Daniel Shellenbarger’s Reviews > Joy in the Morning > Status Update

On the plus side, knowing that all of these were set in the interwar period, it's a comfort imagining that cousin Edwin put his singular gift for outsized mischief and chaos to use doing little jobs for the SAS or MI-5 in occupied Greece or France during the war, driving the Nazis utterly mad in the process before he inevitably blew himself up trying to do the dishes or something equally inane

amongst all the young male menaces in J&W, cousin Edwin stands alone, the most fearsome and terrifying of the lot

Honestly, a part of me thinks that J&W should be considered fantasy as I have a hard time conceiving that there was ever a time that you could tell a young woman that she was an "extremely sound young potato" and for her to "thank you for your kind words". Someone (not me) ought to film themselves trying this with various acquaintances and see what kind of reactions they get.