Where to start with PG Wodehouse?

This! Used to use it occasionally at work and was always chuffed when someone recognised it and smiled.

I love them all!

Characters I love: Spode, Bingo, Anatole, Aunts Dahlia and Agatha,

The audio versions with Michael Horden as Jeeves and Richard Briers as Wooster are fab too. I think it works better on radio than on tv.

May I put in a word for the Mr Mulliner stories?

One of them begins:

The conversation in the bar-parlour of the Anglers’ Rest had drifted round to the subject of the Arts: and somebody asked if that film-serial, “The Vicissitudes of Vera,” which they were showing down at the Bijou Dream, was worth seeing.
“It’s very good,” said Miss Postlethwaite, our courteous and efficient barmaid, who is a prominent first-nighter. “It’s about a mad professor who gets a girl into his toils and tries to turn her into a lobster.”
“Tries to turn her into a lobster?” echoed we, surprised.
“Yes, sir. Into a lobster. It seems he collected thousands and thousands of lobsters and mashed them up and boiled down the juice from their glands and was just going to inject it into Vera Dalrymple’s spinal column when Jack Frobisher broke into the house and stopped him.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Because he didn’t want the girl he loved to be turned into a lobster.”
“What we mean,” said we, “is why did the professor want to turn the girl into a lobster?”
“He had a grudge against her.”
This seemed plausible, and we thought it over for a while.

Makes me laugh every time I read it.

I did have the impression that every single Jeeves story features a silver cow-creamer.

Or this:

What ho!" I said.
"What ho!" said Motty.
"What ho! What ho!"
"What ho! What ho! What ho!"
After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

😀

I started with The code of the Woosters so thats my favourite

Wodehouse Defies superlatives

I love the Blandings ones. Uncle Fred in the Springtime and Summer Lightening are good but I haven’t read them for ages. I like the Psmith ones too - especially the first (Mike and psmith??) when they are at school. The ones set in America are my least favourite- I like the butlers and the old country houses with pigs and aunts etc too much.

Yes!!!

Another amazing line.

‘Tinkety-tonk!’ I said. And I meant it to sting.

I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled
I thought I'd highlighted that for clarity.

@JoonT

I agree so much with you re language! I know v few others who read Wodehouse. My grandma had so many Wodehouse books, as I child I devoured them, not really appreciating the language. Later on, my uncle took them all (he's a huge fan too) and while that's fine, I wish I could read some again.

I sometimes read sentences over & over to appreciate them, and wonder how he managed to craft them.

One painful thing for me was reading Robert McCrum's biography of him. I didn't really want reality! In my mind, Wodehouse occupied a life analogous to one of his characters, it was a bit too I uncomfortable to see him as a 'real' person with all that entailed!

Another quote I love, simple but brilliant. I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.

I just love the way language is taken apart & then constructed afresh.

Interesting to hear a Wodehouse lover’s views on the TV series. I’m glad you enjoyed it. I kind of wish I did. For me, it was a noble attempt, and obviously done with love. I also agree about Hugh Laurie. He does an excellent job, as does Stephen Fry. In fact, that TV series was as good as a Wodehouse adaptation could ever be. But, it still doesn’t work, not in my opinion. With Wodehouse, everything hinges on the language, and when you adapt it for TV you lose that. All that remains are slightly grotesque characters.

Still, if it got people reading the books, then it was worth it. I happen to be re-reading ‘The Code of the Woosters’ atm. The first 30 or so pages of that novel make my jaw hit the floor. Language is liquid gold in his hands. He makes pretty much every other writer seem dull and plodding in comparison. The dialogue between Bertie and Jeeves, and then between Bertie and his aunt, is just sublime. Not even the dialogue in Wilde’s Dorian Gray can match it.

For something a bit different, but still splendid, I love 'The Indiscretions of Archie'.

I also adore the 1980s tv series - I think Fry and Laurie played the characters wonderfully

*drunk Brinkley

I agree with all this - beautifully put!

But disagree with the TV series, I love it. I think Hugh Laurie got Bertie perfectly.

It's lovely to both love the books as well as the series.

I have a fabulous anthology of the best of Wodehouse that bought in the States many years ago. It is amazing - has snippets of his best writing so I can dip in to the loveliest bits at will.

One of my absolute favourites of Jeeves & Wooster is 'Thank You Jeeves', where Jeeves ends up leaving Bertie (due to his excessive banjo playing) & goes to work with Lord Chuffnell. A usual series of misunderstandings & confused romances ensues, only Bertie is without Jeeves, and has the drink Brinkley instead. When they are ultimately reunited, Bertie simply says 'Thank you Jeeves' & it's kind of touching as well as funny.

One of my favourite lines ever: 'On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps' I find it as funny as the first time every time I read it.

Another vote for Jeeves and Wooster here. Carry On Jeeves includes his first arrival in Bertoe's life so would be a great start but, in truth, any would do. Enjoy.

For me, Right Ho Jeeves is his masterpiece. I'd say it's as close to perfection as any work of art I know.

I cannot overpraise Wodehouse. As Stephen Fry said, there just aren't enough superlatives. Douglas Adams said "He's up in the stratosphere of what the human mind can do, where you will find Bach, Mozart, Einstein." And Fry said "you don't analyze such sunlit perfection, you merely bask in its splendor."

He really does take my breath away. People dismiss him as lightweight, or middlebrow, but ignore them. He's an artist. When he died, some critics compared him to Shakespeare, and they weren't joking. As a master of the English language, he has very, very few rivals. He's up there with Shelley and Larkin and T. S. Eliot. In fact, he doesn't write novels, he writes beautiful prose poems.

A few tips:

Listen to Stephen Fry reading him on audiobook.

Don't bother with the TV series. It was a good attempt, but it just doesn't work – the genius is in the language.

Read him out loud. Once you've got Bertie's idiotic, kind, sweet, joyful, self-mocking, good-natured voice in your head, you'll never look back. Reading Wodehouse out loud is better than Prozac.

Summer Lightning is laugh-out-loud funny. Also recommend Joy in the Morning.

Stephen Fry reading them on audible is brilliant. As of course is the 1990s BBC series

Not the Cow Creamer collection!

Some of the best stories, and best lines. I'm laughing just thinking about it!

I love the Blandings stories more than Jeeves and Wooster. So, so funny.

What's insane is that PG Wodehouse books span something like 60 years, from 1910ish to 1970ish. Think of how much the world transformed in that time!!

I started with the short stories of Jeeves and Wooster, 'Carry on Jeeves'. That's my favourite because I was only about 12 so it's quite nostalgic! I love '3 men and a maid' though, that's my favourite that's not Jeeves.

I’m so jealous you’re getting to start Wodehouse. Jeeves & Wooster is great, but I have a real soft spot for the Blandings stories, there is an order, but honestly they are so inkers it doesn’t matter & you’ll get a grip of the main characters quickly which I all you really need. I’d recommend one of the ones with the Earl of Ickenham- Summer Lighting is my favourite. Any that focus on Gally, the Earl of Emsworth’s younger brother are hilariots. Enjoy!

I don’t think the order matters a lot!

I started with The Inimitable Jeeves - the short story type format works v well. Can’t remember if that’s the cow creamer or not though!