Wodehouse took a modest attitude to his own works. In
Over Seventy (1957) he wrote:
- "I go in for what is known in the trade as 'light writing' and those who do that — humorists they are sometimes called — are looked down upon by the intelligentsia and sneered at."
However, he also lightly taunted his critics, as in the introduction to
Summer Lightning.
- "A certain critic...for such men, I regret to say, do exist...made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names'. He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha; but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy."
His writing style is notable for its unique blend of contemporary London clubroom slang with elegant, classically-informed drawing-room English. As in: "I once got engaged to his daughter Honoria, a ghastly dynamic exhibit who read Nietzsche and had a laugh like waves breaking on a stern and rockbound coast."
Literary tastes and influence
In the above-mentioned article, Wodehouse names some contemporary humorists whom he held in high regard. These include Frank Sullivan, A. P. Herbert, and Alex Atkinson. Two essays in
Tales of St. Austin’s satirise modern literary criticism; "The Tom Brown Question" is a parody of Homeric analysts, and "Notes" criticises both classical and English critics, with an ironic exception for those explicating the meaning of Browning. In "Work," Wodehouse calls the claim that "Virgil is hard" "a shallow falsehood," but notes that "Aeschylus, on the other hand, is a demon." Shakespeare and Tennyson were also obvious influences; their works were the only books Wodehouse brought with him in his internment. He frequently quotes Kipling and Omar Khayyam. Wodehouse also seems to have enjoyed the traditional English thriller; in the 1960s he gave important praise for the debut novels of Gavin Lyall and George MacDonald Fraser. In later life, he read mysteries by Ngaio Marsh and Rex Stout, and unfailingly watched the soap opera
The Edge of Night. One of his characters declares "It is impossible not be thrilled by Edgar Wallace."
Characters
Wodehouse's characters, however, were not always popular with the establishment, notably the foppish foolishness of Bertie Wooster. Papers released by the Public Record Office have disclosed that when Wodehouse was recommended in 1967 for the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sir Patrick Dean, the British ambassador in Washington, argued that it "would also give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British character which we are doing our best to eradicate."
Wodehouse's characters are often eccentric, with peculiar attachments, such as to pigs (Lord Emsworth), newts (Gussie Fink-Nottle), antique silver (Bertie's Uncle Tom Travers), golf-collectables (numerous characters) or socks (Archibald Mulliner). His "mentally negligible" good-natured characters invariably make their lot worse by their half-witted schemes to improve a bad situation.
In many cases the classic eccentricities of Wodehouse's upper class give rise to plot complications. The very first Jeeves story ("Jeeves Takes Charge") concerns an attempt to prevent publication of an old man's memoirs, which contain embarrassing stories about aristocrats and other prestigious persons in their youth.
Relatives, especially aunts and uncles, are commonly depicted with an exaggerated power to help or impede marriage or financial prospects, or simply to make life miserable. (Bertie speaks of "Aunt Agatha getting after [someone] with her hatchet".) Several of the Jeeves stories involve helping a pal to deceive a wealthy relative on whom the pal depends financially ("The Aunt and the Sluggard", "Comrade Bingo"). When Bertie Wooster is first introduced ("Jeeves Takes Charge"), he is himself dependent upon his Uncle Willoughby, and only when this uncle hands in his dinner pail, Bertram becomes independently wealthy.
Children of both genders are invariably troublesome, annoying, and malicious. The most egregious is Edwin the Boy Scout, whose attempts at "acts of kindness" cause disasters of widely varying severity in several Jeeves novels and short stories.
Friends are often more a trouble than a comfort in Wodehouse stories: Bertie Wooster in particular is often obliged to put himself to trouble, and sometimes to endure considerable suffering, in order to help a friend. (The Code of the Woosters, in the novel of the same name, is "Never let a pal down.") Antagonists (particularly rivals in love) are frequently terrifying and just as often get their comeuppance in a gratifying fashion.
Policemen and magistrates are typically portrayed as threatening, yet easy to fool, often through the simple expedient of giving a false name. A recurring motif is the theft of policemen's helmets. One of the most dislikeable characters in the entire opus is a magistrate, Sir Watkyn Bassett.
