This is the first of a series I plan to post chronicling my reading of P G Wodehouse's Blandings Castle Saga. This instalment reviews the first three books in the saga, beginning with the 1915 Something Fresh, aka in America, Something New. In this review and subsequent ones I will be using the covers done by the artist Ionicus whenever possible, as he is my favorite Wodehouse artist.
The series includes 10 novels, and nine short stories spread out over four short story collection written between 1914 and 1972. I am missing only one short story, "Birth of a Salesman." in Nothing Serious.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
Something Fresh (a.k.a Something New) by P. G. Wodehouse B
This is the first Blandings Castle book written while in America in 1914 and it set the pattern for the series. It opens with an introduction to Ashe Marson, a 26 year old enthusiast of physical health who is living in a London boarding house, making a meager living by writing the monthly adventures of Gridley Quayle, Investigator for the Mammoth Publishing Company, a job which he finds like being "chained to some horrible monster." Early on he meets a pretty girl by the name of Joan Valentine who just moved into his boarding and discovers that she is a "comrade in misfortune" a fellow writer who writers a short story every month for Home Gossip magazine from the same publisher. Joan has done a number of things since her wealthy father died included working on stage, and is more or less broke as well. Being a can-do person, she urges Ashe to act if he is so dissatisfied with his job.
We are then introduced to Freddie Treepwood, the younger son of Lord Emesworth, who is engaged to Aline Peters, the daughter of a wealthy retired American business man. He fears that letters he sent to Joan Valentine when she was on the stage might be used to sue him for breach of promise and wreck his change of marriage, so hires a rather shady fellow to visit her to recover those letters (which she had already destroyed). Meanwhile, his very absent minded father visits the home of Mr Peters who shows him his collection of Egyptian scarabs. Mr Peters is called away for a moment during this process, leaving Lord Emsworth alone, who absently pockets the very valuable scarab that he had been when Mr Peters was called away holding, and leaves with it. Mr Peters believes that he stole it, and wants it back, and is willing to pay $5000 to recover it. Ashe, remembering Joan's urging to do something else if he hates writing the Gridley Quayle stories, answers a newspaper ad and is hired by Mr Peters to accompany him in his visit to Blandings Castle acting as his valet to steal the scarab back. Joan, an old friend of Aline Peters from her more affluent days, also wants to collect the reward and travels to Blandings as Aline's maid for that purpose as well. We also have staying at Blandings, one George Emerson, who is in love with Aline and urges her to ditch Freddie. And with that, we have the pattern of the saga set; people visiting Blandings Castle as imposters for various reasons with various star-crossed lovers in need of money.
Wodehouse plots are very intricate, so I won't go any further into it, save that we meet several of the regulars in this first volume, including Beach, the butler and Lord Emsworth's private secretary, the "Efficient Baxter." Lady Ann Warblington is the sister of Lord Emsworth living with him in this story, but she is replaced by the formidable Aunt Constance Keeble in all subsequent stories. This story is also set in the spring, while all subsequent ones are set in an endless summer. Market Blandings is said to be 5 miles distant in this story, when in latter books it is a more convenient, and walkable, distance away at 2 miles.
Up until this story, Wodehouse had been selling his stories to lower paying magazines, but he sold this one to George Horace Lorimer of the Saturday Evening Post for "the stupefying sum of $3,500." As he wrote in the preface; "I had always known in a vague sort of way that there was money like $3500 in the world, but I had never expected to touch it. If I was a hundred bucks ahead of the game in those days, I thought I was doing well." He went on to sell the magazine rights of many of his stories to the Saturday Evening Post for decades to come. He would not write another Blandings Castle book until 1922, eight years later.
Free Gutenberg edition of Something New: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2042
Leave it to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse B+
Leave it to Psmith marks the fourth story the character of (Rupert or Ronald) Psmith appears in. He made is debut in 1909 as a sidekick character for Mike Jackson in the school story "The Lost Lambs" that Wodehouse wrote for The Captain magazine and later published as the novel Mike and Psmith. (Available on Gutenberg.) He then appeared in two more stories for the Captain, which were published as Psmith in the City (1910) and Psmith, Journalist (1915) before appearing in this story. Wodehouse has said that Psmith is the only character drawn from real life, a school mate of this cousin - one of the sons of Richard D'Oyly Carte of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, either Rupert or Lucas.
In this 1923 story, the second in the Blandings Castle saga, we find Psmith... Never mind. I had written a hundred plus words and had just scratched the surface of the set-up for this novel. Wodehouse books are constructed like clockworks, as one of the characters would say, "wheels within wheels," and to just describe the various various wheels without even setting them into motion would make for an essay in itself. Let's just say that Aunt Connie sent Lord Emsworth to London to collect a Canadian Poet, and returns with Psmith, pretending to be that poet because he wanted to follow a girl he had just met, who had been hired to catalog the Blandings Castle library. Freddie Treepwood needs money, and so does Aunt Connie's husband, Keeble, who is dominated by Aunt Connie, to the extent that he can't call his own money his own. They devise a plan to steal Aunt Connie's valuable diamond necklace to get that money. Keeble would replace the necklace, of course, but use the proceeds from the stolen one to help out his step daughter and her husband who just happen to be old friends of Psmith... And so it goes... As I said, wheels within wheels... All the usual suspects are present, including Aunt Connie's protégé, the Efficient Baxter as Lord Emsworth's private secretary whose suspicion must be foiled...
