For Want of an Ending

Love among the Chickens started off with a bang.  After the first third, I was beginning to wonder if it was going to become my favorite Wodehouse book (not that I have one, officially.  I initially decided to retain judgment until all of the contestants had presented themselves).  Two bits in particular caught my fancy, which, in context, had me giggling helplessly.  Should this happen more often, I suspect that my fellow Commuter Rail passengers might have me committed.  The first was the description of a chase between the narrator and a particularly vile member of the poultry race called Aunt Elizabeth.  He was taxed a considerable amount by this hen, although he had tried to remain a gentleman about the entire ordeal, until:
“I am not a violent or quick-tempered man, but I have my self-respect.  I will not be sneered at by hens.”  p. 49

The second was the description of a cold dinner that was to be served to our heroes:

“A huge cheese faced us in almost a swashbuckling way.  I do not know how else to describe it.  It wore a blatant, rakish, nemo-me-impune-lacessit air, and I noticed that the professor shivered slightly as he saw it.”  p. 65

The rest of the book, which introduced the character Ukridge, whom Wodehouse would write about later on in his career, trots along merrily.  The narrator, an author based in London looking for a diversion from the city, agrees to start a chicken farm with him.  The story is told in first-person narration, and it was difficult to separate this character from the young Wodehouse.  Given that it was written in 1906, perhaps Wodehouse injected a bit of himself into the character.  He does not reach the imbecilic height of Bertie Wooster, although, by agreeing to start a farm with a dubious person, one detects a sense of whimsy.

The problem that I had with the book was that the ending was flat.  Endings are difficult things, in life as in writing.  Oddly enough, I have been thinking a lot about ending recently because I am going through a slew of them on both the personal and professional fronts, which is a bit disconcerting, to say the least.  The thing about a book, unlike life, is that one has control over the ending.  Wodehouse normally leaves you firm in the knowledge of what happened to the characters.  This time around, I was not so certain that the object of the narrator’s affections would keep their engagement, owing to certain events that concern the dissolution of the farm (I would write spoiler alert, but, honestly, the novel is over a century old.  It’s akin to having to stop yourself from telling people not to become too attached to Anna Karenina.).  Then there was the idea that the narrator probably really should be getting back to London, although that was not mentioned.  It sort of drifted off, instead of, like many an American Olympic gymnast, sticking a firm landing.  One reason that I think crime procedurals are so popular is that there is a finality that people rarely get in everyday life.  One knows what happens, and moves on.  I did not appreciate the sense of being dangled at the end, and this was what took Love among the Chickens out of the favorite Wodehouse tome race, despite a strong early showing.