The Clicking of Cuthbert

By: P. G. Wodehouse

Narrated by: Frederick Davidson

Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

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 human brand of humor is perfectly suited to these stories of love, rivalry, revenge, and fulfillment on the links.

While the Oldest Member sits in the clubhouse quoting Marcus Aurelius on patience and wisdom, outside on the green the fiercest human passions burn. All kinds of human life are here, from the cocky professional Sandy McHoots to the shy Ramsden Waters, whose only consolation is golf. Even golf-haters will not be able to resist stories that so perfectly blend physical farce with verbal wit and a gallery of unforgettable characters.

(P)1998 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"[Wodehouse is] a brilliantly funny writer - perhaps the most consistently funny the English language has yet produced." (The Times, London)
"Wodehouse is the greatest comic writer ever." (Douglas Adams)

! Awesome!

Awesome storytelling once again by PG!!
Even if you don't like golf you'll enjoy this read.
The narrator is great!

One more bit of greatness from Wodehouse

How CAN he be so funny? I’m stunned at the high quality of Wodehouse’s enormous body of work (over 90 books). This is an early one, published in 1922, a collection of great golf stories, primarily told by the Oldest Member of the mythical golf clib. Although Frederick Davidson isn’t as good a narrator as Jonathan Cecil, it’s still very good.

Fun short stories

This collection of short stories centered around golf and light hearted romance are fun and funny. Listening to them all at once, as in a long road trip is too much, but taken like sips of fine wine over time, they provide reliable entertainment.

loved it.

such humor and such literary excellence woven together in a dozen Doreen short stories to delight any golfer.

Stick with Bertie and Jeeves

Some funny moments, but not as rich as the Wooster Wodehouse masterpieces. Still, any combination of Wodehouse and Davidson is a treat.

Hilarious! But: poorly edited

This is classic Wodehouse but the editors of the audio left in almost a dozen second takes. Perhaps Audible doesn’t take responsibility, but it took me out of the story.
The reader is ok, but doesn’t have the range of voices others do. That said he has good comedy timing which makes up for almost anything.

beyond my expectations

as a non-golfer I did not really think I'd enjoy this I was wrong I laughed I enjoyed the writing the characters and the stories. good work

Simply Delightful

Very entertaining and worth the purchase price for the narration alone. Although the male-female dynamic is more than a bit antiquated in these short stories, the alternating grace and vicissitudes of the game of golf - as well as its obsessions - are accurately captured as if written the day before yesterday. These are stories at their core about how golfers think about golf, and they are as true now as when they were written. Decades-long devotees of the game will most enjoy the humor and subtleties of this writing. There are, beyond a bit of (possibly) excessive relationship chatter, laugh-out-loud moments in these stories if you truly know what it is to be a golfer.

Needs editing for rereads

As others remark, there are about a dozen rereads that Blackstone did not remove by 1998 nor had Audible by 2006. With modern technology, should be a simple job for an intern. But if the errors are copyrighted, are they permanent? Alas, it’s as in golf that a bad swing can’t be unswung.

I Don't Golf. But I Can't Stop Listening.

Like Kevin, Wodehouse's golf sagas used to leave me a bit tepid. I've only played one complete round of golf in my life and then it was a foursome playing best ball--and the best ball was rarely mine. But that single experience has helped me to understand that Wodehouse speaks sooth: when you DO hit the ball right (and I did once, purely by accident, a low, raking drive that went at least two thirds the distance of the fairway), you really do want to stop everything, untangle yourself and try to recollect what you did right. An impossible assignment, but there it is.

But more than that, though these are "golf stories" I've come to see that they really aren't about golf. They're about people who happen to play golf. Just as the Bertie and Jeeves stories revolve around a young man about town whose main objects in life are doing the done thing and avoiding his relatives, these are humorous tales about people obsessed with getting their score down in the 90's. Steeped in golf, they express their ideas and emotions (from insults to proposals of marriage) almost entirely in terms of golf. It's funny because it's, not so very far from the truth. Just think of any avid golfer you know.

Then, of course, there is Frederick Davidson's languid but never bored or boring delivery. His readings are usually at least an hour longer than those of, say, Jonathan Cecil reading the same book and it is time well spent; Davidson uses it to get all the juice out of every line. Both as a book (one of Wodehouse's best) and a performance (one of Davidson''s best) this is a must-have.