{"id":2487,"date":"2009-02-28T15:14:59","date_gmt":"2009-02-28T20:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2487"},"modified":"2022-01-09T20:35:11","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T01:35:11","slug":"pg-wodehouses-the-code-of-the-woosters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=2487","title":{"rendered":"P.G. Wodehouse\u2019s The Code of the Woosters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bertie Wooster has had more than his share of trouble from well-meaning and ill-meaning aunts over the years, and while that sort of trouble disturbs him some in this novel<\/a>, he must deal more with the sort of trouble that comes from beautiful young women wanting to marry his friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Madeline Bassett, who is \u201cundeniably of attractive exterior\u2014slim, svelte, if that\u2019s the word, and bountifully equipped with golden hair and all the fixings.\u201d This beautiful thing plans to marry Bertie\u2019s friend, Augustus Fink-Nottle or Gussie, which is not a settled matter owing to her father\u2019s disapproval of him. If she cannot marry Gussie, however, she is resigned to marrying Bertie. Not that he wants to marry her, but somehow Madeline\u2019s got it locked between the ears that Bertie wants to marry her and is only deferring to Gussie, who got to her first. If there\u2019s one thing at which Bertie is extremely bad, it\u2019s convincing women he does not want to marry them once they\u2019ve decided he does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there\u2019s Stiffy, or Stephanie Byng, who wants to marry Bertie\u2019s old college buddy, Harold \u201cOld Stinker\u201d Pinker. That arrangement isn\u2019t looking good either, because her uncle, Madeline\u2019s father, isn\u2019t going to allow to two undesirable men marrying the girls of his charge in one weekend, if ever. So Stiffy asks Bertie to stage a situation for Harold to impress himself on her uncle, and those types of things never work out as planned. This one actually calls for blood, so Bertie isn\u2019t eager to give it his all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Bertie could give them all up and leave the country or at least Totleigh Towers, if only his favorite aunt hadn\u2019t forced him into a difficult task\u2014he must pinch a silver cow creamer. If he fails to abscond with the ghastly antique, his aunt will bar him from her house and her famous chef\u2019s delicious meals; but if he does steal the cow-shaped server, no lack of evidence to the deed will prevent him from being pounded by Roderick Spode, a close friend to the owner of the desired silver creamer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you ever read the papers?\u201d Gussie asks. \u201cRoderick Spode is the founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a Fascist organization better known as the Black Shorts. His general idea, if her doesn\u2019t get knocked on the head with a bottle in one of the frequent brawls in which he and his followers indulge, is to make himself a Dictator. . . . He and his adherents wear black shorts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFooter bags, you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow perfectly foul.\u201d Of course, such a man is more than able to deliver a good pounding to creamer stealers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through it all, Bertram Wooster lives up to his family code to never leave a friend in the lurch, even at personal cost. As with almost everything I\u2019ve read by Wodehouse, this book doesn\u2019t not take all the predictable turns, and even when you know what\u2019s going to happen, it\u2019s hilarious to follow it through. Though Lars has said this was the first Bertie and Jeeves book he read, I enjoyed remembering the references to earlier stories. More than once, Bertie says that we may remember the time when \u2026 and I enjoy remembering it too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bertie Wooster has had more than his share of trouble from well-meaning and ill-meaning aunts over the years, and while that sort of trouble disturbs him some in this novel, he must deal more with the sort of trouble that comes from beautiful young women wanting to marry his friends. For example, Madeline Bassett, who … Continue reading P.G. Wodehouse\u2019s The Code of the Woosters<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[4012,2125],"class_list":["post-2487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-code-of-the-woosters","tag-p-g-wodehouse"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16245,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions\/16245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}