Psmith, Journalist by P.G. Wodehouse

I downloaded this novelette for free from Project Gutenburg and read it on my Palm Z22. It’s actually the most recent of many Wodehouse novels I’ve read this year, all of which I have failed to document for one reason or another.

I particularly wanted to record this one because I feel that the main character, Psmith, is virtually identical to Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently, if you remove the supernatural elements from the Gently stories and make the character thin. It’s a bit like discovering a few unpublished Gently novels, after assuming there would be no more owing to Adams’ untimely passing.

In one of the other novels I read recently, I saw the prototype for the relationship storyline in So Long and Thanks for All The Fish where boy meets girl in a car ride but not learning anything about her, a chance meeting later on, an overbearing brother, etc, so I knew there were some loosely borrowed plot lines between Wodehouse and Adams.

All very interesting. It’s like getting a backstage tour into the workings of Adams’ mind.