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Mardi, 10 novembre 2009

The Inimitable Jeeves

Traduction: [ Google | Babelfish ]

Catégories : [ Livres/Wodehouse ]

ISBN: 9780091739874

© Amazon.fr

Published in 1923.

Bingo Little is once again in love, this time with a simple waitress. In order for his uncle to accept her, Jeeves suggests to read him stories by Rosie M. Banks which are full of such situations. To make it even more convincing, Bingo tells his uncle that Wooster is in really Rosie M. Banks. Eventually, the uncle marries his cook.

Aunt Agatha orders Bertie to join her in France, where she introduces him to a priest and his sister, whom she thinks will be a perfect wife for Wooster. The priest and the sister happen to be a pair of con artists who steal Agatha's pearls. Thankfully, Jeeves recognizes them and manages to recover the pearls.

Bingo is in love again, this time with Honoria Glossop. In order to attract her attention, he asks Wooster to take part in a scheme where Bertie would throw Honoria's insufferable little brother in the river and he would rescue him. But Bingo doesn't show up since he just fell in love with Honoria's friend, Bertie jumps into the water to save the boy, and Honoria, thinking he did this to impress her decides they are now engaged. Agatha is all for the union, but Honoria and her hate Jeeves. The latter uses the presence of Claude and Eustace, Bertie's cousins, to make Wooster look like a fool during a lunch with Honoria's father. Jeeves and Wooster flee to New York for a time.

In New York, Bertie meets Cyril Bassington-Bassington, sent by Aunt Agatha. He's supposed to stay away from theatrical circles, but he got hired for a play before Bertie could be told. Jeeves then gets Cyril kicked out of the play.

Bingo is in love again, this time with a communist girl, for whom he pretends to be communist too. Jeeves manages to make him look like a fraud, at the cost of a split between Bingo and his uncle (who pays him an allowance).

Bingo having no revenue anymore works in a village as a tutor. Claude and Eustace happen to be there too, and organise bets on which priest in the neigbouring villages will make the longest sermon. But they are thwarted by one other pupil there. Also, Bingo is once again in love, and once again he fails to catch the girl's heart. Next, Bingo and Wooster are betting on the outcome of races during the village's fair, but are thwarted again by the same man. Bingo, yet another girl, etc. Finally, yet another girl, Bingo organises the village's Christmas play to impress her. The representation is a failure becaue of the same person again, and because of bets on wheter Bingo would get the girl or not.

Claude and Eustace stay for the night at Bertie's before leaving to South Africa. During the night out, they meet a girl and refuse to leave. Jeeves finally makes them believe the girl is going to South Africa soon.

Finally, Bingo is on love again, but manages to marry the girl in a hurry. Wooster is sent to announce this to the uncle and restore the allowance. But the girl happens to be Rosie M. Banks, and the uncle calls here a liar. Eventually Jeeves solves the problem by telling them that Wooster is a complete looney.

[ Posté le 10 novembre 2009 à 13:06 | pas de commentaire | ]

The Code of the Woosters

Traduction: [ Google | Babelfish ]

Catégories : [ Livres/Wodehouse ]

ISBN: 9780091739874

© Amazon.fr

Published in 1938.

Gussie Fink-Nottle presses Bertie Wooster to come and help him, because his engagement to Madeline Basset, Sir Watkin's daughter, is off. Wooster, afraid that if Madeline doesn't marry Gussie she would turn to him once again, goes for a visit at Totleigh Towers. Just before leaving, he is told by his Aunt Dahlia that she counts on him to steal a silver cow-creamer now in Sir Watkin's collection. Dahlia's husband had planned to buy it before Basset, but the latter tricked him. Since Dahlia's magazine's funding depends on her husband's mood, she has to get that cow creamer back. But as soon as Wooster arrives at Totleigh Towers, he is under suspicion of wanting to steal the silver piece by Roderick Spode, a brutal and wannabe Dictator friend of Sir Watkin's. Just after that, Gussie tells Wooster that he lost the booklet where he wrote all sorts of awful (but so true) things about Spode and Basset in order to give him the courage to make a speech at his coming wedding. If the booklet falls into the hands of the father of the bride, the wedding could be cancelled, and Bertie doesn't want that to happen. He soon learns that the booklet has been found by Stiffy Byng, Madeline's cousin who wants to marry Harold Pinker, the curate of the village. But Sir Watkyn would never agree on her marrying only a curate, so Stiffy is continuously scheming to get Harold accepted by her uncle. She wants Bertie to steal the cow-creamer and get Harold to stop the thief and retrieve the silver piece. Bertie refuses, but Stiffy blackmails him with the booklet. But Wooster being under constant surveillance by Spode, he would be the prime suspect automatically, so he cannot do it. Moreover, Stiffy doesn't like the village's constable, Oates, and asks Pinker to steal his helmet. Pinker first refuses, but finally does it by love for Stiffy. Finally, Dahlia steals herself the cow-creamer and gives it to Bertie to hide it, but Bertie knows that his room is going to be searched because Oates and Basset believe he has the stolen helmet. Then arrives Gussie who wants to flee the place with Wooster's car after Sir Watkin read the famous booklet, and Jeeves suggest to hide the cow creamer in a suitcase and give it to Gussie to deliver to Bertie's place in London. Oates and Sir Watkin search the room, find no cow creamer but do find the helmet (which had been hidden there by Stiffy) and want to throw Bertie into jail. Jeeves eventually manages to blackmail Spode (using Spode's secret, known by Jeeves from his gentlemen's gentlemen's club Book), already used earlier by Wooster to get Spode off his neck, to make him confess the theft of the helmet. In these circumstances, Oates' and Basset's search of the room is abusive, and Wooster threatens to sue Basset on that ground if he doesn't allow Stiffy's and Pinker's and Madeline's and Gussie's weddings, which Sir Watkin agrees upon.

