re: #84 Obdicut

Why would you think that? Especially given that Jeeves does actually write a story, in his own voice. Bertie’s voice doesn’t really resemble Jeeves’s at all.

In his meandering through life, Bertie has one constant: he knows a lot of good people. Good artists, small businessmen, reporters— I’ve never understood the charge against Wodehouse that anyone who does real work is to be disrespected. Almost all the minor heroes— Bertie’s friends— have some sort of job, business, or artistic endeavor. The ones who are just ‘wastrels’ aren’t ever presented in as positive a light as the working ones.

In knowing these people, Bertie is confided in by them and trusted by them, not just because of Jeeves. They trust that Jeeves will solve the situation, but they trust that Bertie will treat their revelations with absolute ethical tact, and will devote all his resources to righting wrongs.

Bertie also fearlessly mixes with every level of society in a way that probably drives his aunts batty. He’s a perfect anti-agent against feudalism— as is Wodehouse.

Feudal - he’s always calling on Jeeves to be feudal, as you may recall. And the whole “Jeeves really wrote the stories in Bertie’s voice thing” is of course a riff on Bertie’s digest of the “Shakespeare and Bacon controversy” - Bacon wrote some things for Shakespeare because he owed him some money, or something.

Love the whole Wooster mythos and world; as who could not?