The Code of the Woosters

I've been reading Wodehouse comedies since I was a kid (parents were huge fans), and I do love having actual books. This is one of his best and most re-readable. The scenes are 100 years old now, but the goofy situations and hilarious hijinx never get old. If you like vintage stuff and enjoy engaging stories, then Wodehouse is for you! Give it a try. 10/10

Sir Pelham Grenville (P.G.) Wodehouse was one of the most prolific (and consistently funny) writers in British history. From his first “school story” novel The Pothunters (1902) to his posthumously published final completed novel Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen (1974), Wodehouse published a total of 71 novels and 24 collections of short stories—95 fiction books in all. That’s a staggering number in itself, but add to that the 42 plays (many of them musicals, on which he collaborated most often with Guy Bolton and occasionally Jerome Kern—and most famously with Cole Porter on Anything Goes) and 15 film scripts he wrote in his first few decades as a writer, plus his three autobiographies and two volumes of letters, and you have an output virtually unmatched in in the history of English letters. Justly famous for his comic novels, Wodehouse loved moving among several favorite series: there are 15 “Blandings Castle” novels, for example. There are four “Psmith” novels, five “Uncle Fred” novels, and seven “Ukridge” novels. But by far Wodehouse’s most popular and most acclaimed books are his 18 novels featuring Bertie Wooster and his butler/savior figure, the inimitable Jeeves. These novels are so consistently fine that many of them are reader favorites. One might mention Right Ho, Jeeves (1934), Joy in the Morning (1946), and Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1956) for example. But the quintessential Jeeves novel that is most widely loved is probably The Code of the Woosters. It's probably true that fewer American readers than English ones are familiar with Wodehouse’s work. So let me begin by talking about what exactly is so loveable about Wodehouse in general and this novel in particular. In a comedy, the first thing that generally comes to mind is the plot. The plot in fact is what defines the work as a comedy: a comedy begins with some kind of obstacle that threatens the happiness or success of the main character or characters, which must be overcome for a happy ending to occur. In the most typical comedies, there is a young couple who want to marry or to get together. They represent the “new society” who will bring on the happy ending. But they are prevented by a blocking figure, often in the form of the lady’s father or guardian who must be thwarted for the couple to succeed and bring on the better, “new” society in the end. Other characters tend to be aligned with one side or the other—with the blocking figure or with the “new society” as helping figures. Wodehouse’s plots tend to be quite involved and even frenetic, like the screwball comedies he had a hand in creating on stage or film. In The Code of the Woosters, the protagonist Bertie Wooster is, as usual, a helping figure in the courtship of two of his old school pals Gussie Fink-Nottle (engaged, off and on, to the dramatic and sentimental Madeline Bassett), and the hapless curate Harold “Stinker” Pinker (hoping to marry the brash Stephanie “Stiffy” Byng). Both sets of lovers are on-again-off-again, mainly because of the chief blocking figure, Sir Watkyn Bassett, owner of a great country house called Totleigh Towers, who happens to be Madeline’s father and Stiffy’s uncle, and who is not ready to consent to either marriage. He is assisted by his very large and muscular friend Roderick Spode and by the local Constable Oates, who has a particular vendetta against Stiffy because her dog likes to attack policemen. Bertie, on the other hand, is aided by his Aunt Dahlia and by the one person who is never at a loss no matter what the difficulty, his gentleman’s gentleman Jeeves. The plot is further complicated because Aunt Dahlia wants Bertie to steal Sir Bassett’s valuable 18th-century silver cow-creamer for her husband, who is also a collector, so that he will be in a good mood and help fund her ladies’ magazine. But Stiffy also wants him to steal the item so that Harold can catch him in the act and so ingratiate himself with Sir Watkyn. But Bertie wants nothing to do with the cow-creamer, because Sir Bassett happens to be the local magistrate and a few years past found Bertie guilty of stealing a policeman’s helmet and fined him five pounds, but threatens time in jail if there is another similar offense. The plot progresses as Bertie and Jeeves play a frenetic game of “Whack-a-Mole” as they solve one problem only to have another pop up immediately in another part of the house. But beyond the convoluted plot, Wodehouse always creates a kind of comfortable nostalgic setting, taking us back to an England of wealthy gentry, fancy drawing rooms, and silly blokes with lots more money than brains and valets who hold everything together. It’s a somewhat idealized vision of the 1920s and 30s, which Wodehouse maintains even when he’s writing in the 60s. Here is a different kind of escapism than we’ve seen in fantasy, for example. Even in 1938, when he wrote this novel, with the Fascist threat looming, Wodehouse still provides the ideal of “peace in our time.” This is particularly significant in the character of Basset’s ally Roderick Spode. Spode is described as an “amateur dictator” who leads a fictional group of British fascists called the ”Saviours of Britain,” known colloquially as the “Black Shorts.” Spode is, as you might expect, a bully, first introduced in the novel thus: "About seven feet in height, and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across, he caught the eye and arrested it. