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The Drones Club
Laughing Gas
This stylish, charming, and delightfully witty comedy showcases all the reasons why P.G. Wodehouse is hailed as one of the most sharp-witted writers of the 20th century. It begins when a proper British earl falls asleep in a dentist's chair-and wakes up in the body of America's favorite child star.
Audiobook length: 7.9 hours
Audiobook length: 7.9 hours
Audiobook
First published September 25, 1936
About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,397 books6,646 followersSir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.
An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).
An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.
Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 309 reviews
March 11, 2024
This may not be the first subject for Wodehouse that would come to your mind. That would more likely be Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. However, P. G. Wodehouse did spend quite a bit of his time in the United States trying to make Hollywood work for him. I’d say this book shows some of his frustrations with California. Laughing Gas remains current because much of the lifestyle, people, business practices etc. are still in evidence. Wodehouse is able to draw a bead on the use and abuse of child stars (here Joey Cooley, the Idol of American Motherhood with his Little Lord Fauntleroy looks), flakey religions (here The Temple of the New Dawn which must be partially based on Aimee Semple McPherson’s charismatic congregation of the Angelus Temple of the Foursquare Church), aspiring actors found under every bush, and fake sweet actresses who are really abusive gold diggers.
Wodehouse can be hysterical but I did get a little tired in the middle of the book. So much cuteness can be like too many after dinner mints.
Wodehouse can be hysterical but I did get a little tired in the middle of the book. So much cuteness can be like too many after dinner mints.
October 25, 2016
When his cousin Egremont gets betrothed in Hollywood, Reggie Havershot has no choice but to go find him. Reggie finds Eggy but falls in love in the process with April June. After a strange incident in a dentist's office, Reggie swaps bodies with child star Joey Cooley. Will Reggie be able to set things right before Joey wrecks his life by punching everyone he dislikes in the snoot?
This is the first Wodehouse I've read in a couple years, recommended by none other than Gail Carriger at the 2016 Goodreads Summit.
It starts out with the old Wodehouse formula, a gentleman of leisure infatuated with a beautiful woman. Then the body swap happens and things go pear-shaped in a big way. Is Laughing Gas the spiritual ancestor of later body-swapping comedies like Freaky Friday, Vice Versa, and that episode of Red Dwarf where Lister and Rimmer switch bodies? Yes, yes it probably is.
Laughing Gas has more outlandish situations than most Wodehouse novels and is also a satire of Hollywood culture, something that hasn't changed in the eighty years since this book was written. I lost count of the hilarious lines Wodehouse wove into this ridiculous tapestry.
Despite its deviation from the tried and true Wodehouse formula, the trademark wordplay, twists of fate, impostors, and misunderstandings are in full swing. The additional complication of Cooley in Havershot's body rampaging around Hollywood, smiting his enemies, while Havershot endures the hell that Cooley has created back home provides additional laughs.
As with all Wodehouses, there are some reversals of fortune and everything ultimately turns out okay. While I liked Laughing Gas for its novelty and the usual Wodehousian wordplay, it wasn't up to the standards of The Code of the Woosters, Leave It to Psmith, or Cocktail Time. Three out of five stars.
This is the first Wodehouse I've read in a couple years, recommended by none other than Gail Carriger at the 2016 Goodreads Summit.
It starts out with the old Wodehouse formula, a gentleman of leisure infatuated with a beautiful woman. Then the body swap happens and things go pear-shaped in a big way. Is Laughing Gas the spiritual ancestor of later body-swapping comedies like Freaky Friday, Vice Versa, and that episode of Red Dwarf where Lister and Rimmer switch bodies? Yes, yes it probably is.
Laughing Gas has more outlandish situations than most Wodehouse novels and is also a satire of Hollywood culture, something that hasn't changed in the eighty years since this book was written. I lost count of the hilarious lines Wodehouse wove into this ridiculous tapestry.
Despite its deviation from the tried and true Wodehouse formula, the trademark wordplay, twists of fate, impostors, and misunderstandings are in full swing. The additional complication of Cooley in Havershot's body rampaging around Hollywood, smiting his enemies, while Havershot endures the hell that Cooley has created back home provides additional laughs.
As with all Wodehouses, there are some reversals of fortune and everything ultimately turns out okay. While I liked Laughing Gas for its novelty and the usual Wodehousian wordplay, it wasn't up to the standards of The Code of the Woosters, Leave It to Psmith, or Cocktail Time. Three out of five stars.
May 21, 2021
Wodehouse is grandmaster of comedic writing. Possibly the funniest writer of all time when adjusted for humor inflation.
It's all very prim and proper, with some hedging, and hemming and hawing, and quibbling and quarrelling and snorting and guffawing, but when it comes right down to it, it's downright mean, despicable and inordinately hilarious out of all proportion to the circumstances on the page. The laughs his writing induce transcend the genre of stiff-fluffy-collar drawing room, snifter-swirling, snivel-simpering chortles. Your own double-chin will wobble and flecks of precious liqueur will flow from your vibrating lips. The uncontainable breadth of his sly, wry, wrathfully polite sentences are timed to perfection, tuned to impeccable pristineness. He's a joy to read. A cynical, rollicking locomotive of emotive, frolicsome prose.
This is a wiggling bellyflop of a book. A hazardous, inveterate circuitous exploit, drawn out into an odyssey of gruesome semantics. Dynamite quips and landmine gags await you.
