Psmith in the City

The great P.G. Wodehouse's second novel introduces one of his most indomitable characters: Ronald Psmith, a young man of ample confidence and absolutely no financial acumen, who arrives at the New Asiatic Bank with aristocratic sensibilities, a monocle, and no idea what he's actually supposed to do. What follows is a gleefully anarchic collision between the buttoned-up world of early twentieth-century finance and a man who treats the entire enterprise as an elaborate theatrical performance. Psmith approaches banking with the same airy disdain a duke might show for a poorly seasoned pheasant, and somehow, improbably, it works. Wodehouse at this stage was still sharpening the comic engine that would later power Jeeves and Wooster, and Psmith in the City showcases a writer discovering his gift for the sustained逗. The jokes arrive in relentless waves: some broad, some devastatingly subtle, all of them aimed at the sacred cows of Edwardian professionalism. This is a book for anyone who has ever sat in a dull office and dreamed of dismantling it through sheer personality alone.