You either love Wodehouse or you don't. Piccadilly Jim was a fun read, full of Wodehouse-isms and the need to suspend disbelief, but if you want a chuckle and have something end exactly the way it ought, despite a farcical way of getting there, then this is for you.

"You may bring me a brandy-and-soda. Not a large one. A couple of bath-tubsful will be enough."

Not as even overall as "Damsel in Distress", but laugh-out-loud funnier in parts.

A lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.

Loses a mark for all the fatphobia

None of the main characters is as engaging as the stars of Wodehouse's great series, but the plot is the cleverest and most complicated that I've yet encountered in his novels. (I've read about thirty.) It involves mistaken identity and impostorship. Impostoring? Imposturing? Surely if Wodehouse could teach us anything, it would be the verb for being an impostor. These common Wodehouse tropes are taken to a whole new level in Piccadilly Jim (1917).

As always with Wodehouse, it's very funny.

The plot concerns former New York newspaperman James Crocker, now a rich hellraiser in London. Filled with shame over his latest drunken brawl he decides to mend his ways, falls in love with a girl whose life he ruined years earlier when he wrote a cruelly funny review of her poetry, and adopts a false identity so she won't know he's the guy she hates. From there we enter a complex web of deceptions within deceptions.

A character worth meeting is Miss Trimble, a New York detective, socialist, and suffragette. If I interpret the 'code' of 1917 popular fiction correctly, and I think I do, she is also a lesbian. The author, I fear, tries on occasion to make her ridiculous. But even so, the awesome shines through.

Miss Trimble knows more about ju-jitsu than the Japanese professor who taught her. At one time she was a strong woman in small-time vaudeville. She is an expert revolver shot.

Miss Trimble, several strong women who oppress their weak husbands, and the girl who's present character was forged in the fire of a bad book review, may tempt readers to think about gender politics while reading Piccadilly Jim. I did for a while, but it became funnier when I stopped. It's not likely to become a bestseller again any time soon -- despite being filmed, with Sam Rockwell as Jim, about 10 years ago -- so I say let it be a bit wrong, it's not hurting anyone, and it lets us feel superior for living in a more enlightened age.

Some readers may be interested to know that several characters previously appeared in Wodehouse's The Little Nugget. The events of that book are mentioned from time to time, but you don't need to read it to fully appreciate Piccadilly Jim.

Rather enjoyed this - nice change from the classics that I've been working through but not so up to date that I felt I was neglecting my literary education. Generally fluffy but sweet!

While it didn't hit the high notes of "The Small Bachelor", this was fun. Wodehouse piles one complication on top of another to deliver a deliciously absurd finale. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.