Our main protagonist dude's got swagger, and has reached such pinnacles of taste, magniloquence and good-breeding as ordinary folks only dream of. He's a ringside enthusiast of boxing matches, immanently single, and tasked to track down his dissolute, souse-of-a-cousin who has taken up with a lady of questionable background and foreground who has eyes on the family jewels. He takes in his entertainment on the way and stumbles into a predictable but nonetheless enjoyable plot which undermines his honor, challenges his wit, and places him at the forefront of an endless barrage of wisecracks, whimsical descriptions, stentorious flimflams, and billowing, cheesy Wa-Wa-Waaaaa moments. That's just the tip of the proverbial laugh-berg.
Pick up something by Wodehouse, anything by him, and be transported by an imagination as limitless as it is potent. Discover the comedic potential of a tea time that never ends. The man was prolific, and I foresee many hundreds of droll afternoons passed in fancy contemplation of his works, all the while overcome by elegant, belligerent paroxysms of mirth.
It's all very prim and proper, with some hedging, and hemming and hawing, and quibbling and quarrelling and snorting and guffawing, but when it comes right down to it, it's downright mean, despicable and inordinately hilarious out of all proportion to the circumstances on the page. The laughs his writing induce transcend the genre of stiff-fluffy-collar drawing room, snifter-swirling, snivel-simpering chortles. Your own double-chin will wobble and flecks of precious liqueur will flow from your vibrating lips. The uncontainable breadth of his sly, wry, wrathfully polite sentences are timed to perfection, tuned to impeccable pristineness. He's a joy to read. A cynical, rollicking locomotive of emotive, frolicsome prose.
This is a wiggling bellyflop of a book. A hazardous, inveterate circuitous exploit, drawn out into an odyssey of gruesome semantics. Dynamite quips and landmine gags await you.
Our main protagonist dude's got swagger, and has reached such pinnacles of taste, magniloquence and good-breeding as ordinary folks only dream of. He's a ringside enthusiast of boxing matches, immanently single, and tasked to track down his dissolute, souse-of-a-cousin who has taken up with a lady of questionable background and foreground who has eyes on the family jewels. He takes in his entertainment on the way and stumbles into a predictable but nonetheless enjoyable plot which undermines his honor, challenges his wit, and places him at the forefront of an endless barrage of wisecracks, whimsical descriptions, stentorious flimflams, and billowing, cheesy Wa-Wa-Waaaaa moments. That's just the tip of the proverbial laugh-berg.
Pick up something by Wodehouse, anything by him, and be transported by an imagination as limitless as it is potent. Discover the comedic potential of a tea time that never ends. The man was prolific, and I foresee many hundreds of droll afternoons passed in fancy contemplation of his works, all the while overcome by elegant, belligerent paroxysms of mirth.
December 24, 2021
I don’t write reviews.
This isn’t Wooster or Blandings, but it IS top-drawer comedy of errors. I loved the Earl Reggie. He’s the sweetest of all Wodehouse’s characters. The story is wild and wacky, Freaky Friday in the 30’s. I didn’t read the synopsis so it surprised me. The pacing and characterization are fine and dandy, lemon candy. Pour yourself a cocktail and enjoy the ride.
This isn’t Wooster or Blandings, but it IS top-drawer comedy of errors. I loved the Earl Reggie. He’s the sweetest of all Wodehouse’s characters. The story is wild and wacky, Freaky Friday in the 30’s. I didn’t read the synopsis so it surprised me. The pacing and characterization are fine and dandy, lemon candy. Pour yourself a cocktail and enjoy the ride.
November 3, 2024
Who knew a toothache could cause so many problems?
When the Earl of Havershot goes to America to break up the potentially unsuitable engagement of his cousin Eggy, he doesn't expect to end up swapping bodies with child actor, Joey Cooley.
What, what?
But let's back up.
First, he'll fall in love with the predatory actress April June, find out his cousin is planning to marry his lovely ex-fiancee, get a terrible toothache, then end up in a dentist's chair under laughing gas at the same time as 12 year old Joey.
And as you all know, when two people go under anesthesia at the same time, the conditions are ripe for a soul swap.
The premise sounds funny, and there are moments of that P.G. Wodehouse gold that shine through, but this just isn't going to end up being a personal favorite of mine. It was a bit too weird and all of the jokes didn't land for me.
I did enjoy the commentary on how horrible it would have been to be a child actor, even back in the day. And it had some cute moments. But for whatever reason I thought it was kind of too odd for it to go on as long as it did and because of that it just didn't work as well for me as most of his other stories do.
Still. I'm trying to work my way through all of his stories, so I'm not sorry I read it.
Recommended for Wodehouse completionists and fans of Freaky Friday.
When the Earl of Havershot goes to America to break up the potentially unsuitable engagement of his cousin Eggy, he doesn't expect to end up swapping bodies with child actor, Joey Cooley.
What, what?
But let's back up.
First, he'll fall in love with the predatory actress April June, find out his cousin is planning to marry his lovely ex-fiancee, get a terrible toothache, then end up in a dentist's chair under laughing gas at the same time as 12 year old Joey.
And as you all know, when two people go under anesthesia at the same time, the conditions are ripe for a soul swap.
The premise sounds funny, and there are moments of that P.G. Wodehouse gold that shine through, but this just isn't going to end up being a personal favorite of mine. It was a bit too weird and all of the jokes didn't land for me.
