A Damsel in Distress by P.G. WodehouseMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I've been reading quite a few early Wodehouse books this year, and this 1919 novel is one of the ones I've enjoyed the most. Given the title, that wasn't the outcome I was expecting; but it has an appealing hero, a heroine who at least has some personality, enjoyable secondary characters, and several twists I didn't see coming. (There was one twist I did see coming: (view spoiler)). It leans a lot less heavily on coincidence than many of the other books from this period to progress its plot, and the hero at least does something to be proactive, even if (reasonably believable) chance helps him along.
Modern readers will probably notice that it's occasionally offensive towards fat people, and there's a passage about men standing up to women that goes in a direction that an author would rightly hesitate to go these days. Otherwise, for a century-old book it stands up reasonably well.
The earl is reminiscent of the Earl of Emsworth (though his obsession is roses, rather than pigs); the butler has similarities to Jeeves, and the page boy to any of a number of repellent youths elsewhere in the oeuvre; there's a termagant aunt, and one of Wodehouse's interchangeable idiots as a secondary character and foil, but even great writers do tend to cast, as it were, the same actors in many different parts over the course of their work. On the whole, if you like Wodehouse you will probably enjoy this; it's not up with his greatest work, of course, but the key elements are visible, and for me it succeeded as a story.
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