Customer Reviews

The Code of the Woosters: Jeeves to the Rescue

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Believe it or not, I am 74 years old and had never read
about the trials and tribulations Jeeves put up with
Bertie Wooster. I have never laughed so much in my life.
I am now going to get my hands on every word P.G. Wodehouse
ever wrote. I truly would have loved to meet the man.

In his excellent introduction, Alexander Cockburn notes that "the true Wodehouse fan has the concentration of a butterfly, fluttering inconsequently over Wodehouse country and prattling foolishly about favored features of the region. Very irritating, for serious tourists and new arrivals."

Do not fret. Within a few pages both the initiate and the expert will be won over. This is a superb book in the Wooster-Jeeves series, full of Wooster's malapropisms, preposterous schemes, boggled literary quotes ("the snail was on the wing and the lark on the thorn--or rather, the other way around . . . ") and memories of hi-jinks at Eton and the Drones' club. Then there is Jeeves, the gentleman's gentleman, aware of his subordinate position to Wooster, but--as admitted by all-- possessing a greater knowledge of "the psychology of the individual." Consider the following exchange between Bertie and the ever-troubled Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle: "this is frightful, Bertie." "Not too good, no." "I'm in the soup." "Up to the thorax." "What's to be done?" "I don't know." "Can't you think of anything?" " Nothing. We must put out trust in a higher power." "Consult Jeeves, you mean?"

The book's events appear to take place soon after those described in "Right Ho, Jeeves," and before "Joy in the Morning." As mentioned above, one is easily drawn into the humorous misadventures of our protagonists and their screwball plotting against Gussie's fiancé's father and his neo-Fascist friend, Spode, modeled after England's Sir Oswald Mosley. Written in 1938, even the humorous hand of Wodehouse touches on the threat of the fascist "black shorts" (the shirts, apparently, had already been taken).

Lighthearted fare, but perfectly crafted by a master of modern farce. This book is simply a delight, a compote of impossibly funny personalities sweetened with a meringue of wit and satire. P.G. Wodehouse, along with those other two-initialed humorists of the early to mid-20th century (E.B. White, S.J. Perelman, A.J. Leibling) is one of our most treasured writers. Give "The Code of the Woosters" a try; I think you'll soon join his legion of fans. Most highly recommended!

In the circles I run in, Wodehouse is not a well-known name. Thus it doesn't surprise me that it's taken this long for my first trip through the tulips with Jeeves and Wooster. It saddens me, but it doesn't surprise me. "Saddens" for this confection is the perfect mix of all of the elements of comedy.

On one level, the story is classic bedroom farce. The action takes place in a country house, where people are constantly running from one room to another. Everytime one door opens, a new misunderstanding occurs and the plot is violently thrown in another direction. It makes one realize how effective a well-constructed bedroom farce can be in delivering sparkling comedy.

On top of the farcical elements, Wodehouse also manages to throw in some biting satire. There are well placed but subtle jabs at fascism, fashionable psychology, and upper class morality. They never trip up the story, only serving as wonderful little digressions that do much to add weight to the lighter elements.

The book is populated by a wonderfully motley crew of snooty misfits, each doing their bit to stoke the fires of the story. But the cake is taken by Jeeves and Wooster themselves. Neither could exist without the other (at least in a literary sense). The first fifty or so pages prove this, as Wooster heads up to the country house ahead of his manservant. The character flounders during these sections. Only when Jeeves arrives (to save the day, natch) does the narrative gain an even greater head of steam. I can't imagine how tedious it would be to listen to Bertie Wooster's mindless meanderings for a whole book, without the simple and economic replies of his man Jeeves. They are the pins in the balloons that release Bertie's hot air. As I said before, this is my first foray into Jeeves and Wooster country, so I can't say if the other tales in the series live up to the standard set here. It would seem like an impossible task.

