I just don't get P.G. Wodehouse

I have a confession to make, which may upset many readers. Having only a passing acquaintance with his books, I’ve long experienced a faint allergic reaction to the works of P.G. Wodehouse. It is, I think, to do with the mannered, heavily whimsical nature of his world; the circumlocutory sentences; the ‘right-ho’s and ‘dash it’s and choreographed mix-ups; and the inexplicably passionate adoration of his many fans, among whom I count a number of my family and friends. But before dismissing something that so many intelligent people hold in high esteem, it’s worth considering whether I’ve missed a trick. And so, in the hope that enthusiasm is contagious, I’ve been listening to The World of Wodehouse, a podcast hosted by the comedian Alexander Armstrong which marks the 50th anniversary of its subject’s death with a series of personal reflections from fans.

Armstrong himself is president of the P.G. Wodehouse Society, and clearly enamoured of ‘Plum’, as the author was known to pals, calling him ‘arguably the greatest humourist of the 20th century’. Although Plum was happily married to a war widow called Ethel, with a stepdaughter Leonora, his most famous creation Bertie Wooster negotiated many entanglements without ever succumbing to matrimony at all: his true partner, of course, was his loyal, watchful valet Jeeves. The comedy arises in the space between Wooster’s cheerful, crashing tactlessness and Jeeves’s wily diplomacy, which allows for the sly play of language. When Wooster is trying to establish if Jeeves has met his old friend Gussie Fink-Nottle, who has a ‘face like a fish’, for example, he nudges his valet ‘And looked like something on a slab?’ to which Jeeves replies: ‘Possibly there was a certain suggestion of the piscine, sir.’