MY GUILTY PLEASURE

BLAME IT ON my love of language, and blame that on my dad—the “it” being my unhealthy need for the stories of P. G. Wodehouse. The witty, wonderful, meandering, wisecracking tales of Jeeves and Bertie; Empress of Blandings (a prize pig) and her superbly oblivious champion, the ninth Earl; Mr. Mulliner; and the rest. Jeeves, the erudite, infallible, not to mention outrageously loyal valet to Bertram Wooster, the quite undeserving but curiously endearing man about town, is likely the most famous of these characters. But they’re all terrific, I assure you.

- BY MARK MIGOTTI

Having enjoyed Wodehouse with my dear old pater (as PG would likely put it) in my teenage years, I grew up and put the author aside when I went to grad school, raised children, and adulted my way to the present pass, the context of which is the following: one pandemic summer, I chuckled through a volume of Wodehouse chanced upon at the cottage, and by 2022, my not-overly-delighted wife and I devoted valuable European-vacation time to searching out and visiting secondhand bookstores in hopes of finding some delectable paperback morsels. That the stock in, for example, London was not abundant surprised and reassured me. PGW’s not gone out of style.