Leave It to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse

I think I might have previously read Wodehouse too fast, because I didn't find him that funny, but I read this fairly slowly and it was hysterical. Or maybe I had not previously had the discernment (as Psmith would probably say) to appreciate him properly. Both the plot and character are absolutely delightful, Wodehouse perfectly unites the most eccentric and memorable characters with an delightfully madcap plot. Well, I do have to qualify that statement, the male characters are fantastic, the female... not so much. They're mostly unbearably dull. The only bad part in the book was the tea conversation between a group of female friends. Even the American crook pretending to be an English poetess isn't that interesting. Every time Wodehouse writes women's conversation, it's dull and commonplace. They seem to have no sense of humour and only the be butt of jokes if they're ridiculous, or if they're central characters (such as Eve), they sort of just hover around being perfect, and even the bad things they do (such as ransacking a house in search of stole jewellery that Eve wants to steal herself) are sort of uninteresting. But having said that, I loved the absurdity of the plot and most of the characters; the obliviously pottering Lord Elmsworth, the ruthlessly efficient Baxter reduced to throwing flower pots at him employer's window in the middle of the night, the bumbling Freddie, the ineffectual crook Edward Cootes, and of course, the sublime eccentric, Psmith himself. The way everyone keeps pretending to be someone else was so ridiculous and so well-executed, the plot was endlessly inventive and satisfying. It's a lot like watching a silent movie where you know that someone is going to fall over the banana skin as soon as it appears, but in this case, the banana skin is usually a diamond necklace that keeps getting stolen, recovered, fought over, etc. Once something happens, it's very quickly obvious what the consequences are going to be, but you're always left waiting for the next unpredictable twist.