I did enjoy the commentary on how horrible it would have been to be a child actor, even back in the day. And it had some cute moments. But for whatever reason I thought it was kind of too odd for it to go on as long as it did and because of that it just didn't work as well for me as most of his other stories do.
Still. I'm trying to work my way through all of his stories, so I'm not sorry I read it.
Recommended for Wodehouse completionists and fans of Freaky Friday.
April 2, 2020
The Earl of Havershot and Joey Cooley,the child actor meet at the dentist's. They are administered laughing gas as an anesthetic.The result,they switch bodies in the fourth dimension.
This is one of the funniest books by Wodehouse.I laughed,till it hurt.
This is one of the funniest books by Wodehouse.I laughed,till it hurt.
January 7, 2020
Another funny story. When Lord Havershot a shallow aristocrat is sent to Hollywood to bring back Eggie his cousin. Hilarity ensues. A trip to the dentist at the same time as Joey Cooley the male equivalent of Shirley Temple results in the two swapping their souls while under the laughing gas.
The rest of the story has the veil removed from Reggie’s eyes to his mad love for April June. A complete pill. Incidents with frogs a diet of prunes and spinach and a kidnapping that results in a proposal. This stand alone novel has its moments and follows the tried and true formula which resulted in the phenomenal success in of Jeeves and Wooster as well as the Blanding Castle series.
What I like about the story is the stereotypical characterisations and the funny scenes PGW comes up with. Joey trying to rescue April June and his surprise at her anger and boot in his posterior. To the apparent hallucinations that Eggie has of an imp that puts him on the path to sobriety.
The rest of the story has the veil removed from Reggie’s eyes to his mad love for April June. A complete pill. Incidents with frogs a diet of prunes and spinach and a kidnapping that results in a proposal. This stand alone novel has its moments and follows the tried and true formula which resulted in the phenomenal success in of Jeeves and Wooster as well as the Blanding Castle series.
What I like about the story is the stereotypical characterisations and the funny scenes PGW comes up with. Joey trying to rescue April June and his surprise at her anger and boot in his posterior. To the apparent hallucinations that Eggie has of an imp that puts him on the path to sobriety.
January 9, 2024
Having feasted liberally on Wodehouse's Jeeves / Wooster & Blandings Castle books, I found myself moving into the other avenues of the author's fertile comic mind. Hence, the zany one-off of 'Laughing Gas'.
Equally lightweight and preposterous, 'LG' deals in an identity switch, brought on improbably by way of the logic strain of a 'shared' anesthetic. It's not adequately explained; it couldn't be. But it serves Wodehouse's purpose: to cross the life of a British Earl with that of a wildly popular American child movie star.
You'll need little help with the former but, for the latter, imagine a slightly older Freddie Bartholomew or Jackie Cooper (of 1931's 'The Champ' fame) - or, better, a male and more advanced (and bitter) Shirley Temple.
The antics that follow almost write themselves, I suppose, when you exchange the lives of a child and an adult, with all those in both orbits mistaking one for the other. That's where the bulk of the complications rest (not that there's much rest).
Anyone familiar with Mary Rodgers' 'Freaky Friday' may wonder if she'd first read 'Laughing Gas'.
As is typical of P.G., the humor is fairly flowing without let-up and the book sails like a breeze. Set in Hollywood - on the sidelines of Tinseltown - the opportunity is taken to shed light on the less-savory aspects of making it to The Silver Screen: i.e., people behind-the-scenes: caretakers and other handlers who, in order to make things go smoothly for performers, make most things stressful.
And there are the stars themselves... rather, a certain kind of star - like 'vibrant' April June: a heinous creature who may have inspired Betty Comden and Adolph Green when they were creating Lina Lamont for 'Singin' in the Rain':
Ultimately, Wodehouse's take on Hollywood may not be the last word in biting satire - his aim isn't all that lethal - but the 'American view' makes for a nice 'fourth dimension exchange' with the British mentality.
Equally lightweight and preposterous, 'LG' deals in an identity switch, brought on improbably by way of the logic strain of a 'shared' anesthetic. It's not adequately explained; it couldn't be. But it serves Wodehouse's purpose: to cross the life of a British Earl with that of a wildly popular American child movie star.
You'll need little help with the former but, for the latter, imagine a slightly older Freddie Bartholomew or Jackie Cooper (of 1931's 'The Champ' fame) - or, better, a male and more advanced (and bitter) Shirley Temple.
The antics that follow almost write themselves, I suppose, when you exchange the lives of a child and an adult, with all those in both orbits mistaking one for the other. That's where the bulk of the complications rest (not that there's much rest).
Anyone familiar with Mary Rodgers' 'Freaky Friday' may wonder if she'd first read 'Laughing Gas'.
As is typical of P.G., the humor is fairly flowing without let-up and the book sails like a breeze. Set in Hollywood - on the sidelines of Tinseltown - the opportunity is taken to shed light on the less-savory aspects of making it to The Silver Screen: i.e., people behind-the-scenes: caretakers and other handlers who, in order to make things go smoothly for performers, make most things stressful.
