The Code Of The Woosters

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece!
Review: "The Code of the Woosters" is perhaps the best of the Bertie and Jeeves stories, and therefore one of the best novels of all time.

Rating:
Summary: "Never Let a Pal Down"
Review: 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:
Summary: "Never Let a Pal Down"
Review: 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:
Summary: Pure delight
Review: All the Jeeves & Bertie stories are excellent, but Code of the Woosters somehow manages to improve on perfection. The story does pick up in the middle somewhat (you may want to read Right Ho, Jeeves first) but it's not essential. You can read Wodehouse in any order.

Rating:
Summary: Astonishingly Good
Review: Amazing both for the infectious language (replete with backhanded putdowns), and the parade of plot twists. Bertie Wooster and faithful butler Jeeves, characters in many Wodehouse books, get mixed up in a series of misunderstandings, broken engagements, and petty thefts that all revolve around a certain antique creamer, shaped like a cow. Absolutely unpredictable. No point, really, in trying to reconstruct it. And really, the point here isn't how the roller coaster is put together, it's whether or not it holds together and makes for a fun ride. Affirmative on both counts.

Rating:
Summary: The usual fare
Review: As always, simple minded Bertie is in the soup. He has gotten on the wrong side of Sir Watkyn Bassett and his close pal Spode for trying to grab a silverware for his Uncle Tom, which Bassett had an eye on. Aunt Dahlia (Tom's wife) sends him to Totleigh Towers to steal it. Also, at Totleigh Towers, Bertie's pal Gussie is preparing to get married to Madeline (Watkyn's daughter). Meanwhile, Stiffy (Watkyn's nice) is in love with Pinker (another pal of Bertie). When Bertie arrives at Totleigh Towers, everything that can go wrong with the lives of these people, breaks loose. And all of them are aimed at Bertie! Bertie faces all of it with the help of his faithful butler Jeeves and all ends well.

If there were no sitcom on TV, Wodehouse would have invented it. The outlandish characters, the outrageous dialogues, all set in rich classic Britain. I couldn't help laughing out loud while reading this book. Between all these stormy characters is the real hero of the books -- Jeeves with his cucumber cool air. Wodehouse cannot be explained, has to be read. I see a definite movie potential in his books.

In case you were wondering, The Code Of The Woosters is "Never let a pal down.

Rating:
Summary: A wild surmise, what?
Review: As always, Wodehouse's hilariously likable characters and biting turns of phrase make this little tale a pleasure. I pick up old Bertie and Jeeves whenever I want something funny and fast, and "The Code of the Woosters" is among his best.

Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: As with most Wodehouse books, this has enough plot twists and turns to keep the impossible situations running for as long as possible. Which is not to say that they are difficult to see coming, but even when you know that Gussie is about to pop up again with bad news, it's still fun to read. Jeeves' solutions are always fascinating, as is his "sang froid", as Bertie would say. I must strongly suggest to the first-time reader, read the introduction LAST. Alexander Cockburn does a decentish job of analyzing the story, but not without doing some major spoiling of plots. Lastly, I would argue my own opinion that the Wodehousian plots are not the strongest point of the book, but the breezy, conversational narrative style of the main protaginist, Bertram Wilberforce Wooster. This (funny in and of itself) is hilarious agaisnt the backdrop of his hyper-intelligent valet (or "gentleman's personal gentleman", as Jeeves refers to himself), strong-willed women, clutzy or (dare I use the word to describe a character of the 30's) nerdy friends, and comical villains. If you like British comedy in the least, you should read Wodehouse as he is a giant of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing Quite Like It
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant buffoonery at it's best!!!
Review: Follow yet another escapade with Bertram Wooster and his man Jeeves. This delightfull frolic through Totleigh Towers centers on a silly cow creamer of all dashed things! Wodehouse unfolds his zany plots quicker than one can turn the page. A true treat to read. I highly recommend Wodehouse for a good laugh.