P G Wodehouse

Psmith in the City P G Wodehouse

Psmith and his friend Mike must navigate the world alone as young men, getting jobs, earning money, and figuring out whether it's really worth it to suck up to and suffer under their odious employer. This is a typically funny Wodehouse novel featuring the urban dandy Psmith (pronounced "Smith") and a new character, cricketer and Camridge student Mike Jackson. Mike's plot trajectory actually closely follows Wodehouse's own life - although Wodehouse had a first-class education growing up, he was unable to attend college due to his family's financial conditions and had to work at a bank in Shanghai instead. Similarly in "Psmith in the City", Mike Jackson must leave Cambridge for financial reasons and ends up at the New Asiatic Bank (except it's in London). It is an interesting autobiographical detail. Mike and Psmith meet as Mike plays for a cricket team administered by Psmith's father. However, Mike and Psmith meet because they are both in London under similar conditions: both unable to currently attend college, and both working in London at the same bank. However, while Mike is working at the bank out of financial necessity, Psmith is there merely because he annoyed his father's friend Bickersdyke, but now plans to make amends and grow closer to Bickersdyke, who belongs to the same private gentleman's club as Psmith's and Mike's employer Mr Rossiter at the New Asiatic Bank. Psmith and Mike also decide to become roommates.