The Clicking of Cuthbert by P.G. Wodehouse

Published by Everyman, 2002, hardcover, 224 pages, condition: new.

Who but P.G. Wodehouse could have extracted high comedy from the most noble and ancient game of golf? And who else could have combined this comedy with a real appreciation of the game, drawn from personal experience? Wodehouse's brilliant but humane brand of humour is perfectly suited to these stories of love, rivalry, revenge and fulfilment on the links. While the oldest member sits inside the clubhouse quoting Marcus Aurelius on patience and wisdom, outside on the green the strongest human passions burn. All human life is here, from Sandy McHoots, the cocky professional, to shy Ramsden Waters, whose only consolation in life is golf. Even golf-haters will not be able to resist stories which perfectly combine physical farce and verbal wit with a gallery of unforgettable characters.

In the days of King Arthur nobody thought the worse of a young knight if he suspended all his social and business engagements in favour of a search for the Holy Grail. In the Middle Ages a man could devote his whole life to the Crusades, and the public fawned upon him. Why, then, blame the man of today for a zealous attention to the modern equivalent, the Quest of Scratch! *

P.G. Wodehouse, who was an avid Golfer himself, thus describes the devotion for the sport felt by one of the characters from a story, which appear in this anthology of ten short stories, all written with a golfing theme. The Clicking of Cuthbert, published in 1922, is the first book in the golf series, which presents the reader with humorous tales pivoting around golfers and golfing adventures.

Each of these golf stories are narrated by a central character named Oldest Member just like Mr. Mulliner from the Mulliner stories series who over drinks, either at the smoking room or terrace of an unnamed golf club house, shares the anecdotes about golfers to the fellow club members as inspiration. In these stories the reader will come across some of the most amusing comical situations penned by Wodehouse.

In the title story The Clicking of Cuthbert, we meet Cuthbert Banks, an amateur golfer and a resident of Wood Hills, a picturesque settlement that was going through a bitter rivalry between the local literary society and the local Golf club. When the literary society was having one of its sessions at Mrs. Smethurst's house, which stood near to the golf links, a shot taken by Cuthbert foozles and the ball accidentally smashes through the window of the house and narrowly miss hitting the chief guest of the session Raymond Parsloe Devine, a rapidly rising young novelist. Cuthbert goes inside Mrs. Smethursts house to play his ball from where it lay, and meets Adeline, the most beautiful girl he has ever met and instantly falls in love. But Adeline loathes golfers and is in search for an intellectual person and she is full of adoration for Raymond.

Cuthbert joins the literary society to impress Adeline, and this leads to further hilarious moments. At the time of his joining, the literary society was studying works by Vladimir Brusiloff - a Russian novelist who specialized in gray studies of hopeless misery and in whose books nothing happened till page 380 and Cuthbert who hasnt read anything other than golf guides soon find himself sitting painfully through these sessions, while watching Adeline and her fascination for Raymond.

These descriptions of Cuthbert sitting in his usual place in a distant corner where, while able to feast his gaze on Adeline, he had a sporting chance of being overlooked or mistaken for a piece of furniture is laced with good Wodehousian humor. The reader can also detect some fine samples of Wodehouses ability to evoke laughter through punchy dialogs within this short story. From a setting when all odds are against Cuthbert, Wodehouse shows his mastery in weaving intertwined comical events and reversals of fortunes, which drives the story of Cuthbert and Adeline ahead and the reader is left with the sensation of pure delight. Even though this formula of evoking humor from a mishmash of comical situations and confusion arising out of misunderstanding is a common attribute of Wodehouse tales, his talent in making each of the stories loaded with fresh humor is applaudable.

The stories A Mixed Threesome and Sundered Hearts presents the reader with the adventures of Mortimer Sturgis, the man who took up Golf at 38 and who then left the girl he was engaged to because he hadnt the time to combine Golf with his courtship, a series of confusions and pandemonium finally leading to his marriage. The anthology has seven more stories, with each offering its own share of eccentric characters, funny situations and dialog based comedy, which offered a highly enjoyable reading experience. In these stories the reader can easily detect the flair associated with Wodehousian tales as they are from an era when Wodehouse was already a skilled writer.

These lightweight stories are perfectly recommended for relaxed, fun reading. Even though these stories have a lot of golfing jargon, you dont have to be a Golf fan to fully enjoy these stories.