The Most of P.G. Wodehouse

What is the author's style in The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by P.G. Wodehouse?

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Wodehouse writes from several points of view, spanning much of the membership of the Drones Club but maintaining the same omniscience regardless of who the first-person is. In the first section, The Drones Club, Wodehouse takes on the perspective of an omniscient narrator both humorously sympathetic with the foibles of the characters and intimately aware of the dynamics between members and history of the club, being a member himself. For "Mr. Mulliner", he opens each story from his original third person omniscient and then assumes the voice of Mr. Mulliner with the parenthetical aside, "said Mr. Mulliner" inserted at the beginning of every one of his launches into story. The voice of Mr. Mulliner is always one of admiration of the member of his family or circle of friends whose story he is telling, and so blends easily with the style of humorous commiseration in which Wodehouse tells his other stories. He takes on the perspective of Mr. Corcoran in "Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge", a friend who observes his misadventures from very close seats, frequently being drug along through the adventure right alongside Ukridge. It is only in the story entitled "A Bit of Luck for Mabel" that the point of view shifts for the majority of the story to Ukridge's voice as he tells Corcoran a story he thinks he should put down on paper. In "Introducing Jeeves", the stories are told by the man Jeeves serves, whose nickname is Bertie, and so he takes on the voice of one who admires the impressive intellect of the man from up close. He puts complete faith in his man, and his stories reveal that everyone around him admires Jeeves with equally unswerving devotion. Wodehouse resumes his third-person omniscience for the novel, "Quick Service", allowing him to communicate the histories and motivations of all of the characters.

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The Most of P.G. Wodehouse