The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse

It has been well said of Bertram Wooster by those who know him best that there is a certain resilience in his nature that enables him as a general rule to rise on stepping stones of his dead self in the most unfavourable circumstances. It isn't often that I fail to keep the chin up and the eye sparkling. But as I made my way to the library in pursuance of my dreadful task, I freely admit that Life had pretty well got me down. It was with leaden feet, as the expression is, that I tooled along.

Brent gave me this book when I visited him in December. I'd never read any of Wodehouse's novels, but I know there are people who just can't get enough of them: the novels, the stories, the Jeeves extended universe. What is it that makes them so popular?

The Code of the Woosters was, for better or worse, pretty much like I expected: you have Bertie Wooster, brash and wealthy, always getting into scrapes not necessarily of his own making, and then you have his butler Jeeves, who is as wise as he is straight-buttoned. The novel sets up a ridiculous set of contrivances to enmesh Bertie, and then lets Jeeves devise the solution. I assume that is more or less what all of these novels are like.

In The Code of the Woosters, the farce revolves around a series of comical objects: a silver creamer shaped like a cow, a policeman's stolen helmet, a notebook written by Bertie's friend Gussie Fink-Nottle that's essentially a "burn book." Bertie's uncle covets the cow-creamer owned by his rival Sir Watkyn Bassett, but Bassett is a judge who has convicted Bertie of stealing a policeman's helmet in the past. In this case, it's Bassett's niece Stiffy who wants to pinch the helmet, and she wants Bertie to help, withholding the notebook that Gussie lost, leaving his marriage to Bassett's daughter Madeline in the wind, and--and, well, the plot basically proceeds from there. These MacGuffins are shuffled around in the possession of everyone but Bertie as he tries to navigate the demands of his uncle, his aunt, Sir Watkyn Bassett, his friend Gussie, Madeline, Stiffy, the policeman. It goes on and on.

Is it funny? It is funny. It crackles with comic energy, and the farce unfolds quickly and frenetically. I wasn't prepared for how much the humor depends on Bertie's voice, which is both identifiably patrician and endlessly inventive. Wodehouse really captures a highly mannered form of high manners, zipping through colloquialisms and slang that keep the narrative fresh.

The class politics of these books are interesting, I think. Jeeves makes me uncomfortable, as career servants in British novels and film always do, especially when they're depicted as being so wholly invested in their employer's well-being and happiness, as Jeeves is. But Wodehouse balances this by making Jeeves the wise one; Bertie is a mess but Jeeves is the one who always has the solution. The upper class doesn't come out of The Code of the Woosters looking very good, with their trivial obsessions and flighty characters. Jeeves' steadfastness and practicality are rooted in his position outside the carnival world of the very rich.

I liked The Code of the Woosters. I didn't exactly develop a lifelong addiction, like some people do; in fact, I probably won't read another one of these. I expect, rightly or wrongly, that they mostly all go the same way. But I get why it is that these books have been entertaining people for nearly a century.