Oh, Wodehouse. Always delightful, ever reliable. In contrast to the short stories, whose prime focus is on wit and joie de vivre, the Jeeves and Wooster novels give the author a chance to showcase his tight plotting skills. The barrage of mistaken identities and double-crossing - which reached an apex in The Code of the Woosters - makes The Mating Season (the 5th of 11 novels) another blissful Bertie Wooster romp. Almost a contrast to the following novel, Ring for Jeeves, in which Wooster doesn't appear, this book gives Jeeves a very minor role, but he isn't missed among the outstanding supporting cast. Top marks particularly to any moments involving Madeleine Bassett, and to the uproarious provincial variety night.

The later novels, starting here, expose the "floating timeline" Wodehouse used in his works.
Published in 1949, after Wodehouse had been permanently exiled from the UK to the USA because of his wartime activities with the Germans, the author has his characters making reference to developments of the current era and speaking much more forthrightly than when the series premiered 30 years earlier. Yet in other ways, life for the characters hasn't changed much (and they're definitely not 30 years older). It's reminiscent of Hercule Poirot's unusual aging process, but with a kind of willful playfulness.

A gem of a book from one of my favourite frothy comedy series of all time. ( )

The best British postwar farce. Fight me. ( )

I’ve spent a lifetime not reading P.G. Wodehouse. Too artificial, too contrived, too cosy. I was adamant on the matter. Having, over the last couple of years, taken the radical step of actually reading some of his books, I am happy to confirm that the rest of the world was correct when they said Wodehouse is one of the most entertaining writers who ever drew breath.

I can also attest that Wodehouse on the page is much better than any of the various television adaptations. I say this with the total authority of a man who has never watched any of the various television adaptations. It’s a safe bet, though, as the greatness of Wodehouse lies in the narrative voice and that’s a tricky thing to replicate on the telly. This man was a poet wearing cap ‘n’ bells. Words? He made them dance.

He could also whip up a delightful soufflé of a farcical plot with the best of them. This one concerns the course of true love never running smooth and a gaggle of obligatory fearsome aunts at the equally obligatory country house. For the purposes of the obligatory labyrinthine plot, Wooster arrives at Deverill Hall pretending to be Augustus Fink-Nottle followed by Fink-Nottle pretending to be Wooster. The expected hilarious, not to mention convoluted, consequences ensue.

The world of Jeeves and Wooster never existed so it never dates. Wodehouse creates a prelapsarian world peopled with benign characters (‘fearsome aunts’ very much included) and renders it blissfully funny. No mean feat and, given the cynicism and darkness of much of what passes as contemporary comedy, a blessed relief. ( )

Wodehouse is sublime.
The scenes that will stick with me most are Gussie, in cross talk-act garb of checked suit and fake red beard, being chased across a field by the village constable, and Poppy Kegley-Bassington's modern dance ... "It consisted of a series of slitherings and writhings, punctuated with occasional pauses when, having got herself tied in a clove-hitch, she seemed to be waiting for someone who remembered the combination to come along and disentangle her." ( )

Great story. ( )