I reached out a hand from under the blankets, and rang the bell for Jeeves.
“Good evening Jeeves.”
“Good morning, sir.”
This surprised me.
“Is it morning?”
– The Code of the Woosters

I’m going to be perfectly frank with you: you should read more P.G. Wodehouse. If you would accept this now, you would save yourself a lot of time spent reading this silly article, which is quite long and has far too few actual Wodehouse quotations. Also, and this is my central claim, if you start reading right now, you start that much sooner on the path to a better, happier and more tolerant life. Buddhists meditate; Mevlevi Sufis whirl; I read The Code of the Woosters, and I’m a much better person for it.

Of course, it’s likely that many of you already agree with me, at least to some degree. “Perhaps he’s put it a bit strongly,” you say to yourselves, “but he’s on to something.” Many of you have probably soothed yourselves with a good Wooster and Jeeves story – it’s wonderful to escape to a world where the biggest problems are ill-advised engagements, tough-egg aunts, and the possibility that Anatole will hand in his notice. All of these dire threats end up neutralized; Jeeves swoops in to save the day, and everyone (except the aunts) ends the story perfectly and completely happy. Wodehouse’s world is a wonderful Eden, a restful refuge from troubled time. You already know Wodehouse’s power as a purveyor of a happier, simpler world – in other words, as an escapist comic, a masterful one, certainly, but not an author whose writing can inform real life, let alone the metaphysical problems of the human condition.

Some of you think you know better. “Escapist literature!” you exclaim with oxymoronic irony, “Faugh!” Then you break into two camps: first, those who believe that Wodehouse is a sub-par escapist writer, and second, those who believe that Wodehouse is a great writer with sub-par escapist readers. I prefer to believe the first group doesn’t exist, so I will address the second. “Ha!” you say, “Wodehouse is a serious writer, a master of prose, and a fascinating study of a generation trapped in boyhood, alienated from the adult world, sexually repressed and psychologically stunted. His writing engages with real-world problems; his light touch indicates a deep ambivalence about counter-narrative gender discourses etc. etc. etc.”

Meanwhile we’ve pottered off to revive the tissues with an s. and s. We have better things to do than listen to such drivel; you, to borrow Punch’s famous phrase, are taking a spade to a soufflé. Personally, I would indict such people with a criminal lack of humor and send them to Siberia. The idea that living, breathing person being would attempt a ‘serious’ analysis of Wodehouse simply horrifies me. Reading Wodehouse’s biography was bad enough; fortunately, the author had the wisdom to include frequent quotations, which, like the frozen raspberries in my morning bowl of oatmeal, are really the only enjoyable part of the whole thing.

At the same time, however, I believe that Wodehouse offers more than escapist comedies and even more than some of the best English prose ever written. (A side note – everyone who’s anyone believes that Wodehouse is one of the greatest technical writers of all time. See Stephen Fry’s article on Wodehouse if you’re interested about what makes him a Shakes-peer.)

The question, then, is what exactly makes Wodehouse great, if not his language, his perfection of escapism, or any of the serious analytical things (critiques, discourses, problematizing, race/gender/sex, narratives etc.) that make other great writers great?

First answer: go read Wodehouse and figure it out for yourself. I’m not joking. You’ll spare us all a lot of trouble.

Second answer: in Bertie Wooster, Wodehouse captures perfectly the essential limits of human perception in an unlimited universe of infinite complexity.

I’m ashamed of this sentence, and if I haven’t crushed the pastry with a shovel, I’ve at least patted it with a trowel. However, if my claim is true, Wodehouse’s writing represents a remarkable achievement: P.G. Wodehouse, in creating Bertie Wooster’s universe (and all great writers create their own universes), has grasped an essential fact about the nature of the world and the human condition. That more people realize this, I think, is worth a slightly bruised soufflé.

Our lightly-baked egg cake (thanks Wikipedia) will remain, however, only marginally spaded. I have just finished my senior honors thesis on one of my favorite writers, Robert Louis Stevenson, and I feel like a member of the Manhattan Project. Though I acted from the best intentions (to show the world the magic of Stevenson’s villains), I have nonetheless killed some small part of the world’s beauty by reckless use of literary analysis. In explaining the spine-tingling power of these villains, I reduced it to dull analytical terms. Now that I understand them, Stevenson’s villains will never terrify me quite as powerfully as they once did. Fortunately, only three people will ever read my thesis, and since they are already professors of English, their spines have no doubt long since ceased to tingle by excessive exposure to literary criticism (I’d argue, and yes I realize the irony, that any exposure to literary criticism is excessive).

In any case, I will not make this mistake again, though, of course, I will make this mistake again, probably many times before this piece is over. However, I will at least include jokes.

