It felt like Wodehouse had absolutely perfected his formula in his previous book, The Luck of the Bodkins, so I was wondering how he’d follow that up. And he does that by doing something completely different.
This is a kind of high concept thing that Wodehouse usually doesn’t do — it’s basically Freaky Friday. And he points out several times that the body-switching thing has been done a lot of times before, but he uses the plot device to poke fun at Hollywood in general, and also express some mild indignation as to how Hollywood treats its child stars.
But is it a good book? Euhm… well, yes, it’s Wodehouse, so it’s impeccably written on a scene to scene basis, but this kind of that demands a more tightly plotted book isn’t really Wodehouse’s forté: It sometimes seems more nightmarish than screwball.
It’s pretty good? But it’s far from being Wodehouse’s strongest work.
I wonder whether there’s a history behind it… Wodehouse adapted some of his plays into novels, and those aren’t very good, and they totally seem like theatre adaptations. This doesn’t seem like a screenplay adaptation, but I’m wondering whether the idea originated in something he tried pitching to Hollywood.
Laughing Gas was serialised in This Week magazine (US) in six issues between 24 March and 28 April 1935, illustrated by Wallace Morgan.
Laughing Gas (1936) by P. G. Wodehouse (buy new, buy used, 3.88 on Goodreads)