The Clicking of Cuthbert
The Clicking of Cuthbert is Wodehouse doing what he does best: taking something dead serious to some people (golf) and revealing the beautiful absurdity beneath. Cuthbert Banks wants to play the game well, win the heart of Adeline Smethurst, and seem clever doing both. The Oldest Member serves up sagely wisdom that is complete bunk, while caddies, club professionals, and lovesick amateurs speak in that deliciously precise Wodehousean way. These ten linked stories blend physical farce on the fairways with sharper verbal comedy and a genuine affection for the game's rituals. The pleasure here is not plot but rhythm: watching pompous voices collide, seeing obsession and romance tangle on the greens, and listening to the master of English comic prose do his work. Even readers who have never held a club will recognize every type here: the one who lectures, the one who pities, the one who cannot stop talking about their handicap.
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“Vladimir specialized in grey studies of hopeless misery, where nothing happened till page 380, when the muzhik decided to commit suicide.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“Oh, praises let us utter To our most glorious King! It fairly makes you stutter To see him start his swing! Success attend his putter! And luck be with his drive! And may he do each hole in two, Although the bogey's five!””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“A man, I felt, who could stay indoors cataloguing vases while his fiancée wandered in the moonlight with explorers deserved all that was coming to him.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“Love is a fever which, so to speak, drives off without wasting time on the address.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
