One sign of P.G. Wodehouse's greatness is that he can be read with enjoyment for a number of different reasons. But loose his books upon the land in audio versions -- of which there are now countless -- and the situation takes a sharp turn for the rummy. The controlled anarchy of Wodehouse's prose and plot has often been vandalized by gleeful, unbuttoned narrators and players in turbo-charged, full-cast productions. We listen to these, and ice forms on our upper slopes, as Wodehouse might say. But there are narrators who preserve the decencies, and in these we rejoice.
The most restrained is Alexander Spencer, who narrates seven works for Recorded Books (www.recordedbooks.com, both purchase and rental) and whose only injection of a rogue element is to bestow, occasionally, a faint Scottishness upon Jeeves. But now that I think about it, so great are that paragon's powers of cerebration that they might almost be Caledonian.
Martin Jarvis, who has played Jeeves on Broadway, reads Carry On, Jeeves and My Man Jeeves (Audio Partners, www.audiopartners.com), giving his performance a richly orotund, Jeevesly tone that is especially fitting in the second book, one story of which is told by that peerless pillar of the home himself.
Ian Carmichael, a onetime Bertie Wooster in BBC productions of the 1960s, narrates Right Ho, Jeeves and How Right You Are Jeeves (Audio Partners). He sails into every chapter with such an air of gladness that it makes up for his giving Bertie an unwarranted gentleman's stammer.
Frederick Davidson has narrated by far the greatest number of Wodehouses, 36 so far, ones that feature Wooster and Jeeves, Lord Emsworth, Ukridge, Psmith and more (Blackstone, www.blackstoneaudio.com, both purchase and rental). His is a darker rendition that suggests an incipient case of "clergyman's throat" and the possibility that he has "been bitten in the leg by a personal friend."
The laurels, it must be said, go to Jonathan Cecil, who has read six books, with another two coming next year for Audio Partners. (These and an additional two read by Cecil, as well as Jarvis's, Carmichael's and Davidson's are also all available from Audio Editions, www.audioeditions.com.) Cecil's voice has a woodwind timbre, his pacing a neat litheness, and his manner a quiet redolence of good will. The exchanges, as Cecil renders them, between Bertie, genial, besieged and "mentally negligible," and Jeeves, unimpeachable in his tact and aplomb, come as close to the ideal as is mortally possible.
Katherine A. Powers reviews audio books for Book World and is a columnist for the Boston Globe.