[ Posté le 10 novembre 2009 à 13:05 | pas de commentaire | ]

Thank You, Jeeves

Traduction: [ Google | Babelfish ]

Catégories : [ Livres/Wodehouse ]

ISBN: 9780091739874

© Amazon.fr

Published in 1934.

Bertram Wooster refuses to give up playing the banjolele, and is therefore forced to leave his appartment for a cottage at Chuffnell Regis, the small town of which his friend Chuffy is the lord. Since Jeeves disapproves of Wooster playing the banjolele, he gives him his notice and enters the service of Chuffy. Visiting Chuffy, Wooster meets with displeasure some of his former nemesis, Glossop, Stoker, and Stoker's daughter Pauline to whom he had been engaged for fourty-eight hours, before his father broke the engagement on Glossop's advice. Now Chuffy is madly in love with Pauline, and so is she with him, but Chuffy, completely broke, doesn't dare asking her to marry him before he manages to sell his estate to Stoker. The deal is verbally concluded, but soon broken again because of Wooster's attempt to force Chuffy to ask Pauline in marriage makes her father believe she is still infatuated with Wooster. Later, Pauline escapes her father's yacht and swims to the shore to rejoin Chuffy. She stops at Wooster's cottage to ask him for clothes, but Chuffy discovers her presence there and imagines it is Wooster she wanted to see instead of him. They then break up. After that, Wooster is invited by Stoker aboad his yacht and kept prisoner; he wants to force Wooster to marry his daughter. Thanks to Jeeves, who happened to be aboard the yacht, temporarily serving Stoker, Wooster escapes by blackening his face with boot polish in order to blend with the company of black minstrels who played aboard the yacht the same night. Wooster then returns to his cottage, only to see it burned down by his replacement butler, Brinkley. He then returns to Chuffy's house in the hope to find there butter, which is his only hop to get the boot polish off his face. After a complicated meeting between all the main characters, Stoker is somehow blackmailed in letting Pauline marry Chuffy. In the end, Jeeves becomes Wooster's butler once again.

[ Posté le 10 novembre 2009 à 13:05 | pas de commentaire | ]

Right Ho, Jeeves

Traduction: [ Google | Babelfish ]

Catégories : [ Livres/Wodehouse ]

ISBN: 9780091745745

© Amazon.fr

Published in 1934.

Bertie is summoned to Brinkley Court by his Aunt Dahlia, who wants him to deliver a speech and give out end-of-year prizes to the pupils of the nearby Market Snodsbury Grammar School. Bertie is not enthousiasted at this prospect, but since his friend Gussie Fink-Nottle is desperately in love with Madeline Basset, a friend of Bertie's cousin Angela who happens to be staying at Brinkley Court, he sends Gussie there, presenting him to his aunt as the perfect man for the job. Bertie follows him shortly, only to find out that Angela had broken with her fiance Tuppy Glossop (who is also a friend of Bertie's). Various plots to reconcile the two lovebirds and help Gussie propose to Madeline fail miserably. Gussie, who never drank a drop of alcohol takes more than should have been reasonable in order to face the prize ceremony, eventually leading him to propose to Angela and getting Bertie engaged to Madeline against his will. Additionally, Anatole the French cook threatens to live, putting aunt Dahlia into a difficult situation with her husband. Given the catastrophic situation, Bertie finally accepts to try Jeeve's plan to ring the fire bell after midnight, in the hope that the right gentlemen would run to save the right ladies in distress. The plan utterly fails, and since someone closed the door shut while the keys were inside and all the servants out at a dance nine miles away, Bertie, being the only one still properly clothed, is sent out by force on a bicyle to go and fetch the backdoor key from the butler at the dance. The butler tells him that he doesn't have the key, since he gave it to Jeeves before leaving. After riding back, Jeeves explains that his actual plan was to focus eveybody's animosity onto one person, Bertie, so that they would forget their differences. The plot worked, Gussie and Madeline are finally engaged, Tuppy and Angela are reconciled and Anatole has accepted to withdraw his notice.

[ Posté le 10 novembre 2009 à 13:04 | pas de commentaire | ]