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Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission
Title: Summer Lightning
Series:
Blandings Castle #3
Authors: PG Wodehouse
Rating:
4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Humor
Pages:
240
Words: 84K
From Wikipedia.org
Hugo
Carmody, who became secretary to Lord Emsworth following the failure
of The Hot Spot, the night club he ran with Ronnie Fish, is
conducting a secret affair with Millicent Threepwood, Emsworth's
niece. They hide this from Lady Constance, who is distracted with
worries that the book of memoirs her brother Galahad is writing will
bring shame to the family.
Ronnie,
meanwhile, is secretly engaged to Sue Brown, a chorus girl and an old
friend of Hugo. When they run into Lady Constance in London one day,
Ronnie introduces Sue as Myra Schoonmaker, an American heiress he and
his mother Lady Julia recently met in Biarritz.
Ronnie
travels to Blandings, where Baxter has just returned, called in by
Lady Constance to steal the memoirs. Hoping to get money out of Lord
Emsworth, his trustee, Ronnie claims to love pigs, but his uncle has
seen him bouncing a tennis ball on the Empress' back, and is enraged.
Ronnie, inspired, steals the pig, planning to return it and earn his
uncle's gratitude, roping in Beach to help; they hide her in a
cottage in the woods.
Hugo
is sent to London to fetch a detective; the job is refused by Percy
Pilbeam. Hugo takes Sue out dancing, but when Ronnie arrives at the
club he sees Pilbeam, who admires Sue, sat at her table. Ronnie gets
angry at Pilbeam, makes a scene, spends a night in jail, and in the
morning snubs Sue, who he believes has betrayed him. Millicent,
feeling the same about Hugo, breaks off their engagement also.
Meanwhile, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, worrying about the memoirs,
hires Pilbeam to retrieve them; Pilbeam agrees, realising he can use
the pig-finding job to get into the castle.
Sue
heads to Blandings, posing as Myra Schoonmaker. Just after her
arrival, Mortimer Mason, Sue's employer, visits Galahad in the
library to discuss the memoirs. He recognizes Sue in the garden and
talks about her, so Galahad learns her true identity, sharing the
knowledge only with Sue. Percy Pilbeam arrives, recognises Sue, and
tries to get her help in his memoir-stealing scheme. Baxter,
meanwhile, has grown suspicious that the pig was stolen by Carmody as
a means of insuring his job; he spots Beach heading off to feed the
pig, and follows him, just as the storm breaks.
Beach
reaches the cottage to find Hugo and Millicent, gone there to shelter
from the rain. Their relationship is healed, Hugo having explained
about Sue and Ronnie, and Beach, protecting Ronnie, claims he stole
the pig for Hugo to return and win Lord Emsworth's favour. Beach
leaves, as Carmody takes the pig to a new hiding spot.
Baxter
accuses Beach in front of Emsworth, and the three of them head to the
cottage, Emsworth growing ever warier of Baxter's sanity. They find
no pig, Carmody having moved it to Baxter's caravan, where Pilbeam,
also caught in the rain, saw him stow it. While Emsworth, Lady
Constance, Gally and Millicent go to dinner with Parsloe-Parsloe
(lured away to leave the memoirs unguarded), Ronnie Fish confronts
Pilbeam, and learns that Sue was indeed out in London with Carmody,
and that she has come to Blandings to be near Ronnie.
Pilbeam
gets tipsy, and tells Beach about Sue, and then tells Carmody that he
saw him hide the pig. Carmody, in a panic, calls Millicent at
Matchingham Hall; she advises him to tell Emsworth where the pig is
at once. He does so, Emsworth is overjoyed, and agrees to their
marriage, much to Lady Constance's disgust.
Meanwhile,
Baxter intercepts a telegram meant for Lady Constance from Myra
Schoonmaker in Paris, and goes to the imposter Sue's room to retrieve
a note he sent her, criticising Lord Emsworth. Trapped by Beach
bringing her dinner, he hides under the bed while she and Ronnie are
reunited. Ronnie spots Pilbeam climbing into the room to steal
Galahad’s memoirs, and chases him downstairs; the returning dinner
party assume they are fleeing Baxter, now confirmed as mad by the
presence of the stolen pig in his caravan, and Emsworth charges into
Sue's room with a shotgun. Baxter crawls out from under the bed,
flustered and enraged by his experience and Emsworth's harsh words,
reveals Sue's deception and storms off.
Galahad,
learning that Sue Brown is Dolly Henderson's daughter, reveals that
he loved her mother but was forbidden to marry her, and views Sue as
a kind of honorary daughter. He tells Lady Constance that he will
suppress his book if she agrees to sanction Sue and Ronnie's
marriage, and to persuade her sister Julia to do likewise. Pilbeam,
hearing this as he once again climbs the drainpipe, gives up his
mission, leaving Galahad to tell Sue the old story of Sir Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe and the prawns.
First off, somehow I skipped over the second book in this “very
loose” series and I think I know how it happened. Book 2 is called
“Leave It To Psmith” and it is part of another series by
Wodehouse about some chappie named Psmith. So technically, it is book
2 of Blandings Castle and book 4 of Psmith. Good thing it isn't
confusing at all eh? I've got it sorted out now though, so at some
point I'll eventually get around to it. Not sure if it will be next
or the last one I read.
On to this book.
Wodehouse has a short introduction and one of the paragraphs goes
thusly:
“A certain critic – for such men, I regret to say, do exist –
made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all
the old Wodehouse characters under different names’. He has
probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock
of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able
to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior
intelligence, I have outgeneralled the man this time by putting in
all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly
it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”
Now, how can you read something like that and expect this book to be
anything but an uproariously good time? The answer is that you can't.
Unless you're a horrible person without a good sense of humor. If
that describes you, I will pray for you. Because you're going to need
it! It is a little known fact but amongst the deepest of the
theologians and apologists for Christianity it is known that Saint
Peter will ask everyone just one question that will determine if they
get into heaven or not. That question is “Did you like PG
Wodehouse?” Astounding, isn't it? I always knew I was a good
Christian!
Since you've had your theology lesson, time to move on to the bits
and bobs of the book. In many ways I am enjoying these more than the
Jeeves & Wooster series and I put that down squarely to having
many more “main characters” than just J&W. While each novel
so far has had 2-3 “main” characters, most of the time they don't
get any more time than 3-4 other side characters. So you end up with
5-6+ characters all running around doing their thing and Wodehouse
deftly weaves in the humor and misunderstandings that make me roar
with laughter. It really does feel like I am reading a “weaving”,
a tapestry of human humor and silliness.
I am hoping the larger cast of characters can keep things fresher, as
J&W were getting stale by the end.
★★★★☆