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment." Wodehouse’s readers at the time would have immediately recognized in Spode Wodehouse’s satire of Sir Oswald Mosley, the contemporary British leader of the British Union of Fascists (or “Blackshirts”). Wodehouse’s answer to the threat of fascism is ridicule—Spode’s threat is neutralized by the discovery that he designs women’s underclothing in his spare time. But that’s as far as Wodehouse is prepared to go—even his political satire is gently humorous. But let’s get real: the chief reason Wodehouse is lovable goes beyond plot, setting, or characterization. It’s his language. It’s that unmistakable voice of the upper class twit that fills the pages that our protagonist Bertie narrates. Wodehouse has a genius for creating a conversational tone that is still never the conventional way of saying anything. One if his little tricks is shortening words, especially when he’s saying something mundane or even cliché, as in “The gravity of the situash had at last impressed itself on her,” where situash is substituted for situation—a word that inevitably follows the expression “The gravity of…” Other times he doesn’t even abbreviate the word, but substitutes a single letter, as in a “quaver in the v.” (i.e., voice) or “turned on the h.” (i.e., heel). Often his humorous phraseology is a parody of some high literary stylistic flourish, a kind of reductio ad absurdum of serious literary techniques. One of his favorite devices is the transferred epithet—transferring an adjective that describes one noun in a sentence to another related noun, as George Herbert does when he describes the “ragged noise and mirth / of thieves and murderers” (the noise isn’t ragged, the thieves and murderers are) or as Thomas Gray does when he tells us “The plowman homeward plods his weary way” (the way is not weary, the plowman is). Wodehouse loves to use such epithets for comic effect: at one point Stiffy “massages [her] dog’s spine with a pensive foot.” Elsewhere, Bertie says “I lighted a feverish cigarette.” A feverish cigarette or a pensive foot conjure up images far more absurd than a weary way or a ragged noise. Another of Wodehouse’s favorite devices is the comic use of literary and biblical allusions. But again, when Melville’s Captain Ahab alludes to Milton’s fallen angel, declaring himself “proud as Lucifer” and “damned in the midst of paradise,” his allusions seriously characterize the captain’s obsession with the great power that has defeated him in the form of a godlike whale. But Wodehouse’s plethora of allusions generally have the comic effect of showing his characters as puny by comparison with the significant events alluded to. On the first page of The Code of the Woosters, Bertie, suffering from a hangover, alludes to the graphic story of Jael in the book of Judges, whose act saves the Israelites in their war with the Canaanites: "Indeed, just before Jeeves came in, I had been dreaming that some bounder was driving spikes through my head—not just ordinary spikes, as used by Jael the wife of Heber, but red-hot ones." Wodehouse also quite often alludes to poets, from Shakespeare to Tennyson to some favorite Romantic poets. He particularly likes Keats, and often will quote from his sonnet “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer,” as he does in The Code of the Woosters speaking of Stiffy, impressed by Jeeves’ figuring out a stratagem to save the day: “She sat up, looking at him with a wild surmise” like his men looked at Cortez upon discovering the Pacific [sic]. A bit earlier, Stiffy emits a noise like the woman in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” who wails in the “savage place,” “holy and enchanted”: "It was with a sort of joyful yelp like that of a woman getting together with her demon lover, that the little geezer had spoken his name." And then there’s the allusion to Sidney Carton, hero of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities, who, in case you need reminding, goes to the guillotine in place of his beloved’s beloved so that she can have a happy marriage (‘Tis a far, far better thing I do…), though Bertie only dimly remembers the story: "I drew no consolation from the fact that Stiffy Byng thought me like Sidney Carton. I had never met the chap, but I gathered that he was somebody who had taken it on the chin to oblige a girl." The humor in the equation of being guillotined with “taking it on the chin” needs no further comment. “Hold on now, though,” you may be heard to exclaim before we finish here. “Just what exactly is this Code of the Woosters?” Well, I answer, throughout the novel, Bertie does keep making comments about what the Woosters are like, and at one point suggest that his “code” is tantamount to a medieval code of chivalry: "It is pretty generally admitted, both in the Drone’s Club and elsewhere, that Bertram Wooster in his dealings with the opposite sex invariably shows himself a man of the nicest chivalry—what you sometimes hear described as a parfait gentil knight." So much for his dealings with Madeline and Stiffy. But the more telling line comes late in the novel when Stiffy is trying to get Bertie to take the rap in Harold’s place for stealing the policeman’s helmet, and she says “Didn’t you once tell me that the code of the Woosters was ‘never let a pal down’?” And this, of course, is what Bertie, in his Sydney Carton role, tries to do throughout the novel. At every point when one of his “pals” is “in the soup” as he would say, Bertie steps up: whether it is for Gussie Fink-Nottle, Harold Pinker, or his own Aunt Dahlia, Bertie is willing to go the extra m. for his friends and show them compash, however much the Bassetts and Strodes of the world may raise their accusatory chins at him.

