I finished Jonathan Ame’s latest book, Wake Up, Sir!, last weekend after frigid temperatures and a broken furnace combined to make it a long week of no sleep. Who says irony is dead?
I first read about this book in several year-end reviews. When I learned that it gave a wink to P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Bertie Wooster characters I couldn’t wait to read it. I read a collection of Wodehouse stories after the tragic events of November ‘04, specifically to leave the country and politics behind, if even for a little while. It saved the day. Wodehouse’s Jeeves is the prototypical English valet who always appears at just the right time to get his master, Bertie out of a tough spot what. Bertie (played by Hugh Laurie in the British TV series and who is now House, MD on Fox), for his part, is the consummate aristocratic bachelor. He doesn’t seem to have any sort of job, is always in pinch for liquid cash, but spends his time getting in an out of scrapes at elite gentlemen’s clubs, country houses, and estates with the other gentry. Good clean fun.
Wake Up, Sir! is just like that. Only the main character, Alan Blair, is an American. And from New Jersey. And Jewish. All of Alan’s Brooks Brothers’ sport coats come from second hand shops, and he drives a Chevy Caprice. Alan has a temporary influx of wealth from a law suit (slip and fall) that allows him to do what we would all do in that situation - hire a personal valet, who just happens to be named Jeeves. Jeeves is also an American. Oh, Jeeves may not actually exist. Alan Blair is an unreliable narrator in that he is a (mostly) unrepentant drunk and may have mental problems as well. He suspects, from time to time, that he has been tricked and is actually in an institution and not in an artist’s colony. That may be some sort of tip off.
The book follows 4 or 5 days of Alan Blair and Jeeves getting into various situations, punctuated by some serious drinking bouts. Blair is a failing writer who is struggling to write his next novel while grappling with the Jewish Question and the Homosexual Question (his concepts - not mine), along with the various alcohol related setbacks. In other words, it doesn’t really go anywhere.
Wake Up, Sir! is a quick read. It is slapstick-y in places and drags a little in others. The novel suffers in the inevitable comparison to the Wodehouse characters. Alan and Jeeves banter is not always as lively and snappy as Jeeves and Wooster, which would be tough to do. Also, I have no idea why the boxing pictures on the author’s web site (see above) involve men without pants.