The Great Sermon Handicap, Volume 4 (2024)

This delightful Jeeves and Wooster short story, told by Bertie, works as a standalone, but fits in the wider arc of stories in The Inimitable Jeeves, where you can also read it.

It’s typical Wodehouse, albeit with a slightly below average ratio of startlingly original similes.

I reread this now because, going through my late father’s books, I found this edition that fits in the smallest of pockets, without disturbing the line of one’s tailoring. Jeeves would approve.

Relatable Plot!

In novels, Wodehouse’s plots are as amusingly and implausibly convoluted as a treasure hunt for the Holy Grail, written down by swallows, struggling to carry coconuts, while maintaining air-speed velocity. It’s easy to overlook how clever they are. This story is shorter and simpler. Twins Claude and Eustace, “more or less generally admitted to be the curse of the human race” persuade Bertie to bet on which local parson will preach the longest sermon, claiming their inside info makes it a safe bet.

I was raised an Anglican, and at boarding school, had to attend church every Sunday, so I’ve heard plenty of sermons, most of the latter by the man who is the longest-serving C of E priest: in 2019, he is 92 and has been in the same parish(es) for 62 years. (See Church Times article from three years earlier here).

Frogmarched schoolgirls are rarely a receptive audience, so we sought ways to add excitement. The one that we still joke about, more than 30 years later is “The Bells of Wells”. I can tell you nothing of the spiritual message, only that the vicar had been moved by a recent visit to that city. We noticed the constant repetition of the phrase in lugubrious tone and started to count. I think it was in the low forties, though there was disagreement about the precise number. In my remaining time at school, he never exceeded that degree of repetition in a single sermon.

Image “We’d better have her examined. She’s resolved to be good.” (Source.)

Had we been more like St Trinian’s, we might have extended that idea to something akin to the C and E (Claude and Eustace) scheme.

Plum’s Plums

•Country house gathering.
•Bertie getting into a convoluted scheme that doesn’t go according to plan.
•Loved-up young chap (Bingo) penning doggerel.
•Jeeves quietly ensuring disaster is avoided.
•Occasional archaic vocab (desiderated and excursus).
•Twists on well-known phrases (“I’m not much of a lad for the birds and the trees”).
•Humour and jolly japes all round.

Energetic Bertie

Bertie cycled 10 miles each way - in the summer - just to hear a sermon. Well, a sermon in which he had a financial stake, but even so, he’s fitter than I usually imagine him.

Quotes

•“I fear that brevity in the pulpit is becoming more and more desiderated by even the bucolic churchgoer, who one might have supposed would be less afflicted with the spirit of hurry and impatience than his metropolitan brother.”

•“A dashed pretty and lively and attractive girl, mind you, but full of ideals and all that. I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she’s the sort of girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know I’ve heard her speak favourably of Napoleon.”

•“Jeeves coughed one soft, low, gentle cough like a sheep with a blade of grass stuck in its throat, and then stood gazing serenely at the landscape.”

•“Jeeves coughed again and fixed me with an expressionless eye.”

•“‘When Cynthia smiles,’ said young Bingo, ‘the skies are blue: the world takes on a roseate hue: birds in the garden trill and sing, and Joy is king of everything, when Cynthia smiles.’ He coughed, changing gears. ‘When Cynthia frowns…’”

•“‘Has he got the wind up?’
‘Somewhat vertically, sir, to judge by his voice.’”

Wasn’t my most favourite book/ section of The Inimitable Jeeves. Wooster goes visits his friend Bingo in the Countryside. Bingo is in love, yet again (yawn, so tired of this thread). So, Bingo and chums come up with a plan to make some money......... They create a pool on which priest will do a sermon on a certain weekend. Not the best thread.

Wodehouse flaunts his literary prowess from the very beginning of this short story having you fall in love with English aristocratic language and Oxford slang. The plot is confusing at first, gets a little clearer as you go through but is still not very understandable compared to his other pieces. I think if you understand betting and odds more than I do you’ll have a good standing. Nonetheless, it’s still enjoyable, witty and involves a well rounded satisfying ending.