Quick Service

by P.G. Wodehouse

Book Overview

This stand-alone novel is another fine example of the wonderful, zany humor of P. G. Wodehouse.Imperious American widow Beatrice Chavender is visiting her sister's country home near London when a most... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140009949
• ISBN13: 9780140009941
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.0" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

They don't come any funnier!

Of all of the Wodehouse books we have read--and they have been many--this is one of the very funniest. The main character is, as others have said, largely responsible for the most comical parts, but he couldn't have pulled it off alone. Great reading!

The Wit That Wins

"You can never trust a writer not to make an ass of himself," P.G. Wodehouse once remarked, and novice readers who have dipped into a Jeeves or Mulliner story must be wondering how long their luck will last. How long until they come on to some dog of a novel that forever smirches the name Wodehouse? Well, as opposed to nearly anyone else you can name, all the Wodehouse exhibits I've delved into so far have all been Very Readable or above. Not a dog in the bunch, except in the good sense of the dumb chums and interminable pekes collected in the Wodehouse Bestiary. But Quick Service was a favorite of PGW, whom you would think would know his own mind. This light novel from 1940 mixes equal parts musical comedy and whatever else his books are about, with some hysterical lines. "Oo!" said Miss Pym, pouring beer in a flutter. That's the response of the copper-coloured haired barmaid at the pub in Loose Chippings to the question posed by young artist and man-of-action, Joss Weatherby, who's madly in love with Sally Fairmile, "Isn't marriage a wonderful institution?" Miss Pym is dreaming of her betrothed, butler Sidney Chibnall, but that monosyllable is fraught with meaning, because she and Sidney are on to a gang of plotters, with Joss as suspect number one. An avid reader of mysteries, she warns Chibnall: "pretty silly you'd look if you suddenly found him murdering you in your bed." Of course there's about a million other things happening with the cast of dozens, and this is one of the few Wodehouse romps where I can follow all the romantic embroilments. This very visual book could easily be performed on stage given the music hall bits dropped in all through it, as when Miss Pym tries to draw out a stranger with a false mustache. "You can always tell an American," she says, "but you can't tell him much. Ha ha." "Ha ha," replies the other, the gag falling flat like a card played in a deadly cat and mouse game of intrigue, as Miss Pym might say. It's just about perfect.

The Artful Dodge

Howard and Mabel Steptoe are recently moved from Hollywood to Loose Chippings, Sussex, England. Here they reside in Claines Hall with Beatrice Chavender and Sally Fairmile, two of Mabel's relatives. Add into the mix Sidney Chubnall, proper English butler. They are joined by George Holbeton, who has just engaged himself to Sally. Enter the household one Joss Weatherby, who arrives seeking employment so as to be near Sally. He is soon followed by the man who sacked him, J.B. Duff, of Paramount Hams. Duff holds out at the Rose and Crown, where barmaid Vera Pym finds the merchant highly suspicious. The barmaid is betrothed to the butler. Comic situations are called for. Misunderstandings, deceits, and of course, True Love. The British are wonderful at this type of comedy; P.G. Wodehouse was masterful. Not heavy stuff, perhaps. You know everyone and everything will end as they should. Predictable? Yes, but also fun and with a natural innocence all too uncommon today. "Lord Holbeton stared. His question had been intended in a purely satirical spirit, and her literal acceptance of it stunned him. For an instant, compassion gripped him. She seemed so young, so frail to go up against one who even on his good mornings resembled something out of the Book of Revelation. "Then there swept over him the thought of what a lot of unpleasantness this would save him. If somebody had to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, how much more agreeable if it were not he." Penguin paperback edition

Your Good Health Awaits

If laughter is the best medicine, then those who read Wodehouse are destined to live until 130. Quick Service, one of Wodehouse's non-series novels, is the ultimate pick-me-up. It is a novel filled with great schemes got astray, suspicious butlers, Americans who appropriately respond to the most difficult questions by saying: "Yeah", and the most delicious sounding, toothsome Paramount Ham. This novel has threads galore, twisting and entwined, and only a Master like Wodehouse could bring it all to such a satisfying conclusion.But the main reason to read Quick Service is to make the acquaintance of Joss Weatherby. After it was over and the brain-box slowly pondered the preceedings, it came to me that Joss is a combination of Bertie and Jeeves rolled into one. On the Bertie front, Joss is quite capable of getting himself into one scrape after another without even trying. On the Jeeves front, he is able to rescue himself from these scrapes by using his flashes of genius. Also, Joss is a total charmer. It is not hard to see why Sally (our heroine) quickly joins the Weatherby ranks. I would love to have another novel and another chance to read more Joss adventures.Quick Service is now the third non-series Wodehouse I have read. I highly encourage those who have primarily feasted on Blandings and Jeeves to try these non-series gems. They are just as satisfying as any of the others. And we get a clear resolution of the scrapes within each novel.So, go out there, hunt in your used bookstores, or wait until the publishers have the good sense to re-issue Quick Service. But read it! The lips will curl, the teeth will part, and the laughter will flow. And if this is medicine, your good health turly awaits!

Short and Sweet and Funny

This is one of Wodehouse's many, many novels, and one of the more charming ones, due mostly to the main character, Joss Weatherby, a bright, exuberant, insanely optimistic and intelligent young artist who falls in love with Sally, a poor relation & companion to Mrs. Steptoe, a wealthy ex-American determined to enter and conquer the landed and titled social circles of England. Sally, a bright and feisty girl, is engaged to the Lord Holbeton, a spineless, intellectually-uninspired young man who sings "Trees" and whose money is held in trust by J.B. Duff, the Ham King, who is Joss' boss and was once in love with Mrs. Chavender who..... well, it's a typical Wodehouse plot, with people falling in and out of love, fortunes, inheritances held in trust getting in the way of people in love, obsessions with ham, bad indigestion, butlers going above the call of duty, paintings being stolen for nefarious purposes, all accomplished in loopy, flight-of-fancy, ingeniously light and happy prose that floats along, delightful and humorous. A Wodehouse effort other than his Jeeves and Wooster books that I really liked.