After reading Mantel’s lengthy The Mirror and The Light, the finale in her exploration of the life of Thomas Cromwell, I was feeling angry at Henry VIII and distraught due to the defeat and beheading of Cromwell by his political enemies who never forgave him for rising from poverty via his intelligence and persistence to become the king’s right hand man. I thought I would fast forward to the 20th century to read a lighthearted tale about the tribulations and almost trial of rich socialite Bertie and his right hand man Jeeves who I knew would save the day and not suffer the loss of his head. Thus this was a satisfying and soothing slightly humorous read in pandemic times when I am feeling overwrought by the sad fate of someone who came to a tragic end several centuries ago. Think I’ll move on to Ben Schott’s second novel written in the style of Wodehouse about Wooster and Jeeves. The first was great fun.

In the "Code of The Woosters" by P.G. Wodehouse the plot centers around an english aristocrat named Bertie Wooster. His initial dilemna at the beginning of his adventure is about whether or not to retrieve "a cow creamer and (a) small, brown, leather covered notebook." Wooster's setting is a high-class society in England. The characters in "The Code of the Woosters" are symbols of a political nation. These people: Bertie Wooster, Aunt Dahlia, Pop Bassett, and others are the catalysts of several mundane controversies. They all have knick-names, but various individuals give monikers to one-another, such as: "The Dangerous Vice", "His Rotundity". Much like the pomposity of their time and place many of these titles are, in retrospect, ill-considered. Bertie Wooster's conflicts remind one of a college fraternity get together in which one poorly concieved joke or remark causes the motivation of the meeting to become itself ill-natured. In the case of the 'Woosters', as Bertie connives to steal a cow creamer from an ex-allum, other people become a part of Bertie's world, and other somber convictions turn into plots to commit college dorm-like pranks. "'A ruse"', replies Bertie Wooster to this deduction-"That's right-one of the ruses, and not the worst of them. Nice work Jeeves." This is about how vanity becomes the mark of a small society as a few individuals with offending sensabilities direct the sporadic angst within a clique of social club members. Surprises are wrought from Wodehouse's pen with dexterity. Conflicts make a left turn, a character plots on or becomes distressed, often sliding in morality. As regards the story, if you're like me, you admire people who are nice, whose humanity is there to stay on the page to read about-even as where plunged into further calamity. Wodehouse's skill as a writer makes these great swings. For these not-well-prioritised lives, a loss of a small object of value creates an empathy towards one or more of these provocateurs. An expulsion of emotion becomes a plea to a butler, an aunt, or other close conspirator. The twists transpire like sketches in a freestyle comedy show; pages of the book are turned, and the reading experience is quick and fraught with fun and humor. These are the most outrageous pranks; there is not even a small impression of a contriving hand by an over eager author. Read on with this story, the hero's foibles are explained, and you're hooked. P.G. Wodehouse in his novel "The Code of The Woosters" does an unbelievable job of bringing out the voices of the cast of characters in the dialouges through-out the work. Wodehouse's foresight is effete. There are alot of expressions used, particularly by Bertrand Wooster. Some are orthodox, but many are just thrown in, voiced by Bertie with a casual nonchalance as he talks to himself, or to Jeeves, his butler. Despite these high-flown expressions the reader knows exactly what the words mean. A saying is invoked, and we know Bertie's demeaner, what he is thinking-all just based on what we've read before. Bertie, or Bertrand, and his fellow peers have discussions which are casual, informal, and portray affectations and related curtness within a circle of comrades. As I discerned the words, I shook hands with a magistrate or a gentleman. A brisk cultivation transpired in my meetings with Bertie Wooster and Stephanie Bing('Stiffy').

