The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse

In Gilmore Girls, aka the best show ever written, bright-eyed Rory Gilmore is continually seen reading a wide array of books. Whether in preparation for Harvard or for her time at Yale, she is always improving herself via literature.

Juxtapose this with Patrick Lenton, who found himself re-reading The Wheel of Time for the seventeenth time, grimly hoping the ingrained misogyny might somehow disappear if he just believed hard enough. What happened to his days of challenging himself? What about that one time he read Moby Dick and felt good for eight years? Patrick decided to take a leaf out of Rory’s books and read Rory’s books.

39.) The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse

I have a soft spot for Britain’s bombastic, turn-of-the-century comedy of manners. I’ve read some P. G. Wodehouse before and found it perfectly charming, to be frank. Wodehouse’s prose has an indubitably negative effect on my sentence structure, however, as forthwith I tend to use a veritable spree of very British words, henceforth. It is best to read every sentence as if you are Stephen Fry eating a large sponge cake; jolly good.

Anyway, The Code of the Woosters follows the basic japery of our upper class rogue Wooster (possible star of House, M.D) and his long-suffering butler Jeeves (possibly also the host of long-running quiz show QI), getting up to some gentle mystery solving in a manor. The actual plot is fairly convoluted and unimportant, because frankly it’s all about the spiffing dialogue and amusing bon mots. I had a bit of a giggle throughout the entire book, which I read on a Sunday afternoon drinking a Hendricks and tonic with cucumber, which felt entirely apt. I will say that, while I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it did make me yearn for the works of Saki, who basically ratchets the humour up about fifty notches while adding hyenas to the cucumber sandwich parties.

In terms of the Gilmore Girls, I need to just have a giant squee right now because it’s JUST BEEN ANNOUNCED THAT THEY WILL BE DOING AN EIGHTH SEASON ON NETFLIX! And Amy Sherman-Beautiful-Horse-Palladino will be back as writer as well, so maybe we can call it the seventh season and just forget about that entire distressing mess.

Oh my goodness, I’m so excited. I’ll be keeping an eye on updates as they are announced, and MAYBE I WILL DO A SPIN-OFF SERIES OF POSTS WHERE I LIVE BLOG THE NEW SEASON!?!?! I haven’t discussed this with the fat cats upstairs yet, but if you’re reading this it means they didn’t edit it out…

ANYWAY. The Code of the Woosters reminded me a bit of Richard Gilmore, beloved patriarch and problematic head of the Gilmore clan. I feel the Woosters and Richard occupy the same world, in a way. I could even imagine Richard Gilmore, a new-moneyed American, drinking brandy in a summerhouse with them.

But I feel like Richard is never truly taken to task for his part in the break-up of the Gilmore family: his strict business-like and reputation-based rules are what forced his pregnant teenage daughter out of the family. For some reason, Emily Gilmore is the one who bears the brunt of the blame from everyone.

I find Richard to be a strange character. He is definitely painted as loveable, and I always enjoy him so much on-screen that it’s often quite hard to remember his prime characteristics are ‘business shark’ and ‘wealthy dude’, which, you know, is a problem for people like me who earn a living from writing TV recaps. That scene during the flashback to Rory’s birth – where he’s running alongside the stretcher in his painful shoes – is perfect comedy though. I’m very sad that Edward Herrmann will not be in the eighth series, due to him passing away last year. The lack of Richard Gilmore will be extremely sad.

Curious to see the full reading list? You can view it here.