The brilliance of the Jeeves/Wooster dichotomy is that Wodehouse doesn't take the easy route; that is, telling the story through Jeeves narration. It would be too easy to allow us into Jeeves brain, where we would either be confronted by his undying loyalty (which the reader could never understand, given the ignorance of his charge) or his hatred for Bertie (which would undermine the whole tale). Rather, we get Bertie's side of things, and his ambiguous depiction of his man makes Jeeves that much more intriguing a character. And furthermore, it allows Bertie to be a very interesting "unreliable narrator". We cannot trust -- but can laugh at -- his recollections of past events (the book is told entirely through recollections), or his characterization of hisself (in which he tries to pass himself off as an intellectual, rather than a pompous boob). The "unreliable narrator" is my favourite of the current post-modern literary fads, one which Wodehouse gleefully saunters through a half century before its time (side note: for a fine example of a case where the modest butler also serves as the "unreliable narrator", see Kazuo Ishiguro's book "The Remains of the Day", a personal favourite of mine).

One cautionary note, though: in this edition, don't read the introduction first. Alexander Cockburn can't help but give away some key plot points in the examples he provides of Wodehouse's comedic prose. It is a finely written essay, but it belongs at the end rather than the beginning, so to not spoil the reader's fun of discovery. Other than that mild criticism, this is a perfect piece of comedy.

Bertie Wooster's is a different world. A different world indeed, even from the jazzy age of 1920s and 30s England that P. G. Wodehouse employs as his setting. The code of the Woosters is to never let a friend down, and Bertie would do this far more often were it not for his tactful and clever gentleman's personal gentleman, Jeeves. Bertie is a marvelous type of fellow: over-educated but under-intelligent; useless to society but wealthy beyond any need for scruple; completely numbed by the simple pleasures of an aristocratic life, but always there for his friends and family in a pinch. Amusingly enough, very few of the people that Bertie is enlisted in aiding actually deserve anyone's help. He is variously bullied and cajoled--but usually blackmailed--into putting himself in the most precarious positions. He must steal a cow-shaped piece of silver or his Aunt Dahlia will never let him eat a meal served by her godly French chef; he must steal a policeman's helmet to indirectly prevent himself from betrothal to a starry-eyed ditz of a woman. Being a Wooster, of course, he would go through with such a wedding rather than be impolite.

What makes Bertie's bumbling and stumbling antics the more amusing is that he fancies himself a man of wit and decisiveness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jeeves is the man for that, as well as the man to keep Bertie from his predilection for screaming fashion faux pas.

Wodehouse employs a wonderfully dry wit and a delivery that ranges between the anecdotal and the rat-a-tat. One finds oneself smiling through every page, and occasionally being forced to place the book on the side table so as not to harm in during a fit of laughing out loud. Wodehouse's influence on writers such as Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis and Stephen Fry has enriched British literature of the last century, but he himself was a true original, as are Jeeves and Wooster.

There are very few novels that can guarantee five good laughs a page and chuckles during all the spaces between, but the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves novels of P.G. Wodehouse fill the bill. It is even jollier when a good British comedian simply reads the novel to you, as does Jonathan Cecil in the Audio Partners release of the 1938 <The Code of the Woosters: Jeeves to the Rescue> (1-57270-182-X).

Here on 6 audiocassettes with a total running time of 7 hours is one of the stories you might have seen dramatized on Masterpiece Theatre a while ago. Oh, you know, the one about Bertie having to steal a cow-shaped creamer from Sir Watkyn Bassett for his Aunt Dahlia. Along the way, he becomes entangled in the on again, off again engagement between the newt-loving Gussie Fink-Nottle and the simpering Madeline Bassett, Roderick Spode who heads the Black Shorts (since all the Black Shirts have been bought up by an Italian of the period) and harbors a shameful secret), Stiffy Bynge who wants to marry the local clergyman H.P. "Stinker Pinker," and the local Constable whose helmet has been pinched.