The one word review of this book is "Hilarious". It's my third or fourth time I've read it and it pleases It is the classic Jeeves and Wooster story. Bertie has to steal a sliver cow creamer from Pop Basset without getting his spine pulled out by Roderick Spode - all the while trying to patch up the tiff between Madeline Basset and Gussie Finknottle. If the Finknottle/Basset marriage is off then Bertie will have to marry Madeline - because that is what a gentleman does. "...after being blackmailed by an aunt at breakfast, I was now being blackmailed by a female crony before dinner. Pretty good going, even for this lax post-war world." [p 86] Thank goodness for Jeeves. But, it's not really about the plot - hilarious as it is - the plot is only there to set up the dialogue between Bertie and the rest of the cast. Here Bertie is describing Gussie trying to get away from Spode who wants to beat Gussie into a jelly. "... confronted with Spode in the flesh, he now retreated to the wall and seemed, as far as I could gather, to be trying to get through it. Foiled in this endeavour, he stood looking as if he had been stuffed by some good taxidermist." [p 123] And when Bertie helps Gussie escape out a second floor window through the use of a sheet: "I don't think I have ever assisted at a ceremony which gave such universal pleasure to all concerned. The sheet didn't split, which pleased Gussie. Nobody came to interrupt us, which pleased me. And when I dropped the suitcase, it hit Gussie on the head, which delighted Aunt Dahlia. As for Jeeves, one could see that the faithful fellow was tickled pink at having been able to cluster round and save the young master in his hour of peril. His motto is 'Service'".[p 217] But of course there are plenty of pages left and the hour of Bertie's peril has only just started. This book is full of my favorite sayings of Bertie's - I don't mind people talking rot in my presences, but it must no be utter rot. [p 162] - He was more to be pitied than censured. [p 185] - I would have preferred to get oustide a curried egg or two. [p 186] [What a great way to say you want to eat something!] - ...like a Scottish elder rebuking sin from the pulpit [p 139] and of course my favorite of all time - What I want from you is less of the 'Well, really sir' and more of the buckling-to spirit. Think feudally Jeeves. I can't think of a better summer read. We still have a week or two of summer left - pick it up and have a laugh.

In regard to Plum Wodehouse: This bagatelle of an adventure in re Jeeves & Wooster is such that, etc. etc., and all is right with...whatever! And one of his very best.

I highlighted more words than I can remember doing in a long time. While, in the main, I won’t be introducing them into my vocabulary, that was an interesting side quest. The story itself was entertaining and if you enjoy Britbox, Masterpiece Theater, or reading classics, this is your cup of tea.

This is a fun read full of humor and wit. Wooster finds himself in all sorts of odd predicaments and between his own thoughts and Jeeves “impressive bean” it makes for a fun, imaginative story. Lighthearted and well written, the story moves along quickly and the reader understands the world even if this is the first Woodhouse book they’ve read (as it was for me). It also somewhat delves into the common language of the English 1920s, which I thoroughly enjoyed because, while it all made sense, it was odd and something new to me. Highly recommended to anyone wanting a fun, engaging story full of characters drawn to clever antics. Beware modern Dutch cow creamers.

Ever thing has changed since my first reading the the Wooster's' series, but nothing has changed in Bertie's life. Still a delightful read.

Enredo e humor britânico no seu melhor estilo. Uma leitura bem divertida.

J'ai eu l'immense chance d'aller voir la pièce de théâtre "Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense", adaptée de ce livre, à Londres, en 2014, avec Stephen Mangan ("Episodes") dans le rôle de Bertie Wooster, Matthew Macfadyen ("Spooks-MI-5", "La petite Doritt", "le mystère Enfield") dans les rôles de Jeeves et de Gussie Fink-Nottle (entre autres), et Mark Hadfield ("Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein") dans les rôles de tante Dahlia et de Roderick Spode (entre autres). J'ai tellement ri que je voulais retrouver les dialogues, si savoureux, dans leur version originale, tels que je les avais entendus. Et c'est une façon agréable d'améliorer mon anglais. Un grand classique des nouvelles de P.G Wodehouse, qui est paru en français sous le titre "Bonjour, Jeeves". Brillant !

I have been a fan of Mr. Wodehouse's work, since my childhood. The classic subtle humor that presents itself, from the most unexpected yet sophisticated choice of words, is enthralling!

This is my #1 favourite book - simple as that. Also available, by the way, as an Audible audio book, brilliantly read by Martin Jarvis. Highly recommended.