Here’s the first one. Two tiny ants are strolling on a summer evening. It’s a pleasant night: the crickets are humming; the breeze is gentle, and though the moon lies blanketed by clouds, the stars are bright in the sky. One ant turns to her companion and points a wistful funiculus towards the Milky Way (a funiculus, as you know, is a segment of an ant’s antenna). “Look at all those stars,” she says. A brief but thoughtful pause is filled with the soothing sounds of the night. Her companion responds: “Sure makes you feel small.”

This, I recognize, is not a good joke. However, many of us have had a similar experience, and like those ants, our feeling of a highly limited perspective on the universe is a joke far beyond our own understanding. The only difference is that in the ants’ case, their metaphysical wondering is a human joke, whereas our sense of feeling small is a joke for the gods. Imagine – if you were a deity, or at least an angel, with a higher and broader perspective of the celestial spheres, you might tell this same joke, but with humans instead of ants. As we know, however, human beings actually say things like this, as though it’s somehow surprising that we are small, poorly informed, and profoundly unaware of the vast mysteries around us.

Imagine that instead of two ants, we have Bertie Wooster and Madeline Basset. Madeline, fond of asserting that stars are God’s daisy chain, no doubt opens the proceedings. To continue, we refer toRight Ho, Jeeves:

“Oh, look at that sweet little star up there all by itself.’
I saw the one she meant, a little chap operating in a detached sort of way above a spinney.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I wonder if it feels lonely.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so.’
‘A fairy must have been crying.’
‘Eh?’
‘Don’t you remember? ‘Every time a fairy sheds a tear, a wee bit star is born in the Milky Way.’ Have you ever thought that, Mr. Wooster?’
I never had. Most improbable, I considered, and it didn’t seem to me to check up with her statement that the stars were God’s daisy chain. I mean, you can’t have it both ways.”

Before we dive into the textual analysis, please read that a couple of times. Enjoy it. Acknowledge the perfection of Bertie’s inner monologue and comic timing. Accept Wodehouse’s mastery of punctuation and the note the influence of Jeeves’s vocabulary on Bertie’s voice. Pay special attention to Bertie’s “Eh?”. Laugh, then take a deep breath. Chuckle again. Good. Now, let’s move on to an important question: what is the essential difference between this conversation about the stars and that of the ants?

I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Madeline. Madeline could well be one of the ants; she sees the sky, and searches for a metaphysical interpretation of its vastness. Facing infinity, she feels the same discomfort the ants feel, and she seeks to make sense of it. The stars, to her, are fairy tears or God’s daisy chain or possibly both. As Bertie points out, the jury’s still out on that particular count.

Bertie, however, is fundamentally different than the ants, and (I argue) than all but the wisest humans. He sees the sky, and he, like everyone else, is befuddled. He can’t grasp infinity any more than your average arthropod and/or primate. He seriously evaluates Madeline’s assertions – he doesn’t think the isolated star is lonely, and nor does he think that stars are fairy tears. Crucially, however, he’s not sure. Unlike Pumba, who asserts to Timone (I refer, of course, to The Lion King) that stars are great balls of burning gas millions of miles away, only to be laughed at and then see his error corrected with Simba’s nonsense about the stars being the great kings of the past, Bertie is willing to accept any and all theories about the stars. It’s “most improbable” that the stars are fairy tears, but it’s certainly not impossible. He doesn’t think it’s likely that the “little chap” is lonely, but beyond that he’s “operating in a detached sort of way,” Bertie has no idea what to make of him, nor of the stars or the infinity of the universe or the human condition in general. He’s befuddled by all human attempts to solve the vast and essentially intractable problems. His statement on Madeline’s theories applies much more broadly to all of humankind’s various mutually-exclusive understandings of the universe: “I mean, you can’t have it both ways.”

Bertie, after all, is the kind of man who can mistake morning for evening. When Jeeves informs him of his mistake, Bertie claims to be surprised, but his tone indicates otherwise. In Bertie’s world, this seemingly impossible mix-up is completely plausible. He knows that he doesn’t know much, and he’s always prepared to consider the possibility that he knows nothing at all.

This, I think, captures an essential and ancient truth about the human condition. The oracle at Delphi called Socrates the wisest man in the world, for only Socrates was wise enough to know the extent of his ignorance – he, the ultimate skeptic, knew nothing, and was able to admit it. There is an element of Socrates in Bertie Wooster; perpetually befuddled and confused, he accepts the intractable and ineffable mysteries of human existence for what they are: mysteries beyond human comprehension. To be fair, Bertie can neither tract nor eff a good number of rather straightforward, everyday problems, but then neither could Socrates. The point still stands, what?

With the possible exception of terrifyingly certain ideologues, we can all relate to Bertie. Every person I’ve ever met has doubts about their understanding of the world; we all feel confused and unable to understand the world around us at times. When we read P.G. Wodehouse, we see in Bertie a parody of ourselves, and when we see his confusion, we come face to face with the limits of our knowledge in an ineffable universe. A laugh-line in Wodehouse brings the reader to the edge of the existential void. There is no response but to laugh or cry, but when we see Bertie accept his fate with a good-natured tolerance, we laugh, and in so doing, accept our place in the universe just a bit more easily.

