The Code of the Woosters
by P. G. Wodehouse · first published 1938
75% recommend25% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A light, witty comic novel with fast dialogue and farcical plotting, Wodehouse at his best and a good entry point into the Jeeves and Wooster series.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Nothing but trouble can ensue when Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia instructs him to steal a silver jug from Totleigh Towers, home of magistrate and hell-hound, Sir Watkyn Bassett. First he must face the peril of Sir Watkyn's droopy daughter, Madeline, and then the terrors of would-be Dictator, Roderick Spode and his gang of Black Shorts. But when duty calls, Bertram answers, and so there follows what he himself calls the "sinister affair of Gussie Fink-Nottle, Madeline Bassett, old Pop Bassett, Stiffy Byng, the Rev. H.P. ('Stinker') Pinker, the eighteenth-century cow-creamer and the small, brown,
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I will interject here and recommend "The Code of the Woosters". It's Wodehouse at his apex.
on “The blissfully escapist comic novels of PG Wodehouse” ↗Some favorites: Pale Fire by Nabokov Ulysses by Joyce Et Tu, Babe by Leyner Metamorphosis by Kafka (more a long story) Things Fall Apart by Achebe Hamlet and Coriolanus by Shakespeare The Code of the Woosters by Wodehouse The Doorbell Rang by Stout
on “Ask HN: What is the best fiction book you've ever read? ” ↗Carry On, Jeeves is chronologically the first book where Jeeves appears. Any of these are good starts, though: The Inimitable Jeeves Thank You, Jeeves The Code of the Woosters
on “PG Wodehouse secures redemption as British Library acquires priceless archive” ↗Leave it to Psmith - 10/10 Anna Karenina - 8/10 The Code of the Woosters 8/10 Fooled by Randomness 7/10 Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life 8/10 How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia 9/10 Reluctant Fundamentalist 9/10 The Sense of an Ending - Julian…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗I'll vote for 'Psmith in the City', 'Joy in the Morning' and 'The Code of the Woosters'. Also there is the somewhat obscure 'Laughing Gas'. It's interesting that you say "notches below the rest." That literally may have been true, given that Wodehouse measured how many times he'd revised…
on “Hugh Laurie: Wodehouse Saved my Life (1999)” ↗Leave it to Psmith - 10/10 Anna Karenina - 8/10 The Code of the Woosters 8/10 Fooled by Randomness 7/10 Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life 8/10 How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia 9/10 Reluctant Fundamentalist 9/10 The Sense of an Ending -…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗…Germany. And there is nothing in Wodehouse's writings to suggest that he was better informed, or more interested in politics, than the general run of his readers. But of course, Roderick Spode in e.g. Code of the Woosters (1938) is a parody of the British fascist Oswald Mosley: > Don't you ever read the papers? Roderick Spode is the founder and head of the Saviours of Britain, a Fascist organization better known as the…
on “How the NYT covered P.G. Wodehouse's captivity during World War II (2019)” ↗Great Scrabble word :) According to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gruntled gruntled is a humorous neologism introduced as a back-construction by P. G. Wodehouse in The Code of the Woosters (1938): He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.
on “Researchers train an algorithm to interpret pig grunts as emotions” ↗