The plot is simple at first and then, as in any good farce, rapidly accelerates into the complexity of a Baroque French clock and with about as much socially redeeming value. We simply sit back and marvel at the mechanism as (to carry on the analogy) Wodehouse's puppet-like characters perform their intricate movements around the hapless Bertie Wooster who not for the first time in these stories tends to lose faith in Jeeves just as that master of intrigue is at his brainiest. All this in the inimitable Wodehouse upper-class British twit jargon and a world every bit as real as that of Damon Runyon and W.S. Gilbert, providing you accept certain premises.

Jonathan Cecil was very badly miscast as Arthur Hastings in two or three Poirot films in which Peter Ustinov played the sleuth. Here he is a gem, reading as he does every word of the novel and acting out every character, male and female, in a different voice. His reading, Wodehouse's literary style and plotting, and all the rest made 7 hours on the exerciser pass pleasantly quickly.

Highly recommended even for more relaxed listeners.

Previous: Right Ho, Jeeves

This was my first excursion into the Wonderful World of Wodehouse, and remains my favorite (though others are in close contention). The plot is simply brilliant, tightly woven together with twists and turns and ingenious irony, and flows directly from the story in Right Ho, Jeeves. Between silver cow-creamers, little leather notebooks, ferocious dogs named Bartholomew, police constables and their helmets, angry neo-Nazis with buried secrets, and the looming threat of the soppy Madeline Bassett, laugh-out-loud comedy is inevitable. Funnier still is the fact that once Bertie arrives at the dreaded Totleigh Towers, all the action takes place in one day and night, making this the most fast-paced of the Jeeves books. This is one instance in which Bertie is never to blame for the soup in which he finds himself-it is thrust upon him by others, either by cajoling or blackmail, and Bertie's ever-good-hearted nature is taken advantage of to full extent. It is Jeeves to the rescue once again. The ending will leave you smiling-and finally able to take a deep breath and relax!

Next: Joy in the Morning (Jeeves in the Morning)

As with any novel about Jeeves and Wooster, I don't want to give too much away. Much of the humor is not just in the language but in how surprisingly complex things can get before they are resolved. So my first suggestion is to skip the introduction by Alexander Cockburn who quotes some of the funnier scenes in the book.
Now as for the story it involves a cow-creamer, a small leather book, two marriages, a want-to-be Dictator and a police helmet.
The Code of the Woosters has 222 pages of some of the best dry British humor ever to come from P.G. Wodehouse's pen. As always the dialogue between Bertie Wooster and his man Jeeves is some of the greatest you will ever encounter in your whole life. How one book can contain so much is beyond me but this is, as any of his books are, a must for any library.

An early critic of P.G. Wodehouse complained that his second book was identical to his first, only the character names had changed. In response, Wodehouse resolved to continue writing identical stories, but to keep his character names the same. And so, The Code of the Woosters is nearly identical to all other Jeeves and Wooster novels; Bertie gets into a sticky situation, inadvertently makes things worse, and is ultimately rescued by Jeeves. Could any one of them possibly be any good if they are all so unoriginal? Yes. In fact, they are all excellent. How? Wodehouse was a genius; reading any one of his books will prove it to you. His characters are unforgettable. His narrative is brilliant. Above all, his books are hilarious, and The Code of the Woosters is one of his finest.

Betram (Bertie) Wooster, a lazy, bumbling (but well meaning!) gentleman living in Britain during the early 1900's, is pressured by his aunt Dahlia to steal a cow-shaped milk creamer from Sir Watkyn Bassett, a magistrate who once fined Bertie five `quid' for `pinching' a policeman's helmet. The task is made complicated by the presence of Roderick Spode, the amateur dictator who founded `the black shorts' and who is a friend of Sir Watkyn; Spode is watching Bertie like a hawk and threatens to break his neck if he sees Bertie so much as glance at the cow-creamer. Things go downhill when Gussie Fink-Nottle (a newt fancying friend of Bertie's) suffers a snag with his engagement to Madeline Basset (a dreamy girl who holds opinions like `the stars are God's daisy chain,' and who thinks that Bertie is madly in love with her). Bertie rushes to patch things up between them, but nearly becomes engaged to Madeline himself. In the end, only Jeeves, Bertie's brilliant, (almost) all-knowing manservant, can guide Bertie out of these troubled waters.