In a manner going back to the stock characters of Roman comedy (such as Plautus), Wodehouse's servants are frequently far cleverer than their masters. This is quintessentially true with Jeeves, who always pulls Bertie Wooster out of the direst scrapes by means of cunning and resource, often by deceptively manipulating him (
e.g. "Bertie Changes his Mind",
Right Ho, Jeeves) or by convincing him to sacrifice himself. It recurs elsewhere, such as the efficient (though despised) Baxter, secretary to the befogged Lord Emsworth.
Another recurring type is the successful, square-jawed, ruthless American business executive, most notably in
Thank You, Jeeves and in the golf story "The Heel of Achilles" but also in later stories about the Mulliners in Hollywood.
Big bruisers who come and go unexpectedly, muttering threats, abound in Wodehouse, including first and foremost Roderick Spode and Tuppy Glossop but also any number of bookies' henchmen, jealous lovers, nosy neighbours, burglars, and what we now call animal-rights activists.
Many stories involve a strong-willed, independent, middle-aged (or older) female troublemaker. Examples include Bertie Wooster's Aunt Agatha; Lord Emsworth's many sisters, especially Lady Constance Keeble; Headmistress Mapleton in "Jeeves and the Kid Clementina"; Lady Bassett in the Mulliner short story "Strychnine in the Soup"; and the poisonous Princess von und zu Dworniczek in
Summer Moonshine. Even Aunt Dahlia, the exceptional aunt who is a "good egg", makes plenty of troublesome demands on Bertie. Most abhorrent are the female writers, young and old, such as Ukridge's Aunt Julia, Bertie Wooster's cousin (and sometime fiancée) Florence Craye, and, when the evil fit is upon her, Bingo Little's wife Rosie M. Banks.
Plots
Even if the broad outlines of his plots were typically formulaic, Wodehouse was known for his consummate skill at their detailed construction and development. This did not come immediately to him; in the early Psmith novels
Psmith In The City and
Psmith, Journalist, the device by which the author rescues the protagonists from their mounting difficulties is a simple infusion of cash from Psmith's father. This would soon change, and by the 1920s his novels were already showing off his genius for creating multiple layers of comedic complications that the characters must endure to reach the invariable happy ending. Typically, a relative or friend makes some demand that forces a character into a bizarre situation from which it seems impossible to recover, only to resolve itself in a clever and satisfying finale. The layers pile up thickly in the longer works, with a character getting into multiple dangerous situations by mid-story. An outstanding example of this is
The Code of the Woosters where most of the chapters have an essential plot point reversed in the last sentence, catapulting the characters forward into greater diplomatic disasters. A key figure in most Wodehouse stories is a "fixer" whose genius soars above the incompetent blather and crude bluster of most of the other characters, Jeeves being the best known example. Other characters in this vein are Lord Ickenham ("Uncle Fred") and Galahad Threepwood, who perform much the same role in the Blandings Castle stories...though never both at the same time...and Psmith, who does the same thing in the stories that bear his name.
Engagements are a common theme in Wodehouse stories. A man may be unable to become engaged to the woman he loves due to some impediment such as poverty, feelings of inferiority, or a relative's objection. Just as often, a protagonist unwillingly or unwittingly gets engaged to a woman he does not love, and must find some back-door way out other than breaking it off directly (which goes against a gentleman's code of honour and renders him vulnerable to a lawsuit for breach of promise). The most widely-read case in point is Bertie Wooster's engagement to the objectionable Madeline Bassett in
Right Ho, Jeeves, which recurs in several subsequent novels.
Impersonations, and resulting confusion, are particularly common in the Blandings books, but also occur in other works. Often the impersonation is discovered, but the impersonator is able to silence the discoverer by means of bribery or blackmail, as in
Leave it to Psmith and
Uncle Fred in the Springtime.Gambling often plays a large role in Wodehouse plots, typically with someone manipulating the outcome of the wager.
Another subject which features strongly in Wodehouse's plots is alcohol, and many plots revolve around the tipsiness of a major character. In
The Mating Season, he enumerated what many people consider as the definitive list of hangovers: the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer and the Gremlin Boogie. Furthermore, he makes several references to a drink called the "May Queen", described by Uncle Fred as "any good dry champagne, to which is added brandy, armagnac, kümmel, yellow chartreuse, and old stout, to taste", which inspires several characters to acts of daring, such as proposing to their true loves. Sometimes, other psychoactive substances are featured, for instance in
Laughing Gas and the short story "Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo".