Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Where to start with PG Wodehouse?

31 replies

Buttalapasta · 23/01/2023 15:13

There are so many! Do they have to be read in order within series and which are funnier? Any time I pick one at random it always ends up being the one about the cow-shaped creamer! 😂

OP posts:
BlueKaftan · 23/01/2023 15:17

Start with any of the Jeeves and Bertie ones and you will be in for a treat.

Footle · 23/01/2023 17:44

I remember the cow creamer.

Flumptastic · 23/01/2023 21:52

It if you dont want to do a Jeeves and Wooster then the Blandings novels are great fun

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 23/01/2023 21:58

Right Ho, Jeeves is a very good one. Bertie's friend Gussie finds himself making a speech to a school. It doesn't go well. Grin

EarringsandLipstick · 11/02/2023 21:21

I love PG Wodehouse.

Jeeves & Wooster are my favourites. I don't think you need to read them in any order, but I absolutely love any appearance of Claude & Eustace, Bertie's twin cousins.

They are in The Inimitable Jeeves and it's amazing.

PermanentTemporary · 11/02/2023 21:26

I was going to suggest The Code of the Woosters but I see that's the one you always get 😁

I love a few Lord Emsworth stories. 'Pig-hooooo-ey' probably my favourite.

Talipesmum · 11/02/2023 21:31

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!

Talipesmum · 11/02/2023 21:32

I don’t think the order matters a lot!

Keepingthingsinteresting · 11/02/2023 21:36

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!

SnuggleBuggleBoo · 11/02/2023 21:37

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.

SnuggleBuggleBoo · 11/02/2023 21:38

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!!

ElizabethinherGermanGarden · 11/02/2023 21:38

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

EarringsandLipstick · 11/02/2023 21:41

Talipesmum · 11/02/2023 21:31

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!

Not the Cow Creamer collection!

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

parrotonmyshoulder · 11/02/2023 21:43

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

LadyHester · 11/02/2023 21:43

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

JoonT · 12/02/2023 20:09

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.

greenleader · 15/02/2023 19:08

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.

EarringsandLipstick · 15/02/2023 19:20

JoonT · 12/02/2023 20:09

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.

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.

EarringsandLipstick · 15/02/2023 19:20

*drunk Brinkley

LaLaLouella · 15/02/2023 20:12

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

JoonT · 15/02/2023 20:14

EarringsandLipstick · 15/02/2023 19:20

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.

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.

EarringsandLipstick · 15/02/2023 21:01

@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.

EarringsandLipstick · 15/02/2023 21:01

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

LadyHester · 15/02/2023 22:15

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

EarringsandLipstick · 15/02/2023 22:25

LadyHester · 15/02/2023 22:15

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

Yes!!!

Another amazing line.

Swipe left for the next trending thread