Reading P.G. Wodehouse fills me with laughter and inexpressible joy; in Bertie’s recognition of the absurdity of life, I feel a profound peace. Like Uncle Tom after one of Anatole’s masterpieces, I overflow with the milk of human kindness. I accept others more readily; I seek out the company of those I love and feel more willing to love those I don’t. In other words, I feel myself becoming more like Bertie. I argue that is a very positive thing: Bertie may not be the brightest member of the Drones Club, but he is tolerant, kind and fun. He stands directly opposed to Spode’s violent certainty (i.e. fascism) and Aunt Agatha’s cruelly repressive respectability. He accepts everyone as they are; he wants everyone to happy.

Of course you have objections. “But what about Bertie’s misogyny?” you ask, and I agree that this is a troubling exception. I can’t fully condone his diatribes against women, but I can give you two partial rebuttals: first, Bertie may say a lot of unpleasant things about women, but he never incorporates them into his behavior, and indeed many of the scenes in which he criticizes the fairer sex are strikingly symmetrical in their treatment of Bertie and the female participant. Second, no one is perfect, especially when they are characters written in the 1930s. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Here’s another objection. “But,” I see you saying, “it’s easy to accept the random meaninglessness of the universe when your valet is a semi-divine omnipotent being. Jeeves knows all, and he always saves the day. Bertie doesn’t really accept the mysteries of the universe; he simply puts his faith in Jeeves.”

This is an excellent point. Jeeves is semi-divine, and his knowledge is more or less complete. Bertie, and especially Bertie’s pals, frequently use religious or supernatural language to describe him, and he does, indeed, always save the day. After making a bad situation much, much worse, Bertie will often say that it’s time to turn to a higher power – Jeeves. One might conclude that the message of these stories is to always put one’s faith in a higher power; when confronted with a problem of human existence, simply pray. Give up the attempt to understand the universe. These things are beyond human understanding, after all – why waste our time trying to figure them out?

If Jeeves is God, however, Bertie is not much of a believer. He frequently doubts Jeeves, and even defies him. Bertie often tries to solve problems without his gentleman’s gentleman, and while he’s never successful, it’s not (always) entirely obvious why Jeeves’s schemes work and Bertie’s do not. Bertie, in other words, never stops trying to grapple with the world; though he has Jeeves to fall back on, he pushes into the unknown all the same. Sometimes (all the time), the existential void proves too much for him, and Jeeves is necessary. What Jeeves shows us is that there is no shame in this; it is entirely acceptable to appeal to a higher power when thoroughly befuddled.

There’s nothing wrong with that. No one is strong enough to be Camus’ absurd hero; no one would want to be him even if they were. All too often, human’s response to intractable uncertainty is repression of doubt and compensatory certitude; this is how we ended with the Spanish inquisition, homophobia, and Nazis among many other horrible things. What is better, Bertie Wooster suggests, is to do your best in grappling with our essential questions, accept our limits when they appear, and don’t worry too much about falling back on a higher power – just don’t expect them to cure you of your doubt and befuddlement. Those are essential characteristics of the human condition; do what you need to do to accept it. And, most importantly, be sure to laugh about the absurdity of it all.

There’s one more suggestion I’d like to make. No doubt many of you have perfectly functional high powers – Gods, ancestors, and the Golden Rule, for example. I’d just like to add one more: P.G. Wodehouse. I’ve written about Bertie Wooster, but what I’ve discussed is a fundamental feature of Wodehouse’s writing in general. Read the Blandings stories, or Psmith’s (“the p is silent as in phthisis, psychic, and ptarmigan”), or Ukridge’s or any of Wodehouse’s 80 something books. Some are more successful than others, but all share at least a nugget of this basic absurdity. Reading Wodehouse, as I’ve claimed, can be a form of religious meditation by laughter; please try it for yourself. Clearly, you have too much time on your hands – after all, you’ve just read five pages whose summary could be three words: read more Wodehouse. Let’s let Pelham Grenville take us out:

“The door closed and I switched off the light. For some moments I lay there listening to the measured tramp of Constable Oates’s feet and thinking of Gussie and Madeline Basset and of Stiffy and old Stinker Pinker, and of the hotsy-totsiness which now prevailed in their love lives. I also thought of Uncle Tom being handed the cow-creamer and of Aunt Dahlia seizing the psychological moment and nicking him for a fat check for Milady’s Boudoir. Jeeves was right, I felt. The snail was on the wing and the lark on the thorn – or, rather, the other way round – and God was in His heaven and all was right with the world.
And presently the eyes closed, the muscles relaxed, the breathing became soft and regular, and sleep, which does something which has slipped my mind to the something of sleeve of care, poured over me like a healing wave.”

– The Code of the Woosters