And there are the stars themselves... rather, a certain kind of star - like 'vibrant' April June: a heinous creature who may have inspired Betty Comden and Adolph Green when they were creating Lina Lamont for 'Singin' in the Rain':
"I feel like a kind of priestess. I think of all those millions of drab lives, and I say to myself what does all the hard work and the distasteful publicity matter if I can bring a little sunshine into their drab round? ... Take Pittsburgh, for instance."Wodehouse enjoys skewering awful people; who wouldn't?:
I didn't like her myself. She was a tall, rangy light-heavyweight, severe of aspect. She looked as if she might be an important official on the staff of some well-known female convict establishment.And then, of course, there's the help: usually character actors 'disguised' as butlers, etc., like the ones passing themselves off as Filipino footmen, speaking a faux / fractured English ("Excuse yes, you come no, please undoubtedly.") when English is actually their first language.
"A tough egg, what?"
"As tough as they come. I should describe him as a kind of human hydrophobia skunk."
Ultimately, Wodehouse's take on Hollywood may not be the last word in biting satire - his aim isn't all that lethal - but the 'American view' makes for a nice 'fourth dimension exchange' with the British mentality.
April 23, 2020
It’s 1936 in Beverly Hills. A thirtyish Englishman on a visit and an eleven-year-old American film star, both with impacted wisdom teeth, head to the same dental clinic for the same procedure: extraction, under the influence of nitrous oxide, also known as “laughing gas.” As they take the gas from adjoining dentists, their souls switch and each winds up in the body of the other. That’s the premise of this brief and bright comic novel by P.G. Wodehouse, a master of the form.
After the initial confusion clears, the Brit (Reggie Haverford) and the brat (Joel Cooley) size each other up, and as often happens in Hollywood novels, the child proves more sophisticated and cool than the foreign visitor. He also knows exactly what he wants: to go back home to Chillicothe, Ohio, and eat Southern fried chicken at the family table, far away from the starvation diet the film studio he is contracted to has placed him in. The Englishman wants to get back into his real body and pursue courtship with a gorgeous-looking starlet he met on the boat going over.
But while LAUGHING GAS is partially about farcical plotworks, it succeeds best as a satirical take on Hollywood and Anglo-American relations. One cannot think of this short novel without recalling Waugh (there’s even a pop-up religion, the “Temple of the New Dawn”). Many of the names are funny: adjoining dentists Zizzbaum and Burwash, cantankerous film star April June, film mogul Brinkmeyer and his autocratic sister. The mutually incomprehensible dialects of Southern Cal and Oxbridge make for good-humored confusion as well. While I personally do not think LAUGHING GAS the equal of Wodehouse’s better-known Jeeves-and-Wooster novels, this take on the enduring Freaky Friday theme can and does entertain.
After the initial confusion clears, the Brit (Reggie Haverford) and the brat (Joel Cooley) size each other up, and as often happens in Hollywood novels, the child proves more sophisticated and cool than the foreign visitor. He also knows exactly what he wants: to go back home to Chillicothe, Ohio, and eat Southern fried chicken at the family table, far away from the starvation diet the film studio he is contracted to has placed him in. The Englishman wants to get back into his real body and pursue courtship with a gorgeous-looking starlet he met on the boat going over.
But while LAUGHING GAS is partially about farcical plotworks, it succeeds best as a satirical take on Hollywood and Anglo-American relations. One cannot think of this short novel without recalling Waugh (there’s even a pop-up religion, the “Temple of the New Dawn”). Many of the names are funny: adjoining dentists Zizzbaum and Burwash, cantankerous film star April June, film mogul Brinkmeyer and his autocratic sister. The mutually incomprehensible dialects of Southern Cal and Oxbridge make for good-humored confusion as well. While I personally do not think LAUGHING GAS the equal of Wodehouse’s better-known Jeeves-and-Wooster novels, this take on the enduring Freaky Friday theme can and does entertain.
December 16, 2016
Well, my first Wodehouse. It was funny! I didn't think about it on the way through, but his characters were strong enough and the humor pithy enough to slide right on past the preposterous plot. I hope all of my century-of-literature-catch-up is as pleasantly surprising as this.
September 5, 2011
p.g. wodehouse is the antidote for ingesting f. scott fitzgerald.
this is his most hilarious work.
this is his most hilarious work.
June 12, 2021
Two words to describe Laughing Gas (1936) by English humorist P.G. Wodehouse; light fluff. Don't expect anything earth shattering or deep, it's an early version of Freaky Friday.
The 3rd Earl of Havershot, one Reggie Havershot, is sent by his family to Hollywood to stop cousin Egremont, Eggy, from marrying an American lady. So off toodles good old Reggie. It turns out that Eggy's betrothed is none other than Reggie's previous love, Ann Bannister. Reggie had blown his proposal to Ann in Cannes. One other thing, Reggie meets actress April June while on the train across country to LA and falls for her. He is warned of April by many people (she's a pill) but can't accept their warnings.
While at a party at April's house, Reggie's tooth bothers him so he goes to the dentist where he meets child actor Joey Cooley. While they are both put under by laughing gas, something happens, their spirits cross paths and they wake up in each other's bodies. And that is the story and what follows are Reggie's trials and tribulations as the young star, while Joey, in Reggie's body, travels around LA exacting justice from those who have hurt him. No uproarious laughter, just predicaments that follow Reggie as he tries to get out of his situation.
