Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin

PG Woodhouse i always entertaining, guaranteed to make you laugh. As usual, there is a young man, madly in love, having to go through several adventures to get the woman he loves --that is until he falls in love with someone else.

Wodehouse is an unfailing master. I don't think I've ever been disappointed by anything he's ever written. Disappointingly, I won't give a plot summary here, for that I refer to the other reviewer. However, for the die-hard Wodehouse fans like myself, be aware that this book is also known as "Girls, Pearls & Monty Bodkin." So, if you already own the latter novel, you own this one, as well.

The world of P.G. Wodehouse is filled with fat-headed aristocrats, grubby social climbers with money, and crooks who would like to relieve both of their excess funds and goods against the backdrop of a romance that is in difficulty. Eventually, love conquers all with much good fun along the way. The Plot That Thickened is a fine outing in that famous formula.I divide all P.G. Wodehouse comic novels into two categories: Those with Jeeves (the all-knowing and ever-helpful butler) and those without Jeeves. Jeeves is one of the great comic characters in English literature, and I miss him when he's not around. The Plot That Thickened is without Jeeves. Monty Bodkin, one of the two solvent members of the disreputable Drones Club in London, has fallen in love with Ms. Gertrude Butterwick, a hefty young lady who played for the All England women's field hockey team. Gertrude's father doesn't approve of Monty, seeing his as a useless wastrel, and puts a condition on the engagement. There will be no marriage until Monty has completed one year of a paying job. As the book opens, Monty has just completed this task pretty pleasantly by becoming an advisor to a motion picture studio in Hollywood, after he helps the head of the studio, one Ivor Llewellyn, smuggle some jewelry after a transatlantic crossing. He spends his days doing very little, attended by his charming secretary, Sandy Miller, who's fallen in love with Monty . . . a fact he's totally missed.Monty heads back to Jolly Old England to claim the girl . . . only to find that old Butterworth has found out about how Monty got the job from a letter Monty sent to Gertrude. Butterworth tells Monty his year in Hollywood doesn't count. Sandy follows Monty to London where they meet by chance, and Sandy offers to help him get a job as the studio mogul's secretary while the mogul writes a book. How will love conquer all? Well, not without complications. It turns out that the mogul's wife hires a crook to protect her prize possession, a string of peerless pearls that she's keeping for her daughter's marriage. The daughter, Mavis, is a real tigress and decides that Monty is a crook who wants to steal the pearls. Mrs. Llewellen further complicates matters by inviting a pair of crooks to be house guests. What will happen to those pearls? If you would like to read a book that gives you a new smile or laugh on almost every page, The Plot That Thickened is a fine choice. Have you ever found yourself beset by rules that you couldn't seem to follow without breaking some other rule (sort of like Catch-22)? How did you extract yourself? How can you avoid getting into a situation like that in the future?

P.G. Wodehouse outdid himself when he wrote this story about a young man who has to WORK for a year in order to win the girl he loves. Monty gets a job at Ivor Llewelwyn's Hollywood studio and basically does nothing but receive a paycheck. While there his secretary falls in love with him. She is saddened though because she knows he loves Gertrude. Monty does his year of work and hottails it back to England only to find out Gertrude's father doesn't think his work counted. Sandy goes to England and gets Monty a job as Llewelwyn's personal secretary. In a short amount of time Mrs. Llewelwyn's pearls are seen as up for grabs by the underworld, Monty falls out of love with Gertrude and into love with Sandy, and Llewelwyn still searches for a way to get past his wife's strict diet. Wodehouse characteristically sums it all up at the end in a masterful fashion.