No book by P. G. Wodehouse is forgotten, but maybe you haven't read this one recently. I have, so I thought I'd remind you to read some Wodehouse if you need a good laugh or if you just want to appreciate a master at work.Have you ever tried to summarize the plot of a Wodehouse novel? It wouldn't be easy, and I'm not even going to try. I'll just tell you that the precipitating incidents. The first occurs at Blandings Castle, where Alaric, the Duke of Dunstable, who could use some anger management training, decides to take the Empress of Blandings (a pig, as seen on the left) away from the somewhat dim-witted Lord Emsworth. The second involves Horace Pendlebury-Davenport, who loses the affections of his sweetheart when he has her tailed by a private-eye, Claude "Mustard" Pott. The sweetheart is Valerie Twistleton, sister of Pongo Twistleton, who decides to enlist his uncle Fred to straighten matters out. Uncle Fred, who is, like Odysseus, never at a loss, is always at his best in the springtime, or so he believes, and the game is afoot, with impersonations, misunderstandings, and more complications than any three other books written by lesser mortals. At one point even Uncle Fred is momentarily boggled. But only mometarly, for in the springtime he is always able to scatter sweetness and light.
If you've read Wodehouse before (as who hasn't?), I don't have to tell you how amusing all this can be, especially when told in Wodehouse's impeccable prose. If you haven't read Wodehouse before, what are you waiting for?
11 comments:
Bill, I love Wodehouse no matter how stereotyped his humour is, and Blandings novels are my favourite among all his works. I also like his short stories.
Love Wodehouse! And, you're right: his novels are almost impossible to summerize.
I've never read this time but I'm a huge fan of Uncle Fred so need to remedy that.
And speaking of Wodehouse, did you know there was a musical BY JEEVES written by Alan Ayckbourn and Andrew Lloyd Webber? We saw it in London in 1996.
I'm sure it was an excellent musical. But I'm not so sure about a singing Jeeves and Bertie.
Frankly, I don't have much memory of it at all. But with the help of Wikipedia:
In 1996, Lloyd Webber and Ayckbourn decided to revisit the show, jettisoning most of the score and the entire original book. Retitled By Jeeves (so as to dispel all previous associations with the original production), the character of Roderick Spode and his fascistic intentions were eliminated from the plot. The character list was whittled down from 22 to 10, and the original orchestrations also underwent a reduction to a little band. Only three songs from the original show remained lyrically intact: "Banjo Boy", "Half a Moment" and "Travel Hopefully". The other songs and musical interludes were mostly new or reworked compositions by Lloyd Webber.
I knew I hadn't remembered it as being much of a musical, more incidental music than a lot of songs.
Jeff
Uncle Fred Flits By is, in my estimation, the most perfect comic story ever written.
Art Scott
I think I've mentioned that I've seen John Lithgow perform "Uncle Fred Flits By." Great story, fine performance.
And it's still n print! (It's also available in electrons, but I'm not sure one should read Wodehouse that way.) And I already have a copy! (Have for 8-10 years now.)
This one had been around for a while, too.
One of my favorites--and with Wodehouse, that's saying a lot.
And ain't it a shame John Cleese never got to play PG ?
Evelyn Waugh wrote best genius-to-genius praise that I have ever seen, and it was quite clear that Waugh thought Wodehouse to be the Master genius.
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