1915 comic novel, compilation from magazine publication in 1909-1910.
Bored in New York, Psmith gets involved with a local newspaper,
turning it from a provider of pap into a crusader.
While Mike is still nominally present in parts of the story, it's
clear that Psmith is the character who now interests Wodehouse, and
the narrative follows him as he talks the paper's temporary editor
into doing something amusing with it, sponsors a promising young
boxer, discovers the terrible state of New York tenement houses, and
stirs up trouble among the gangs by offending one of their patrons.
A recurrent theme is that, well, yes, things are indeed entirely
corrupt beyond any possible hope of redemption, but it's America and
that's just the way things are there (presumably with an aim of
stirring up the reader to ask why things have to be like that).
Sometimes the social consciousness sits uneasily against the comedy,
and while Wodehouse is clearly enjoying playing with the language –
particularly in narrative paragraphs – he hasn't quite reached his
full skill.
The New York gangs, and especially the Groome Street Gang, have
brought to a fine art the gentle practice of "repeating"; which,
broadly speaking, is the art of voting a number of different times
at different polling-stations on election days. A man who can vote,
say, ten times in a single day for you, and who controls a great
number of followers who are also prepared, if they like you, to vote
ten times in a single day for you, is worth cultivating. So the
politicians passed the word to the police, and the police left the
Groome Street Gang unmolested and they waxed fat and flourished.
There are some tediously racist passages (apparently they were
expected to bring merriment at the time, and they may even have done
so); but there's also a cat-loving crime boss and a Wyoming cowboy
turned newspaperman; not to mention the paper's newly appointed
fighting-editor.
"You're a genius," said Billy Windsor.
"You think so?" said Psmith diffidently. "Well, well, perhaps you
are right, perhaps you are right."
It's all light-hearted fun with a very occasional edge to it; not the
Master Wodehouse but rather good even so.
Much of this book was rewritten into the expanded American edition of
The Prince and Betty. Followed some years later by Leave it to
Psmith.
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