Customer Reviews

The Little Nugget

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book, from early in Wodehouse's career, is wonderful. It starts a bit slow with some necessary setup info, but once it switches to first person about thirty pages in, it crackles right along to the end in P.G.'s funhouse style. Four separate kidnappers, a lost love, and a wealthy young man getting his first taste work all swirled together the Wodehouse way equals a sure cure for what ails ya.

The Little Nugget was Agatha Christie's favourite Wodehouse - a choice Wodehouse himself was offended by (as he felt she was not keeping up to date with his latest works). The book contains traces of the "school" genre of writing (e.g "The Pothunters") with its school and setting and gangster involvement. There is also a romantic storyline - unlike the humorous romances of the Wodehouse's later works (the various struggles of the later Blandings books, or the Wooster romances) this has a slightly more serious tone to it - a reminder that Wodehouse wrote for Mills and Boon in his time. The humour, though undoubtedly something different from the polished Jeeves and Wooster dialogue is still very good, and the character of the "little Nugget" is well captured in all his repulsiveness. Indeed his reappearance in "Picadilly Jim" builds on this story - and shows Wodehouses recognition that this was a good comic character that could be developed further. Overall, those whose previous experience of Wodehouse has been Wooster or Lord Emsworth may find themselves a little shocked by the different tone here, but it is a good story with occasional flashes of inspiration in the dialogue. I would not agree with Agatha

The Little Nugget was my first experience with PGW, and I've since gone on to read several more. More serious in its nature than any of the other Wodehouse's I've ever read, Nugget is still a hillarious story--if not more wistful in the romance section. Smooth Sam Fisher is possibly the most likable villain I have ever read--every section with him had me rolling. While this might not be the best place to start, this is still an excellent novel and a humorous, easy read.

Like the last Wodehouse I read, this is more like Damon Runyon than later Plum. I suspect that this was written when Wodehouse first visited America and was trying to break into the American markets (it would be interesting to compare this impression with Wodehouse's biography and see what it has to say about the Runyonesque qualities of these early novels). The Little Nugget of the title refers to the only son of an American millionaire, the nickname given to him by the American hoodlums who want to kidnap him and hold him for ransom. Wodehouse spends a lot of verbiage describing how odious the Little Nugget is, but yet the plot isn't really about the kid's nature, but his value.

There was one bit that was perfect, especially considering I had just read The Friendly Shakespeare. One of the characters is mistaken for the famous American criminal "Smooth Sam Fisher." Actually, he's not just mistaken--the other character insists that he is Sam Fisher. The response? "Verily, some have greatness thrust upon them." Wodehouse was quite a lover of Shakespeare, and it would be quite a large project to list all the Shakespearean allusions, puns, and outright quotes in his books . . . but it's certainly fun when you do catch one yourself.

Part of the fun of P. G. Wodehouse's stories is that even when you know where the characters will end up, it is usually by a path which is unpredictable. Unfortunately, that isn't true in the case of "The Little Nugget". While the story does have a few curves in it, compared to a typical Wodehouse it is a veritable straight line. The book is divided into two parts. The first is very short, and introduces the character of Ogden Ford, i.e. The Little Nugget, and his mother Nesta, as well as her associates which lead us to the narrator of the second part of the book, Peter Burns. Peter has been asked by his fiancée Cynthia (who works for Nesta Ford) to kidnap Ogden from the school in which his father has placed him, and deliver The Little Nugget to his mother.

While there are a few moments in the story, in general it just doesn't measure up to the other Wodehouse stories that I have read. In particular it pales compared to "Piccadilly Jim", which sees the return of Ogden and his mother, but in a different setting and with a much more entertaining plot full of twists and turns. In particular, this is not a good choice for someone unfamiliar with Wodehouse, as they would miss out on what a typical Wodehouse story is like.

This is an early Wodehouse book, first being published on August 28, 1913 by Methuen & Co. London. In the U.S., it was first published on February 10, 1914 by W. J. Watt and Company. This edition is part of The Collector's Wodehouse series published by Overlook Press in the U.S., and in the U.K. it is known as The Everyman Wodehouse series published by Everyman's Library. This title is not part of one of Wodehouse's series, although as mentioned before there are characters that appear in a later book.

However happy your mood, reading a Wodehouse book will turn it up a notch. The early Wodehouse novels are no exception. "The Little Nugget" is funny, exciting, and romantic. It doesn't have as many memorable lines as a Jeeves and Wooster story, but it's definitely worth reading and is very interesting to those of us who have already read and re-read "The Inimitable Jeeves."

As the other reviewers have noted, this is good, solid early Wodehouse. It's an unusual combination of his early genre mixing and later polished fluff. There's a good thriller (of the "brave English ex-public school-boy thrust into adventure" sub-genre) and a quite serious romance in here (whose heroine shares my last name, by coincidence I hope), as well as a public school story of the type that began his career.

Peter Burns, at the insistence of his fiancée Cynthia, sets out to kidnap Ogden Ford, son of an American millionaire, and return the boy to the custody of his doting mother. Knowing Ogden will soon be arriving at Sanstead House, an English preparatory school, Burns secures a teaching post there. However, Burns is not the only one attempting to kidnap Ogden. Rival criminals Buck MacGinnis and Smooth Sam Fisher are both trying to get hold of the boy. To further complicate matters, the school's butler is a Pinkerton's detective in disguise and the woman who jilted Burns five years earlier is also employed at Sanstead House.

I quite enjoyed this comical thriller. The story is light-hearted and full of amusing characters and humorous situations. But this is not a typical Wodehouse farce. At times, the book is somber as the protagonist engages in self-examination. There are some beautiful yet poignant reflections on being in love. The story climaxes with a rather suspenseful chase sequence complete with gunplay. As a long-time Wodehouse reader, I found these differences in both style and content refreshing.

Although the book may lack the polished wit and sparkling prose of Wodehouse's later works, "The Little Nugget" is still a gem.