read that you find on The Guardian site

9 out of 10

 

 

Joy In The Morning can in fact bring mirth whenever you read it, for it is part of about 142 comedy books listed in the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read compilation, which includes no fewer than Six of the works of PG Wodehouse, most clearly an absolute record, though Evelyn Waugh has more, with eight (8) http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/11/brideshead-revisited-sacred-profane.html books in the Glasperlenspiel, only scattered among more sections, outside Comedy, into War and Travel with two.

 

Bertie Wooster and his smart, educated, superior, sophisticated ‘man’ Jeeves are entertaining the reading (and since the Wodehouse opera has been adapted for the screen, with the outstanding Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry in the roles of the master and valet respectively, and the television) public again, just like they do in Thank You Jeeves http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/02/thank-you-jeeves-by-pg-wodehouse-9-out.html and a good number of other delightful narratives that center on the amusing couple of men

PG Wodehouse seems to have been something of a ‘progressive’ avant la lettre, maybe even before the term was coined, anyway, in an era when it did not have the significance of today…Bertie Wooster is supposed to have the ‘superior’ position, he is the one paying for the valet to work in his home and wherever they travel – however, there are a few instances when Jeeves is reluctant to continue

 

The smart, erudite, intrepid, superior, sage, brave, creative, resilient, in other words the real ‘hero’ of the stories is Jeeves, he is the one getting the employer, relatives, friends of his out of trouble, while Bertie Wooster is for most of the time naïve, ignorant, the source of much mirth on account of his ineptitude, inability to recognize one quote, or maybe all of those produced by the inexhaustible, omniscient valet.

That is why I am saying that their stories are progressive, in that the rich fellow is not endowed with much more than the ability to bring into the picture the much better, wealthier employee, who does not have a financial fortune, but he is in possession of that which is much more important, character, real nobility of the spirit, one who has maybe all the character strengths identified by the father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/11/flourish-by-martin-seligman-part-1.html

 

Jeeves is the man – I was writing after this, and then I realized that He Is The Man period works and in fact would work as a headline for the novels that contain him, as he is endowed with all the virtues and few enough of the vices to make him more accessible and human, this is not Greek or another mythology after all - we could think of Aristotle and his description of the archetypal hero, better said, what I remember from reading about that, the hero needs to have good qualities, so that the public identifies with what they think of themselves, he needs to fall due to an error (and fall he has to, because we are talking tragedy) otherwise the plot appears meaningless, and there is also a need for a denouement, a time when there is Discovery and Reversal, as in Oedipus http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/03/note-on-oedipus-rex-by-sophocles-and.html when the main character receives the messenger and at the same time there is discovery and reversal, he finds he has killed his father and married his mother

 

Improbable things happen in Joy In The Morning, the reader is amusingly surprised as indicated by Aristotle, in many, if not most scenes, for example when Bertie is buying Spinoza for…Jeeves, evidently, neither Wooster nor any of his friends rise to that level of intelligence and comprehension, expect for Florence Craye, who sees the fellow buying the challenging philosophy oeuvre and changes her mind.

She is so elated and exuberant when she asks about the opus and is told that Bertie reads this king of elevated work that she decides to…marry the obviously ultra intelligent human, who now has to find a way out of the entrapment, marital bliss being something he does not contemplate for the moment, or foreseeable future (and those of us who have had the experience might say they know this is a field where poor Wooster does show a glimmer of perspective, prudence, persistence, all three character strengths that you find listed at http://charlusguermantes.blogspot.com/ and he is also unaware, but may do good to the potential partner that will find the spirituality, love of learning in short supply with Bertie)

 

Jeeves has to see a way out of calamity on a few matters, he takes the clothes off  D'Arcy "Stilton" Cheesewright, when the latter is bathing, and this policeman costume will help Bertie exit the corner, while there are plenty of entanglements that need to find the proverbial Gordian Knot, Stilton is engaged to Florence, and thus very upset when she changes her mind, disagreeing with the job he had taken and changes allegiance to Bertie, while Zenobia "Nobby" Hopwood is engaged to Bertie's friend George "Boko" Fittleworth, and they need the approval of the uncle, Lord Worplesdon, who  lives at Bumpleigh Hal

The lord is angry with Wooster, until he finds that the latter has kicked a young, obnoxious Edwin, someone that his lordship had long wanted to punish, only could not, because of the strict interdiction of fearsome aunt Agatha, his wife, and when Bertie becomes a sort of favorite, he could hope to exert some influence and benefit in turn from the support of Zenobia, who has infatuated letters from him, which could be used to push Florence away, now that she is so keen on the poor Wooster

 

Blunders and accidents abound, young Edwin finds a brooch and hands it over to Florence, indicating it is a gift from Bertie, which makes her ever more attached to the man who wants to escape the horrible perspective of getting married, and quite soon, Edwin kicks Bertie and his lordship, in a quite jestful Comedy of Errors, a short way to describe it is here, in graphic detail http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world