If you aren't familiar with P.G. Wodehouse's dynamic duo, you owe it to yourself to read this book. I guarantee you won't be able to stop laughing. Nearly every line is comical. The narration itself (the story is told by Bertie) is positively hilarious. And so, I give The Code of the Woosters the highest marks I can!

This book by P.G.Wodehouse is one of the best books ever.This is one book where Jeeves (coupled with Aunt Dahlia) are at their very best.It's about a very strange situash (as Bertie would put it) wherin Bertie has to steal an old 18th Century Cow Creamer for his Uncle Tom wanted, failing which his Aunt Dahlia would no longer permit him to taste the cooking of her master chef Anatole again. And, if this isn't bad enough, Bertie's freinds, Gussie Fink-Nottle and the Rev. Henry 'Stinker' Pinker make it worse. And, worst part of it all is old Pop Basset, his buddy and future Dictator of England, Roderick Spode as also Pop Basset's daughter, Madeline and her cousin Stiffy Byng. This book is best read with a dictionary and it is strictly recommended that you avoid the foreign phrases

All of the P.G. Wodehouse novels about Bertram ("Bertie") Wooster and his gentleman's gentleman, Jeeves, are funny. Some are reasonably complicated in their plots. But none compare to this classic in the series.

From the beginning, Bertie is up against impossible odds. Sent by his Aunt Dahlia to sneer at a Cow Creamer, Bertie dangerously bumps into Sir Watkyn Bassett, the magistrate who once fined him five guineas for copping a policeman's helmet on Boat Race night, and Roderick Spode, Britain's aspiring fascist dictator. The only trouble in this encounter is that Bertie is clutching the Cow Creamer on the sidewalk after having tripped on a cat and falling through the front door, and Sir Watkyn recognizes him as a former criminal. Barely escaping arrest on the spot, Bertie returns home to find that Aunt Dahlia wants him to debark immediately for Totley Towers where Sir Watkyn has just taken the Cow Creamer he has purchased after pulling a ruse on Uncle Tom. When there, Bertie is to steal the Cow Creamer. At the same time, he receives urgent telegrams from his old pal, Gussie Fink-Nottle, to come to Totley Towers to save his engagement to Madeleine Bassett. Bertie feels like he is being sent into the jaws of death.

Jeeves immediately fetches up a plot to get Madeleine Bassett, to whom he has been affianced twice, to invite Bertie to her father's home. Upon arriving, Sir Watkyn and Roderick Spode immediately catch him holding the Cow Creamer. Sir Watkyn threatens years in jail, until Madeleine comes in to rescue him. But Sir Watkyn proceeds to assume that everything that goes wrong from then is due to Bertie. For once, Bertie is the innocent party. But he takes the rap anyway, because of the code of the Woosters, never let a pal down.

Never has anyone had a goofier set of pals. Gussie Fink-Nottle has developed spiritually so that he has less fear, but his method of achieving this soon puts him in peril. Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng, Sir Watkyn's niece, has to be the goofiest acquaintance that Bertie has. She is a one-woman wrecking machine for creating havoc. Her fiance, another old pal of Bertie's, "Stinker" Pinker, the local curate, is only slightly better.

Just when you cannot see any way that Bertie can avoid gaol, Jeeves comes up with one brilliant plan after another. It's truly awe-inspiring as well as side-splittingly funny.

P.G. Wodehouse remarked that he preferred to write as though the subject were musical comedy, and he has certainly captured that mood here at its vibrant best. You'll be on the edge of your chair and trying to avoid falling on the floor laughing at the same time.

After you've followed more twists and turns than existed in the Labyrinth at Crete, consider how far you would go to save a pal . . . or to keep a secret . . . or to protect a loved one. What should the personal code be?

Be generous with your friends and to all humankind.