Its light and entertaining and the final resolution is satisfying. As I said, not a world beater but a fun story by the creator of Jeeves and Wooster and PSmith. (3 stars)
The 3rd Earl of Havershot, one Reggie Havershot, is sent by his family to Hollywood to stop cousin Egremont, Eggy, from marrying an American lady. So off toodles good old Reggie. It turns out that Eggy's betrothed is none other than Reggie's previous love, Ann Bannister. Reggie had blown his proposal to Ann in Cannes. One other thing, Reggie meets actress April June while on the train across country to LA and falls for her. He is warned of April by many people (she's a pill) but can't accept their warnings.
While at a party at April's house, Reggie's tooth bothers him so he goes to the dentist where he meets child actor Joey Cooley. While they are both put under by laughing gas, something happens, their spirits cross paths and they wake up in each other's bodies. And that is the story and what follows are Reggie's trials and tribulations as the young star, while Joey, in Reggie's body, travels around LA exacting justice from those who have hurt him. No uproarious laughter, just predicaments that follow Reggie as he tries to get out of his situation.
Its light and entertaining and the final resolution is satisfying. As I said, not a world beater but a fun story by the creator of Jeeves and Wooster and PSmith. (3 stars)
July 2, 2024
Oh. My. Goodness!
I was tootling along in this, getting rather the same vibes I'd gotten from The Luck of the Bodkins (British lord falling for Hollywood starlet), when suddenly our hero, Reggie, SWITCHED BODIES WITH A CHILD ACTOR. It was so WEIRD! It was so DELIGHTFUL! Also, the whole business with finding out that the staff at the movie producer's house were entirely actors trying to get their chance to audition for their employer just had me on the floor! One guy was basically in yellowface, pretending to be a Japanese gardener because the studio was about to start production on a "Japanese epic." (Before you get mad about this, think about Hollywood in the 1930's. You know the guy had a better chance at a role than an actual Japanese actor.)
This was absolutely a HOOT.
I was tootling along in this, getting rather the same vibes I'd gotten from The Luck of the Bodkins (British lord falling for Hollywood starlet), when suddenly our hero, Reggie, SWITCHED BODIES WITH A CHILD ACTOR. It was so WEIRD! It was so DELIGHTFUL! Also, the whole business with finding out that the staff at the movie producer's house were entirely actors trying to get their chance to audition for their employer just had me on the floor! One guy was basically in yellowface, pretending to be a Japanese gardener because the studio was about to start production on a "Japanese epic." (Before you get mad about this, think about Hollywood in the 1930's. You know the guy had a better chance at a role than an actual Japanese actor.)
This was absolutely a HOOT.
July 6, 2011
Susan Hill has a good deal to answer for. Having read her brilliant memoir ' Howard's End is on the landing ' earlier this year I realized, as she spoke of books and articles she had read and enjoyed, that I had never read any PG Wodehouse. So, having gone into my local second hand bookshop I bought a couple of books of short stories and this novel. Hmmmm. It was ok but I still fear that I may be the only person in the world who finds Wodehouse annoying and shallow.
Friends tell me over and over again that he is hilarious and a real tonic and easy to pick up and read when a pick me up read is needed but all I seem to find myself doing is smiling slightly every couple of pages or so; acknowledging a clever turn of phrase or funny image and then sighing as I have to wade my way through the same repeated inanities until the next image or phrase. Of course he is of his time, he is writing of the society in which he mingles and mixed but whereas there are some writers who can capture, for me anway, the attraction or intriguing nature of otherwise spoilt and over priviledged characters, Wodehouse just paints them in all their self centred and mindlessly shallow existences without any of the accompanying warmth.
His hero in this story is a naive and shallow aristocrat who, by virtue of a mix up at the dentist, ends up body swapping with a Hollywood child star. This results in great hilarity, well for Wodehouse anyway, as each tries to struggle through in changed circumstances and discoveries are made and new alliances forged and remoulded. If I was to read once more the urge that the child star, newly be-muscled in the aristo's body, had to punch someone on the nose I would have screamed in a fairly non literary appreciative type way. The premise of the book was quite clever and way before, obviously, all the body swap films of the 80's and 90's but I have to say that even if those films took the initial idea from Wodehouse they did far more with it.
Now, having read two volumes of his short stories and a novel, i feel that I may have done all that can be expected of me in my attempts to try to warm to this man. Maybe I will give it another go in a year or so but for the moment I have to say farewell and accept the fact that there must be something lacking in my literary makeup, maybe I have a chromosone missing or am one button short of a smoking jacket. Either way I shall not even touch Bertie and Wooster lest I have a nervous breakdown. Having said that there was one phrase I loved and plan to use it at my earliest convenience in fact it maybe sums up my struggle.....' I couldn't have laughed to please a dying Aunt '
Friends tell me over and over again that he is hilarious and a real tonic and easy to pick up and read when a pick me up read is needed but all I seem to find myself doing is smiling slightly every couple of pages or so; acknowledging a clever turn of phrase or funny image and then sighing as I have to wade my way through the same repeated inanities until the next image or phrase. Of course he is of his time, he is writing of the society in which he mingles and mixed but whereas there are some writers who can capture, for me anway, the attraction or intriguing nature of otherwise spoilt and over priviledged characters, Wodehouse just paints them in all their self centred and mindlessly shallow existences without any of the accompanying warmth.
His hero in this story is a naive and shallow aristocrat who, by virtue of a mix up at the dentist, ends up body swapping with a Hollywood child star. This results in great hilarity, well for Wodehouse anyway, as each tries to struggle through in changed circumstances and discoveries are made and new alliances forged and remoulded. If I was to read once more the urge that the child star, newly be-muscled in the aristo's body, had to punch someone on the nose I would have screamed in a fairly non literary appreciative type way. The premise of the book was quite clever and way before, obviously, all the body swap films of the 80's and 90's but I have to say that even if those films took the initial idea from Wodehouse they did far more with it.
