The Mating Season by PG Wodehouse Review

‘Tis Spring, aka the mating season, and love is in the country air with one upper class character secretly pining for another upper class character who secretly pines for, etc. etc. Meanwhile, thanks to a boozy night out culminating in an impromptu dip in the Trafalgar Square fountains, Bertie Wooster must pretend to be his chum in the slammer - but when said chum makes it out and back to Bertie, he must pretend to be Bertie and Bertie must keep up the ruse. Oh, the plummy merriment of it all - Jeeves to the rescue!

All things arty are subjective, especially humour, and, I’ve tried, but I don’t find PG Wodehouse funny despite the literal pages and pages of quotes from dozens of famous - some even funny themselves - people and publications praising his wit that appear at the start of my edition of this novel. Right Ho, Jeeves didn’t do much for me (and even had a similar plot) and neither has The Mating Season.

I think I know why people like Wodehouse and the Jeeves and Wooster series: it’s basically a popular sitcom in book form. I’ve only read two novels but both had basically the same plot and I’m going to hazard that the formula doesn’t stray too far in the other J&W novels either - and unchallenging, familiar storylines are a mainstay of popular sitcoms.

The same characters do the same things every time, the stories start and end in the same place (this is why you don’t need to really follow the convoluted plot as it doesn’t matter), the stories are never tense and the stakes are essentially nonexistent, so the reader won’t feel the slightest amount of stress - oh yes, and then the barrage of unfunny jokes arising from the situational comedy (usually Bertie finding himself in some silliness which Jeeves magically resolves in good time).

I can see why people like Wodehouse’s novels and why Jeeves and Wooster in particular are so beloved. There’s a certain charm to the daffiness of the upper class characters. And I genuinely enjoyed Wodehouse’s very unusual syntax - I’m kicking myself for not noting down a few examples that stood out to me, and I can’t find them from flicking through my copy now, but the book is full of them. The pages do fly by as well - the prose is very accessible and smooth, despite being over 75 years old at this point.

But the stories just aren’t that memorable or interesting and the jokes didn’t do anything for me. I’ve read older writers like Oscar Wilde and laughed at the jokes in his plays and stories, so I think Wodehouse’s humour is just not my taste. I’m told Right Ho, Jeeves and The Mating Season are up there as some of Wodehouse’s best books and gems of the Jeeves and Wooster series and I wasn’t that impressed with either so this writer and his novels, as undeniably beloved as they are, simply aren’t for me. More The Big Bang Theory than Fawlty Towers unfortunately.