The Code of the Woosters
- Author: P.G. Wodehouse
- Published: 1938
- Type: Fiction
- Finished: September 7, 2024
- Personal Rating: ★★★★★
- Goodreads: 4.32 ★ (29,347 ratings)
After reading this just before posting I need to clarify a bit. You absolutely do NOT have to be (or been) and English liturature major to enjoy P.G. Wodehouse novels. The zany plots and witty wordplay are enough to win almost anyone over; Over 29,000 people agree. If you read this and want more, check out my 2010 post on reading all the Jeeves and Wooster books in order. Okay, on with the report.
After finishing three serious novels (The Bee Sting, Margo’s Got Money Troubles, and The Knockout Queen), I needed a palate cleanser and knew this would be perfect. I read this novel every few years (most recently in September 2020). The Jeeves and Wooster novels are hilarious; they take place during the time between the two world wars when there was still a societal hierarchy in England. Wodehouse plays against this with Bertram Wooster being a fun but unserious man while his “Gentleman’s Gentleman” Jeeves is cultured and oh so smart. He gets Bertie out of one scrape or another: usually related to his becoming unwillingly engaged to one woman or another.
I always come away with some new insight into the story. On this read I found that Jeeves opens and closes the novel with quotes from19th century poetry. On the first page Jeeves relates the weather to John Keats’ poem “To Autumn”. Bertie awakens after a binge at his club:
I reached out a hand from under the blankets, and rang the bell for Jeeves.
“Good evening, Jeeves.”
“Good morning, sir.”
This surprised me.
“Is it morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure? It seems very dark outside.”
“There is a fog, sir. If you will recollect, we are now in Autumn – seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness.”
“Season of what?”
“Mists, sir, and mellow fruitfulness”
[Page 1]
Bertie, no doubt thinks the line is one of Jeeves’. He soon has reason to use the quote when – at his Aunt Dahlia instructions – he is in an antique shop in Brompton Road – which is permeated by the London Fog – to sneer at a cow creamer and insult it by calling it “Modern Dutch.”
Quite a slab of misty fruitfulness had drifted into the emporium, obscuring the view, but in spite of the poor light I was able to note that the smaller and elder of these two customers was no stranger to me. [Page 11]
The smaller and elder customer is Sir Watkin Basset. Not knowing Bertram he accuses of being a thief and stealing the cow creamer, when actually he was just trying to lower the price for his Uncle Tom, Aunt Dahlia’s husband.
Before you know it he is at the country home of Sir Watkins in order to help his friend Gussie Finknottle smooth over his relations with Madeline Basset. If their engagement is put asunder, Madeline – who thinks Bertie loves her – will agree to marry poor Bertram even though he hasn’t asked. On top of that Sir Watkin knows that Bertie is there to steal the cow creamer which he cheated Uncle Tom to get.
Oh, it gets better.. Those are only two of the predicaments Bertie is in. But Jeeves eventually finds a way to solve all the problems. He is often bemused by Berties problems
I wouldn’t say he smiled – he practically never does – but a muscle abaft the mouth did seem to quiver slightly for an instant.
[Page 247]
At the end, Jeeves quotes another poet, Robert Browning, who was a successor to the Romantic era. But of course Bertie thinks it is original with Jeeves.
I sighed contentedly. It needed but this to complete my day. The though of Constable Oates prowling in the rain like the troops of Midian, when he could have been snug in bed toasting his pink toes on the hot-water bottle, gave me a curiously mellowing sense of happiness.
“This is the end of a perfect day, “Jeeves. What’s that thing of yours about larks?”
“Sir?”
“And, I rather think, snails”
“Oh yes, sir. ‘The year’s at the Spring, the day’s at the morn, morning’s at seven, the hillside’s dew-pearled – ‘”
“But the larks, Jeeves? The snails? I’m pretty sure larks and snails entered into it.”
“I am coming to the larks and snails sir. ‘The lark’s on the wing, the snail’s on the thorn -‘”
“Now you’re talking. And the tab line?”
“‘God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.'”
“That’s in in a nutshell. I couldn’t have put it better myself…”
[Page 251]
Metaphorically, Bertram has moved from the Autumn and Winter of trouble to once again arrive in Spring.” And to boot, moved from the Romantic era to the Victorian era. That is some real C+/B- English literature student analysis; I knew it would come in handy someday!