Now, having read two volumes of his short stories and a novel, i feel that I may have done all that can be expected of me in my attempts to try to warm to this man. Maybe I will give it another go in a year or so but for the moment I have to say farewell and accept the fact that there must be something lacking in my literary makeup, maybe I have a chromosone missing or am one button short of a smoking jacket. Either way I shall not even touch Bertie and Wooster lest I have a nervous breakdown. Having said that there was one phrase I loved and plan to use it at my earliest convenience in fact it maybe sums up my struggle.....' I couldn't have laughed to please a dying Aunt '
May 15, 2022
For the first and only time I'm aware of, Wodehouse slips in a little speculative fiction! I don't want to overexcite SFF fans, because it isn't much. Just a case of switching bodies. But it's a marked departure from the author's usual stuff, which almost invariably sticks to reality, albeit a ludicrously daffy reality.
Laughing Gas was a-ok. A newly dubbed English lord is tasked with tracking down a wayward relation, who's gone off to Hollywood to drown himself in booze and marry any old bird who strikes his fancy. While in America our hero crosses more than just paths with a child star while under the ether at the dentist. Wackiness ensues and most be unwound before all is well.
It wouldn't be my first recommendation to a reader new to Wodehouse, but worth a read if you're already a fan.
Laughing Gas was a-ok. A newly dubbed English lord is tasked with tracking down a wayward relation, who's gone off to Hollywood to drown himself in booze and marry any old bird who strikes his fancy. While in America our hero crosses more than just paths with a child star while under the ether at the dentist. Wackiness ensues and most be unwound before all is well.
It wouldn't be my first recommendation to a reader new to Wodehouse, but worth a read if you're already a fan.
July 4, 2014
Well here’s a rare thing – a middling Wodehouse.
This body swap comedy sees the Third Earl of Havershot switch places with adorable 30s child star Joey Cooley. Unfortunately hilarity doesn’t really ensue. This being Wodehouse there are some fantastic lines and this book will - I admit - make you laugh out loud, but not even a writer of Pelham Grenville’s brilliance can surmount the contrivances and the whole thing feels terribly forced. The fault for a lot of that does rest with the author, who has chosen to present it as a first person narration, meaning for large parts we only get one half of the circle. In addition the ending is perfunctory, of course they switch back but it could have happened at any point in the previous fifty pages, or indeed he could have tacked on fifty pages afterwards.
If you have no other Wodehouse hanging about then this will do, but there are better Wodehouses out there.
This body swap comedy sees the Third Earl of Havershot switch places with adorable 30s child star Joey Cooley. Unfortunately hilarity doesn’t really ensue. This being Wodehouse there are some fantastic lines and this book will - I admit - make you laugh out loud, but not even a writer of Pelham Grenville’s brilliance can surmount the contrivances and the whole thing feels terribly forced. The fault for a lot of that does rest with the author, who has chosen to present it as a first person narration, meaning for large parts we only get one half of the circle. In addition the ending is perfunctory, of course they switch back but it could have happened at any point in the previous fifty pages, or indeed he could have tacked on fifty pages afterwards.
If you have no other Wodehouse hanging about then this will do, but there are better Wodehouses out there.
December 7, 2019
This one was quite funny, even though it was a little sad to see the main character, Reggie Havershot go through so much in 2 days. One had to feel pity for him by the end of it all, but as usual, everything ended sunnily and it was a treat to read.
December 28, 2022
[Update written on December 28th, 2022. This update will appear in brackets and will be followed by a review I wrote in 2019. I’m leaving the old review up because I like the way I wrote it, but I’ve really changed my view of this book. I re-read LAUGHING GAS just this week. Briefly, Wodehouse is out of his element here. He is not himself very interested in the fantasy of switched bodies. The books works only when slapstick is sustained. The racism of his era shows here in ways I have not seen in his other boks. His American slang is terrible. The truth is he put his real craftsmanship into the Jeeves books. This book is the work of an accomplished comic writer, but I think he was doing what, for him, was just work. Fans will get something from it, but it’s a slog.] Here’s my old review from 2019:
This is Wodehouse at his peak, which means it was written in the mid-1930's. (1936, to be precise.) In that decade, he wrote the two funniest Bertie Wooster novels (RIGHT-HO, JEEVES and THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS), and also UNCLE FRED IN THE SPRINGTIME. Some of the Emsworth novels were penned in the thirties (or typed. Wodehouse was a typer. He'd type a few pages one day, pin them to the wall and the next morning, make corrections, then type a few more pages and put those on the wall.) He was in his fifties. He'd been a published writer since 1906, writing, roughly speaking, a novel a year. After about twenty years of being a professional writer (with a serious involvement in the development musical comedy) this workmanlike author began to write with incredible polish. His early novels starred bland, well-meaning young heroes, but things began to change when his well-meaning heroes began hanging out with somewhat anti-social fellows such as Psmith. Psmith was a caricature of a Socialist, and, inasmuch as Wodehouse was, in no way, political, Psmith fell away and, by the 1930's, had turned into the aristocratic, middle-aged fun-maker, Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred's persona is not that far from that of Fred Astaire: He was dashing, a tad mischievous and something of a matchmaker. But Wodehouse's genius came out in the novels (as opposed to the stories) narrated by Bertie Wooster. Bertie Wooster trumps any other character in Wodehouse, because he complains. The Bertie Wooster books are hilarious because the slapstick is narrated by a lazy young heir who has no idea that he's smarter than anybody else. No criticism I've ever read of Wodehouse champions Bertie's powers of observation. He feels put-upon and is perpetually wriggling out of wedding engagements he hasn't instigated. By the three-quarter mark of any Bertie novel, he is in a total panic over his situation and, by the end, his almost supernatural butler, Jeeves, manipulates Bertie's environment in a beneficial way. In these novels, bland heroes play only a tertiary role. (One of Bertie's friends always gets to marry the girl of his choice in the last few pages, and Bertie gets to have a nice breakfast on a veranda with a newspaper brought by Jeeves. Jeeves always wins a concession from Bertie after the major story is over. I think in one book, Jeeves manages to toss out Bertie's loud socks without Bertie, who treasures the socks, risking an objection.)
