Review: Wodehouse Needs a Pseudonym
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 20, 2013
P.G. Wodehouse's "Love Among the Chickens" surprised me (unfortunately, not in a good way).  The Wodehouse works I've read have all been extremely witty with highly convoluted plots that twist and turn and meet up with themselves in wonderful ways.  Reading "Love Among the Chickens" is like watching a bull in a china shop or like being hit in the face with a blunderbuss.  The whole story is a straight-forward study in painful things happening to people who should know better than to behave the way they do.  There's no subtlety and no wittiness.  The "humor" is almost slapstick.  Technically, though, I can't fault the writing.  Wodehouse's descriptions are wonderful and the characters are done tolerably (even Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge (not the protagonist, but the guy driving that train into wreckage)).  If Wodehouse had used a pseudonym (something like Moe Howard perhaps) so that there weren't certain expectations, then some people might consider the book to be OK.  But, in comparison to the Wodehouse I know, I have to rate it at a Not Very Good 2 stars out of 5.  Definitely not his best work.