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Title: The Code of the Woosters by P.G. WODEHOUSE ISBN: 0-394-72028-8 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 12 November, 1975 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.89 (27 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Occasionally amusing but often contrived
Comment: THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS is one of the few novel-length works about "intellectually negligable" young aristocrat Bertie Wooster and his titan of a valet Jeeves. I found the CODE OF THE WOOSTERS somewhat entertaining, though about two-thirds of the way through it starts to drag and all in all left me unimpressed.
Summarising the setup of the novel would be difficult, but it begins with a battle over a cow-shaped creamer. The cow creamer is desired by Bertie's Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Tom, but is bought instead by Sir Watkyn Bassett, the retired magistrate who once fined Bertie five pounds for stealing a policeman's helmet. Aunt Dahlia gives Bertie a choice between infiltrating Bassett's house and stealing the cow creamer, or never again tasting the wonderful meals of her French chef Anatole. Two related problems are the engagements of Bassett's niece Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng and Bertie's school chum Harold "Stinker" Pinker, and Basset's daughter Madelaine and Wooster friend Gussie Fink-Nottle. There's also Roderick Spode, Watkyn's menacing associate and the leader of a fascist group called the Saviours of Britain. The book was published in 1937, and through Spode Wodehouse makes a few jabs against Hitler and Mussolini.
In spite of its observation of human social interactions which really are often zany, the novel does seem somewhat far-fetched. A character hears a major revelation but reacts too tamely, the plot's resultion in the last couple of pages seems like an easy way out of a book starting to run out of steam.
There are a few moments in THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS which made me laugh out loud, and therefore I do cautiously recommend the book. However, it is a somewhat insubstantial novel, and falls into a three-star rating. If you've never read Wodehouse before, you might want to try one of his many short stories before tackling an entire novel.
Rating: 5
Summary: "Never Let a Pal Down"
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: Jeeves & Bertie #6
Comment: 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)
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Title: Life With Jeeves: The Inimitable Jeeves, Very Good, Jeeves!, and Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse ISBN: 0140059024 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: September, 1983 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Carry On, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse ISBN: 0140284087 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 05 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Thank You, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse ISBN: 1585674346 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse ISBN: 0140284095 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 05 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Jeeves in the Morning by P. G. Wodehouse ISBN: 0060972823 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 14 March, 1990 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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