Anyway, LAUGHING GAS is almost as good as a Bertie Wooster book. It's from Wodehouse's great phase.
This is Wodehouse at his peak, which means it was written in the mid-1930's. (1936, to be precise.) In that decade, he wrote the two funniest Bertie Wooster novels (RIGHT-HO, JEEVES and THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS), and also UNCLE FRED IN THE SPRINGTIME. Some of the Emsworth novels were penned in the thirties (or typed. Wodehouse was a typer. He'd type a few pages one day, pin them to the wall and the next morning, make corrections, then type a few more pages and put those on the wall.) He was in his fifties. He'd been a published writer since 1906, writing, roughly speaking, a novel a year. After about twenty years of being a professional writer (with a serious involvement in the development musical comedy) this workmanlike author began to write with incredible polish. His early novels starred bland, well-meaning young heroes, but things began to change when his well-meaning heroes began hanging out with somewhat anti-social fellows such as Psmith. Psmith was a caricature of a Socialist, and, inasmuch as Wodehouse was, in no way, political, Psmith fell away and, by the 1930's, had turned into the aristocratic, middle-aged fun-maker, Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred's persona is not that far from that of Fred Astaire: He was dashing, a tad mischievous and something of a matchmaker. But Wodehouse's genius came out in the novels (as opposed to the stories) narrated by Bertie Wooster. Bertie Wooster trumps any other character in Wodehouse, because he complains. The Bertie Wooster books are hilarious because the slapstick is narrated by a lazy young heir who has no idea that he's smarter than anybody else. No criticism I've ever read of Wodehouse champions Bertie's powers of observation. He feels put-upon and is perpetually wriggling out of wedding engagements he hasn't instigated. By the three-quarter mark of any Bertie novel, he is in a total panic over his situation and, by the end, his almost supernatural butler, Jeeves, manipulates Bertie's environment in a beneficial way. In these novels, bland heroes play only a tertiary role. (One of Bertie's friends always gets to marry the girl of his choice in the last few pages, and Bertie gets to have a nice breakfast on a veranda with a newspaper brought by Jeeves. Jeeves always wins a concession from Bertie after the major story is over. I think in one book, Jeeves manages to toss out Bertie's loud socks without Bertie, who treasures the socks, risking an objection.)
Anyway, LAUGHING GAS is almost as good as a Bertie Wooster book. It's from Wodehouse's great phase.
January 7, 2019
Laughing Gas (1936) by P.G. Wodehouse is set in 1930s Hollywood and has a couple of clever fish-out-of-water narratives which provide rich veins of humour...
Joey Cooley, the golden-curled child film star and idol of American motherhood, ends up in the body of Reggie, Earl of Havershot, after a mix up on the astral plain, whilst both are under anaesthetic at the dentist. Joey can use his new athletic body to get his own back on various Hollywood persecutors, whilst Reggie has to endure the restricted life of a child star. Needless to say, hilarity ensues.
I've been on something of a P.G. Wodehouse binge over the last few months and it's enjoyable to read a book with none of his regular characters and one which takes place in Hollywood. Needless to say it still follows the usual PGW formula. The pleasure, as always, lies in the beautiful writing, the bon mots, the characters, and the crisp plotting.
Another PGW winner.
4/5
Laughing Gas (1936) by P.G. Wodehouse
Joey Cooley, the golden-curled child film star and idol of American motherhood, ends up in the body of Reggie, Earl of Havershot, after a mix up on the astral plain, whilst both are under anaesthetic at the dentist. Joey can use his new athletic body to get his own back on various Hollywood persecutors, whilst Reggie has to endure the restricted life of a child star. Needless to say, hilarity ensues.
I've been on something of a P.G. Wodehouse binge over the last few months and it's enjoyable to read a book with none of his regular characters and one which takes place in Hollywood. Needless to say it still follows the usual PGW formula. The pleasure, as always, lies in the beautiful writing, the bon mots, the characters, and the crisp plotting.
Another PGW winner.
4/5
Laughing Gas (1936) by P.G. Wodehouse
May 6, 2020
3.5 stars. A delightful, entertaining, humorous, witty read. Reginald, Third Earl of Havershot travels to Hollywood to persuade a cousin not to marry a Hollywood ‘fleshpot’. In Hollywood Reginald goes to the dentist and under ‘laughing gas’, has his identity swapped with Joey Cooley, a child film star, idol of American motherhood.
