Review: Divots

Divots by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

UK title: The Heart of a Goof.

Only P.G. Wodehouse could tempt me to read a book of stories about golf and then make me enjoy it (though he didn't pull off the, I suspect impossible, feat of making me actually interested in the game as such). He does this by his wonderfully farcical writing, and by making the stories not really about golf; instead, they're about people who happen to be obsessed with golf, but who also have other conflicts going on (mostly romantic in nature), with which their obsession is somehow intertwined.

As usual in Wodehouse, these characters generally have no jobs to distract from their participation in the plot; they're either retired businessmen or people who apparently enjoy private incomes large enough that they can play golf all the time. (They're not necessarily filthy rich, but at least comfortably off.)

All of the stories have a frame which involves the golf club's Oldest Member buttonholing another member of the club, in the style of the Ancient Mariner, and insisting on telling him the story despite his obvious reluctance for the role of auditor. It's an extra bit of fun. (My father was also an enthusiastic raconteur, who was equally impossible to prevent from telling his stories, and it brought back fond memories of him.)

The stories originally appeared in magazines on both sides of the Atlantic, but the author still manages to make several of them sequels of each other. He cleverly does this by having the Oldest Member tell them to the same person, who says (after the first one), "You already told me that one," and summarizes the previous story's plot. The Oldest Member then informs him that this is a different story involving the same people, and proceeds from the point at which the previous story left off. This makes for a nice reminder for someone who had read the previous story in an earlier issue of the same magazine, and orients anyone who missed the earlier story too.

The stories themselves are pretty classic Wodehouse; the stakes are never any higher than a successful romance, and often lower than that, but whatever they are he makes them feel vitally important just by how much the characters care about them. There are misunderstandings, miscommunications, worms who turn, and even a cad reformed. It's enjoyable light comedy, skillfully executed.

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