"Psmith in the City" by P G Wodehouse

 The sequel to Mike (also known as two books: Mike at Wrykyn and Mike and Psmith). Mike Jackson, born cricketer, hoped to go to Cambridge but his father has fallen on hard times so Mike is sent to earn his living in a London bank. Psmith turns up. Neither of them actually enjoy the work (P G Wodehouse briefly and unhappily worked for a bank after leaving Dulwich College) but Psmith lightens the load with his long facetious monologues. Various loosely structured adventures occur culminating in a cricket match at Lords.

This book is most notable for the development of the character of Psmith, although Mike is still the protagonist and most of the third-person-omniscient narration is done from Mike's point of view.

Selected quotes

• "Where Psmith stood like some dignified piece of sculpture, musing on deep questions with a glassy eye, his father would be trying to be in four places at once." (C 1)
• "Psmith's attitude towards the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune was to regard them with a bland smile, as if they were part of an entertainment got up for his express benefit." (C 3)
• "London was too big to be angry with. It took no notice of him. It did not care whether he was glad to be there or sorry, and there was no means of making it care. That is the peculiarity of London. There is a sort of cold unfriendliness about it. A city like New York makes the new arrival feel at home in half an hour; but London is a specialist in what Psmith in his letter had called the Distant Stare. You have to buy London's good-will." (C 3)
• "I can rough it. We are old campaigners, we Psmiths. Give us a roof, a few comfortable chairs, a sofa or two, half a dozen cushions, and decent meals, and we do not repine." (C 8)
• "Work, the hobby of the philosopher and the poor man's friend." (C 8)
• "Work, the hobby of the hustler and the deadbeat's dread." (C 8)
• "The curiously Gorgonzolaesque marble of its main staircase" (C 9)
• "Rumours have reached me,' said Psmith, 'that a very decent little supper may be obtained at a quaint, old-world eating-house called the Savoy." (C 0)
• "He was a man who had, I should say, discovered that alcohol was a food long before the doctors found it out." (C 11)
• "At any moment I may fall from my present high standard of industry and excellence; and then you have me, so to speak, where the hair is crisp." (C 12)
• "It was part of Psmith's philosophy that a man who wore detachable cuffs had passed beyond the limit of human toleration." (C 14)
• "Mike proceeded to the meeting with the air of an about-to-be-washed dog." (C 15)
• "Sunday supper, unless done on a large and informal scale, is probably the most depressing meal in existence." (C 17)
• "If one looks closely into those actions which are apparently due to sudden impulse, one generally finds that the sudden impulse was merely the last of a long series of events which led up to the action." (C 25)
• "You have the manner of one whose only friend on earth is a yellow dog, and who has lost the dog." (C 25)
• "Possibly, if the weather continues warm, we may even paddle. A vastly exhilarating pastime, I am led to believe, and so strengthening for the ankles." (C 25)

November 2021

Other books by P G Wodehouse reviewed in this blog can be found here.

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God