Readers new to P.G.Wodehouse should begin with ‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ (Jeeves series) or ‘Something Fresh’ (Blandings series).
Readers new to P.G.Wodehouse should begin with ‘The Inimitable Jeeves’ (Jeeves series) or ‘Something Fresh’ (Blandings series).
January 12, 2019
Great antidote to the January blues.
August 26, 2012
I can't say how much I enjoyed this book! I listened to it on cd in the car and it made me look forward to my driving time. Part of that is no doubt due to the very talented narration by Simon Prebble. But the book is so funny! Funny in a dry, droll, British way. It made me laugh out loud frequently. Amazed at Wodehouse's brilliance. I hope to be able to write like this some day! I have to give it 5 stars even though it didn't change my life exactly--but it was hilarious and so well done.
December 16, 2017
Second star solely because of the nifty 1936 edition my mother bought for me from the Frugal Muse, packed into its original shipping box that travelled to Berwyn long long ago. But less than one star for the appalling racism played for laughs consistently in the book, beginning to end. Reggie, our narrator and a recently ascended Earl, switches bodies with a child actor in Hollywood and farce abounds. But racism blights the whole, and it is so casual it's truly galling. A few zingers against Hitler and Mussolini are early but not quite as stiff as I'd prefer. And pick a minority and something offensive will appear...all the slapstick appears misplaced in time, though it is certainly '30s fashion, and frequent mentions of the effects of the Depression make this more fixed in time than most PGW. But racism killed all my enjoyment and I struggled to pick it up each time.
December 27, 2020
No creo que pueda ser muy crítica con este libro, quizá sea el humor del que hace uso, pero para mí, es simplemente, una película cómica, que no perdería tiempo en ver
October 15, 2024
There’s a rather sniffy comment that I can’t quite remember from an Italian composer that I can’t quite recall*: it’s something along the lines that Vivaldi didn’t write hundreds of concerti, he wrote the same concerto hundreds of times. And it’s not entirely fair, and there’s a grain of truth in it. After all, when you listen to a Vivaldi concerto you know roughly what you’re going to get, but then why mess with a winning formula?
Looking at P.G. Wodehouse you can say something similar. You know perfectly well you’ll get a well-oiled mechanism where a simple premise gets immensely tangled before resolving neatly. You know nothing is going to go too badly wrong for anyone, and you know things will turn out all right in the end. And after you’ve read a few, you’ll be expecting certain characters:
The Nice-But-Dim Toff
The Brat
The Fearsome Female
The Jolly Good Sport (love-interest no.1)
The Toxic Kitten (love-interest no.2)
The Rackety Relative/Friend
Because that’s just the way his world works. And that’s a good thing; why mess with a winning formula?
And then you’ll be expecting a certain style (because Wodehouse is one of the great prose-stylists of the twentieth century, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise). It will be light, it will be breezy, it will be a lot cleverer than it first appears.
Because that’s also the way that Wodehouse operates.
But why am I telling you this? You already know this! All you really need to know is that Laughing Gas is one of the good ones, and that it features body-swapping between the Nice-But-Dim Toff and the Brat.
Which takes imposture to a whole new level.
*The internet seems a bit vague on attribution here, sometimes giving the line to Stravinsky instead.
Looking at P.G. Wodehouse you can say something similar. You know perfectly well you’ll get a well-oiled mechanism where a simple premise gets immensely tangled before resolving neatly. You know nothing is going to go too badly wrong for anyone, and you know things will turn out all right in the end. And after you’ve read a few, you’ll be expecting certain characters:
The Nice-But-Dim Toff
The Brat
The Fearsome Female
The Jolly Good Sport (love-interest no.1)
The Toxic Kitten (love-interest no.2)
The Rackety Relative/Friend
Because that’s just the way his world works. And that’s a good thing; why mess with a winning formula?
And then you’ll be expecting a certain style (because Wodehouse is one of the great prose-stylists of the twentieth century, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise). It will be light, it will be breezy, it will be a lot cleverer than it first appears.
Because that’s also the way that Wodehouse operates.
But why am I telling you this? You already know this! All you really need to know is that Laughing Gas is one of the good ones, and that it features body-swapping between the Nice-But-Dim Toff and the Brat.
Which takes imposture to a whole new level.
*The internet seems a bit vague on attribution here, sometimes giving the line to Stravinsky instead.
January 17, 2018
This story cracks along at a good pace but I didn’t find it as funny as Jeeves and Wooster or the Blandings Castle series. As a result of a fanciful body-swap plot, our hero spends most of the book as a child and so most of Woodhouse’s usual romantic misunderstandings can only happen at second hand. It’s set in Hollywood and I found the characters lacking the eccentric charm of the author’s usual cast of English aristocracy. A few notable exceptions - I loved the kidnappers.
March 13, 2023
This was my first time ever reading this particular Wodehouse and it was a different story than I was used to getting from him. It seemed a deeper, more robust story than other's that I've read by this author. An instant classic, I will recommend it to anyone who enjoys these stories.
August 15, 2023
My 100th book of the year and another excellent Wodehouse completed. A fun story with lots going on. The skill of Wodehouse's use of the written word is a joy to behold
November 20, 2023
Not typical Wodehouse but good
September 19, 2023
OK, but not my favorite Wodehouse.
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