Laughing Gas

What a treat Laughing Gas is to read! A great Wodehouse story and wonderful word play by the master. There is not a day that goes by that makes me wish I had met PG or Plum as he was known. I wonder if he was as masterful with language in person as he was with the written word? No matter, we have his over 100 books and Gas is one of those I like best. I love them all, but here is a few that you might also like to read: Jill The Reckless: A British Humor Classic Leave It To Psmith: A British Humor Classic Love Among The Chickens: A British Humor Classic Psmith In The City: A British Humor Classic My Man Jeeves: A British Humor Classic Keep reading - hope to see you at Blandings soon!

This small book, 286 pages, is very very funny. It comes to us from one of the greatest English Comic writers. P.G. Wodehouse is best known for the worlds he created for his characters in Blandings Castle and the Wooster--Jeeves duo. In this book, Laughing Gas, he took a simple story and used his characters to take it to level of comedy that is unusual. The approach and especially the language was funny, but it also crated a farce and in some ways could be seen to be offering some interesting social satire. The two key characters were, Joey Cooley, a child actor, and Reginald Havershot and English Earl. All the characters in the book not only complimented the comedy portrayed by Joey and Reggie but seemed to add to the farce because of their own uniqueness and role in story. The idea of swapping souls has been a well tested plot over the years and at first you wonder how going back to this plot and story, told my an author born in the late 1800's, could bring anything original or interesting to this idea. Both Reggie and Joey were at the dentist and both went under laughing gas at the same time. We were told that they somehow slipped out of their bodies in the fourth dimension and swapped. At first just a dated approach to this idea soon proved that it didn't matter and indeed was different because it was dated. It was just funny page after page. The answer lies in the characters themselves. Reggie's English approach to life in Hollywood was one where he had to survive for a few days in Joey's little, and very different, body. It is from Reggie's perception from within his own body and also during the time he was in the child's body, that we mostly see this story The story was told with an English accent, in a time and place that does not really exist anymore. Both Joey and Reggie by them selves were funny but it was the plot that unfolded after the body switch that left you laughing out loud. I was not very familiar with P.G. Wpodehouse so for me the book was a fist close look. I was not disappointed and may be hooked.

Laughing Gas was the first Wodehouse I ever read. I knew his work through some Jeeves tales (and their TV adaptations), but I had never ventured outside of those characters. Seeing that the storyline was somewhat like the Freaky Friday genre of films, I wanted to see what Wodehouse would do with this already familiar plot. I was not disappointed and I have gone back to him whenever I wanted something to make me laugh--as long as it's not an audiobook read by Jonathan Cecil! Reginald, Third Earl of Havershot (gotta love those Wodehouse puns) finds himself in the dentist's chair after an embarrassing incident seated next to child star Joey Cooley ("Idol of American Motherhood"), going through the same procedure. After the administration of some of the titular anesthetic, the two have an out-of-body experience. The mischievous Cooley, however, instead of returning to his own corporeal form, slips into Reggie's, leaving our hero left with the tot's as his only choice. Hilarity ensues, as they say, as little Joey likes to go around punching people in the nose and continues to do so under the guise of Reggie. Meanwhile Reggie is party to the stories going around about "his" behavior and is powerless to stop them while in his current pint-sized form. Wodehouse takes this in all of the expected directions and invents a few new ones, to boot, making Laughing Gas one of his best novels. Well, one of the best I've read, anyway.

This is one of P.G. Wodehouses's best books. Although he's never turned a tale anything but excellently, this is somehow more endearing than most. It starts out normal enough, with a man who just became an earl (Reginald, third Earl of Havershot) going off to Hollywood to save his alcoholic cousin from the deadly drink. He meets an actress by the name of April June, the very embodiment of virtue, on the way there-- or so he thinks. He also runs into his ex- finacee, whose engagement to him he bungled by way of a little accident with a cigar. After some very cold ice cream, he needs to have a tooth pulled. In the dentist's waiting room he meets little Joey Cooley, the child actor, Idol of American Motherhood, who will be undergoing the same torture as him. Well, both souls get administered some laughing gas, and this gives them the ability to be masters of the art of astral projection. But the thing is, little mischevious Joey puts his soul into Reggie's body, rather then his own. Reggie then has no choice but to inhabit the body of the child star with the golden curls. Now we've got a dilemma. See, Joey wants to poke everyone in the snout, and in Reggie's body, now has the strength to do so with optimum results. Uh-oh. And now Reggie is left with the mind of a grown man, but the mean Miss Brinkmeyer (the "tall, rangy, light-heavyweight, severe of aspect' woman with whom he shares a mutal hatred...animus is in the air) and all other of Cooley's keepers, who treat him like the eleven-year-old child they think he is. Double uh-oh. This book is one of the funniest things I've ever read, not only because Wodehouse is a master of the English language and shows such a conatagious affection for it, but because it's a very zany tale that never fails to make you laugh and keep a smile on your face all day. There are so many more hilarious moments in this book, and not a page goes by without a good, hearty chuckle. I would highly recommend this book and all of Wodehouse's books, for that matter.

Wodehouse's usual skill with the turn of phrase and the unlikely situation makes this book a delight. It's atypical of his work in that it contains a fantastic element: a grown man and a bratty child, visiting a dentist at the same time, accidentally have their souls switched while under the ether.