A Pelican at Blandings

Rating:
Summary: Imposters Find True Love!
Review: Blandings Castle in Shropshire is known for two things. First, Clarence, the ninth earl of Emsworth, has a prize pig, the Empress of Blandings, upon whom he devotes all of his limited skills and attention. Second, imposters are always trying to sneak into Blandings Castle to further either their romantic adventures or their wallets. In both cases, Clarence's very proper sister, Constance (Connie to the family), is on the lookout to thwart both activities. Things usually sort themselves out, but that sorting out usually requires the skill and tact of Clarence's brother, the Honorable Galahad (Gally) Threepwood, who learned how to have fun and get the most out of life as a young man when he belonged to the old Pelican Club.

In A Pelican at Blandings, Clarence has been living peacefully with his pig for two years after Connie married an American and moved to New York. Suddenly, Connie is back and begins ordering Clarence around and filling Blandings Castle with her guests. Along the way, she plans a little matchmaking that goes awry. One of the guests has a niece who wants to marry Gally's God son while the uncle is opposed. Before the book ends, there are wedding bells and Clarence is able to go back to his pig.

But in the meantime, there are the sorts of misunderstandings, plots and counterplots of the sort that make Wodehouse reading so enjoyable in their parlor comedy way. Unfortunately, this book pales in comparison with other books about Blandings Castle so I graded it down accordingly. If you only read one of these books, I recommend Pigs Have Wings instead.

I listened to the audio version by Frederick Davidson and enjoyed his reading. It was a five stars effort!

Rating:
Summary: Pure entertainment all the way.
Review: Blandings Castle, Shropshire, England, is the setting for many of Wodehouse's comic extravaganzas. Accommodated in many of its 52 bedrooms is a varied collection of dotty relatives of Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth. Clarence himself, dottier than any of them, dotes on the Empress of Blandings, an enormous prize-winning sow, and is usually to be seen, day or night, leaning over the wall of her sty. Nagged by his sister Connie, bewildered by his many American visitors and in-laws, and dazed by the complicated comings and goings of the many moon-faced young men and dizzy young damsels whom he encounters in the castle and its grounds, he is steered safely through life by a dedicated butler.

Of course it all means nothing at all, and the characters are no more than comic cartoon figures, but the quality of the writing is superb. Metaphors, similes, classical allusions, sparkling dialogue - you'll find every component of stylish writing on display here.

If you are lucky enough to be able to buy, beg, borrow or download Nigel Lambert's reading of the text in audio book form, you'll find every component of the art of book reading on display also. All this makes an ideal entrée into the world of P G Wodehouse, in particular to many entertaining hours at Blandings Castle.

Rating:
Summary: Pure entertainment all the way.
Review: Blandings Castle, Shropshire, England, is the setting for many of Wodehouse's comic extravaganzas. Accommodated in many of its 52 bedrooms is a varied collection of dotty relatives of Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth. Clarence himself, dottier than any of them, dotes on the Empress of Blandings, an enormous prize-winning sow, and is usually to be seen, day or night, leaning over the wall of her sty. Nagged by his sister Connie, bewildered by his many American visitors and in-laws, and dazed by the complicated comings and goings of the many moon-faced young men and dizzy young damsels whom he encounters in the castle and its grounds, he is steered safely through life by a dedicated butler.

Of course it all means nothing at all, and the characters are no more than comic cartoon figures, but the quality of the writing is superb. Metaphors, similes, classical allusions, sparkling dialogue - you'll find every component of stylish writing on display here.

If you are lucky enough to be able to buy, beg, borrow or download Nigel Lambert's reading of the text in audio book form, you'll find every component of the art of book reading on display also. All this makes an ideal entrée into the world of P G Wodehouse, in particular to many entertaining hours at Blandings Castle.

Rating:
Summary: Practically Perfect in Every Way
Review: I don't think that Wodehouse wrote a book that I would not give a 10 to. Certainly none set at Blandings Castle. Blandings is the ancestral home of Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, a scatterbrained man whose only true interest is his prize pig, the Empress of Blandings. The Pelican of the title is Galahad Threepwood, Lord Emsworth's younger brother and a former member of the Pelican Club. The Efficient Baxter does not appear in this particular book, but it does feature several impostors (which are common at Blandings), Lady Constance, the Earl's imperious sister, and two enormously complicated love affairs. Although that is more or less a description of any of Wodehouse's books (some have three or four love affairs) it doesn't make any of them less worth reading. He writes with wonderful humor and doesn't bother you with anything like social commentary.

Rating:
Summary: Middling Wodehouse, But a Gem Nonetheless!
Review: No, there are no fish-eating avians at Lord Emsworth's crenellated castle. There are, however, a plethora of plots involving two lovesick damsels and their beaux, a porcine pig-fancier, a walrus-mastachioed duke, the usual crocodilian sister, and, of course, the very obliging Galahad Treepwood. Oh, and there are numerous impostors, including a fake painting.

There are, in fact, so many subplots that the aging Wodehouse left a couple of them hanging. One character (the ferret-like Chesney) seemingly exists only to push the Duke of Dunstable and Johnny Halliday down the Earl's grand staircase. And there is the obligatory theft (actually two: one successful and one not). There's a chauffeur named Voules who tootles a harmonica -- but of all there is the Empress of Blandings, multiyear winner in the fat pig division of the Shropshire County Fair.

The story begins when the Empress, for the first time in recorded memory, refuses a potato proffered by the doting Earl. Before one knows it, Blandings Castle fills up with invited and quasi-invited guests and begins that delightfully Wodehousing grinding of the mill of the gods that leaves us all laughing, the crocodiles unsatisfied, and good to triumph over all.

There may be better Wodehouses, and there are probably worse, but even a middling Blandings story is far better, dash it all, than 99.9999% of the cripple-crapple to be found on bookshelves. And you will feel better reading it. Dead certain, in fact.