SOURCE: “P. G. Wodehouse's ‘Noo Yawk’,” in Encounter, Vol. 62, No. 3, March, 1984, pp. 71-4.

In the following essay, Lasky explores the American adventures of another Wodehouse character, Psmith.

Is humour good for anything else but a laugh? Nothing appears to be more pernicious among critics than to try to be serious about a joke. Koestler once tried it in a book and got the punch-lines regularly wrong. Freud wrote a psychopathology of everyday wit, and was in turn forever subjected to analysis-in-depth himself. Max Eastman explored the enjoyment of laughter, and the most memorable thing about it was the infectious dust-jacket featuring the handsome silver-haired author in twinkle-eyed open-mouthed hilarity. No, if the interpretation of dreams is a nightmare, the discussion of humour is no laughing matter. A recent “structural analysis” of Evelyn Waugh's Put Out More Flags and a scholarly screed on Three Men in a Boat provoked...