Customer Reviews

Money for Nothing

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

 

 

Like many readers bitten by the P.G. Wodehouse bug, I at one point attempted to procure all of the Master's literary output. That spell of power reading included this early novel, which I devoured in the hardback. On later rereading, however, I somewhat revise my initial favorable impression.

Why? How can a Wodehouse book get three stars? Simply in relation to the usual five star ratings. There are plenty of nuggets here (and did this title inspire the Dire Straits song?), but if this were the first Wodehouse title you picked up, you might not find him the stellar author that those who latch onto a Jeeves or Drones or Blandings novel generally find him to be.

Wodehouse would write for more than fifty years after this story first appeared, but even then he knew which were the good bits, and the best lines from this novel would appear verbatim later on. Of course he got that idea from his first life of writing musicals for the stage (and along with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern bringing the musical to America), where the good bits are endlessly rehashed in amusing variations.

Now that both Overlook Press in hardback and Penguin in paperback are reprinting the entire run of Wodehouse, completists will certainly want to sample this novel, but for those new to Wodehouse, Jeeves or the Drones are better places to start.

Have you ever come across a P.G. Wodehouse story that isn't an absolute delight? No, and this one is no different. Wodehouse is a master with words, creating a single sentence that can have you on the floor laughing hysterically. His plots, at first glance, seem unconnected but by the end, everything works out so beautifully it's almost stunning. Not only do things work out so nicely, but it's also great fun getting there. An especially great book for a nice Sunday afternoon...

John Caroll loved Patricia Wyvern whom he had known since childhood, their being neighbours.

But John's uncle, Lester Charmody, mortally offended Colonel Wyvern, Patricia's father, when the former used the latter as a bodyshield when they both accidentally walked into a blast site on Charmody's grounds. Colonel Wyvern was of the old school and demanded proper apologies where he considered it due, causing a feud in a quiet countryside of Rudge. Worse for John that Pat considered him, too homely and unexciting.

Meanwhile, Lester Charmody was brooding over money problems. It was not that he had none, he had plenty. But he considered his trove pittance. Worse was his sitting on the Charmody's heirlooms which could not be sold out of the estate.

Lester's moods was not improved by his other nephew, Hugo, who pestered him for five hundred pounds to invest in a night-club with Ronnie Fish (of Blandings background).

The stalemate might have gone on indefinitely had not the Molloys insinuated themselves into Rudge Hall. An older husband to a younger pretty wife, the couple passed themselves off as a American oil tycoon with his daughter.

A plot was hatched between the Molloys and Lester to pretend to have the heirlooms stolen, claiming insurance, smuggled to America to be sold. The services of "Chimp" Alexendar Twist was secured to remove the valuables. Of course, they all planned to double-triple-cross each other.

Amidst the intrigue, Hugo Charmody and John Carroll learned that sometimes it took an enemy to provide them with a way out of their predicaments.

A very funny book, Wodehouse was meant to be enjoyed as a light-hearted book, definitely not to be taken too seriously.

..or at least the countryside as only P. G. Wodehouse can describe it. In Wodehouse's England it is always the 1920's or early 1930's, there is always a stately countryhouse or two, complete with butler, a charming village filled with eccentric characters, a few bright (or not so bright) young things and a delightfully wild plot, sometimes more. This is the formula that Wodehouse developed early in his career and happily stuck to for over ninety books.

MONEY FOR NOTHING stays with this formula. It is set in the village of Rudge-in-the-Vale and involves the recent, but bitter feud between two pillars of the local community, Col. Wyvern and Lester Carmondy, two nephews, a daughter, a health club, a couple of con artists, and a terrier named Emily. As this large and diverse group's paths cross and recross a delightful story develops involving, schemes to defraud insurance companies, escape to London, steal antiques and a romance. It is silly to the point of absurdity and impossible to read without laughing outloud every few pages.

This is not a piece of great literature that will alter your life forever. This is a wonderful place to escape to when the 21st century becomes too much, a place where it is always a sunny summer day in the charming English countryside.