Service With A Smile: Book Review

Overview: (Brief overview of  the book)

PG Wodehouse is one of the greatest comic writers in English literature.  He has written about a hundred books, very popular and best known for creating the character ‘Jeeves’ a very resourceful butler of a gentleman named ‘Bertie Wooster’. An entire series of books called ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ have been written by Wodehouse revolving around this character and I have read a book named ‘ Thank You, Jeeves’, one book of the series.

The particular book ‘Service with a Smile- A Blanding’s story’ is one book of another set of series called ‘Life at Blandings’, revolving around a fictional castle, its inhabitants, its visitors and its environs.

Synopsis: (Details/ summary of the story/ subject)

This is particular book is of light hearted humor depicting how various characters of the story in distress due to trifling issues are helped by ever altruistic ‘Lord Ickenham’ who sometimes is perceived as being altruistic bordering on being indulgent in other characters’ personal affairs.

However, the various characters in the book inevitably seek Lord Ickenham’s counsel in their various affairs and to clear their scruples.  This book is quintessential of how a sequential comedy of errors is of consequence mutually solving each and every character’s problems towards the end with the help of Lord Ickenham.

The story starts with the introduction of the inhabitants and the annoying visitors of Blanding’s Castle whose crises are presented in a humorous manner. Their lives are somehow intertwined with some of the characters living at London, Lord Ickenham being one of them who learns of all the crises and decides to pay a  visit to Blanding’s Castle to sort out the troubles of the people involved starting with the focus on Lord Emsworth, the proprietor of Blanding’ s Castle who is very troubled as he is under a constant threat of being parted with his pig, Empress who has won him several competitions in pet shows.  Apart from this, there is Duke Dunstable who is an overbearing obnoxious person whose rise to fortune has been due to familial circumstances who always tries to win fortune through illegitimate ways.  There are also portrayal of couples in love who try to marry each other irrespective of differences in social status or no supportive career to start a family.  There is also a portrayal of characters who are less fortunate with various political ideologies trying to establish themselves financially in spite of the constraints posed by the society of Britain which favors the aristocrats mostly.

My Takeaways: (What I have learnt from this book)

Wodehouse’s collections are good for mature comedy and light hearted humor and gives a peek into the classic aristocratic lifestyle of the United Kingdom and England.Wodehouse’s books consist of a rich vocabulary and he aptly describes his characters with humor by utilizing satirical analogies.The book also subtly describes the political structure in Britain as to how the aristocrats treat the lesser privileged and how people of different social strata have various political ideologies like the communist and capitalistic ideologies.The book through humor depicts as to how the aristocrats can be generous in marrying into the lesser strata with noble professions though the income of those people are not very promising but would eventually gain a  higher respect for the benefit of both if there is a union forged between them.

 

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