In Something Fresh you see the beginnings of the Wodehouse's musical comedy without music style, and in Leave it to Psmith, it is almost perfected; snappy, intricately woven, tightly paced scenes that have all the characters pursuing their various schemes, however ineptly.
In this novel Lord Emsworth sister Lady Ann Warblington is replaced by the formidable Lady Constance Keeble, aka Aunt Connie, and I don't believe Lady Ann appears again, though Lord Emsworth seems to have a lot of other sisters to produce the necessary nieces and nephews, including Julia Fish, and Lady Charlotte, who is said the be even a tougher egg than Lady Constance. Aunt Connie's husband makes his only appearance in this story, and in later stories she is said to be widowed.
Free Gutenberg edition of Leave it to Psmith: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60067
Blandings Castle, (a.k.a Blandings Castle and Elsewhere) by P. G. Wodehouse B
There are a dozen short stories in this collection, of which six are part of the Blanding Castle saga, to wit;
"The Custody of the Pumpkin" concerns Lord Emsworth prize pumpkin and Freddie's secret new girl friend, Aggie (Niagara) Donaldson, who is sort of a cousin to his gardener Angus McAllister. When Lord Emsworth learns of this, he fires Angus because he won't send Aggie away. But he soon comes to regret it for his pumpkin's sake - this story being before the pig, Empress of Blanding, takes center state as Lord Emsworth pride and joy. In this story Freddie elopes with Aggie, who turns out to be the daughter of a millionaire of Donaldson's Dog-Biscuits fame. And much to Lord Emsworth's relief, Freddie is off to America to help his new father-in-law sell dog biscuits.
"Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best" In this story, set eight months later, Lord Emsworth has grown a beard and Freddie is back in England selling dog biscuits and is on the outs with Aggie because of his effort to sell a movie script by taking out a actress to dinner.
"Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey! in which the Empress of Blandings makes her first appearance as a contender for the silver medal in Shrophshire's 87th annual Agricultural Show's Fat Pig class. Just ten days before the show Lord Emworth's pig man gets locked up in jail, and the Empress is off her feed, sending Lord Emworth to London to find a substitute pig man. Meanwhile his niece, Angela has broken off an engagement with Lord Heacham and intends to marry a neighbor, James Belford, who is back from spending several years in America where he worked on a in Nebraska farm. Lord Emsworth tries to discourage James, but in explaining his concern for the Empress, James explains that the pig is pining away for his jailed pig man and probably misses his special afternoon call for dinner, because "Pigs are temperamental. Omit to call them, and they'll starve rather than put on the nose-bag. Call them right, and they will follow you to the ends of the earth with their mouths watering." He teaches Lord Emsworth the "master word", i.e. the title of the story. And, in the end, when Lord Emsworth doesn't get it quite right, uses it to get the Empress to feeding again, thus winning the hand of Angela in marriage.
"Company for Gertrude" in which Freddie, still in England promoting his father-in-law's dog-biscuit business works to get his aunt Georgiana, the owner of "four Pekes, two Poms, a Yorkshire terrier, five Sealyhams, a Borzol, and an Airedale" to try Donaldson's Dog-Joy biscuits figuring that her patronage would be good for business. Freddie meets an old university friend, now Rev. Rupert "Beefy" Bingham, who wants to marry another niece of Lord Emsworth, Gertrude, but doesn't have enough money to satisfy Aunt Connie. Gertrude is in exile at Blandings Castle. "The family seems to look on the place as sort of Bastille. Whenever the young of the species make a floater like falling in love with the wrong man, they are always shot off to Blandings to recover." Freddie sends Beefy to Blandings to get on Lord Emsworth's good side, since Lord Emsworth has the power to hire ministers for several churches in the countryside. If Beefy could land one of those, he could make the case of being able to marry Gertrude.
"The Go-getter" continues the story line in "Company for Gertrude" taking it to is happy conclusion, with various alarms and excursions involving dogs.
"Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend" In this story, Lord Emsworth is expected to attend, in top hat and stiff collar, the "August Bank Holiday Saturnalia at Blandings Castle" i.e. the Blandings Parva School Treat. Upset after another confrontation with Angus McAllister about paving the yew alley with gravel, and having to wear a top hat and stiff collar, he is in the process of judging the cottage gardens of Blandings Parva, one of the event's contests, when he meets a young girl of 12 or 13, one of the London Air children that had been sent to the countryside from London's East End for a time to experience nature. She commands a dog to stop growling at Lord Emsworth, and goes on to say that she had picked some flowers from "up at the big 'ahse. Coo! The old josser the plice belongs to didn't arf chase me. 'E found me picking 'em and 'e sharted somefin at me and came runnin' after me, but I copped 'im on the shin wiv a stone and 'e stopped to rub it and I came away." Lord Emswoth's "mind was so filled with admiration and gratitude" on hearing how she treated McAllister right just after his tussle with him, takes her under his wing, showing her his garden, letting her pick all the flowers she wants, and treats her to a very fine meal, sending food more for her brother. A very sweet story.
Enough for now, more Blandings stories soon.
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