Customer Reviews

Summer Lightning

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Summer Lightning is one of the several delightful books in the Blandings Castle series by P.G. Wodehouse. Summer Lightning is better than many other P.G. Wodehouse books in that the plot and character development are more thorough than most which keeps the fun going longer.

Clarence, the ninth Earl of Emsworth, is at home in his castle in Shropshire where he dotes on his famous prize-winning pig, the Empress of Blandings. Having dispatched his earlier secretary, Baxter, Clarence is at peace contemplating how his pig will win again when he learns from his brother Galahad (Gally) that the neighbor's pig man is offering 3:1 odds against the Empress. Clarence and Gally presume that their neighbor, Sir Gregory Parsloe is planning to knobble the Empress. Their worst fears are borne out when the Empress disappears!

At the same time, Parsloe lives in fear that Gally will publish old stories about his wild younger days in Gally's new book. Clarence's and Gally's sister Connie wants to stop publication as well. Soon the castle is overrun with manuscript thieves!

At the same time, love is in the air. Clarence's new secretary, Hugo Carmody, is secretly and unsuitably in love with Millicent Threepwood, niece to Clarence, Connie and Gally, and Millicent is in love with him. But they need to get some financial help to pull off the merger.

Ronald Fish, a wealthy young man whose money is tied with Clarence, is also in love with an unsuitable person . . . one Sue Brown who is a chorus girl. Ronnie has proven himself to be a poor judge of investments in the past, and Clarence is skeptical of allowing any more money. It doesn't help when Clarence finds that Ronnie doesn't truly share his love of pigs!

Will love win out? Of course! It's a P.G. Wodehouse book. But before love wins, humor will take the day in many silly scenes worthy of Shakespeare's best in the forest of Arden.

Summer Lightening is the best Wodehouse novel, introducing many elements for the first time reader which reappear in many other Blandings Castle books. The major elements are: the prize pig called Empress of Blandings, a secretary named Baxter who is very intelligent but not liked by Lord Emsworth, who is the family head but detests everything except the pig, his younger brother Galahad, who is at peak of health by avoiding all healthy stuff, and their imperial sisters who control everyone around them. Read the book and savour.

The Hon. Galahad Threepwood, younger brother of Lord Emsworth, is at Blandings Castle writing his memoirs, much to the consternation of their sister, Lady Constance Keeble, and many blue-blooded neighbors. Amid this, young love becomes repeatedly unstuck, imposters arrive, Baxter returns, and The Empress of Blandings is stolen. All seems lost, until ...

This may be the best of the Blandings series. It introduced Gally, a charming, disreputable younger son of an Earl whose main crimes are enjoying life and refusing to be a snob. He's an older gentleman who is rarely without a whisky in his hand or a story on his lips. If you've never read Wodehouse's Blandings books, this is a good place to start, followed by its sequel, Heavy Wather.

A great Wodehouse read, a wonderful cure for what ails you - great plot, very funny and lots of Wodehouse wit. In short, a great farce!

I read another of Wodehouse's lessor known, but very funny school boy prank books the other day, it was sooooo funny - if you like pranks, and whatnot - you will enjoy Tales of St. Austin's - Tales Of St. Austin's: A British Humor Classic

Enjoy!

The third in the eleven-book Blandings Castle series, Summer Lightning (1929) is a typical comedy of manners in its witty satire of upperclass life, with all its affectations, lack of perspective, and preoccupation with preserving the status quo. Like most of the Wodehouse novels, the main plot and subplots revolve around the subject of love as various characters face complications in their search for true happiness while dealing with class differences, false accusations, and even the impersonation of one character by another. Adding offbeat humor to this novel is the theft of the Empress of Blandings, the prize-winning pig (and all-consuming interest) of the dotty Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle, just before the pig is due to defend its honor in an annual contest.

As the story unfolds, Hugo Carmody, a failed nightclub owner, who has been hired as Lord Emsworth's secretary, is in love with Lord Emsworth's niece Millicent, who finds herself unexpectedly engaged to her cousin Ronnie Fish, who is really in love with Sue Brown, a local dancer, who "becomes" Myra Schoonmaker, a wealthy heiress, in order to be near Ronnie. If this were not complicated enough, Pilbeam, a local detective, and Baxter, the former secretary of Lord Emsworth, appear at Blandings Castle, adding more complications in this carefully choreographed and complex plot, which also features Lord Emsworth's brother Galahad, who is writing a family memoir, which the family wants to prevent from publication. The pig thief hopes to ingratiate himself with Lord Emsworth by secreting the pig (which is fed by Beach, the castle's Jeeves-like butler) and then "finding" it later. Like love, however, the course of pig theft, too, goes awry.

The characters are stereotypical in their class and motivations, and the novel's complications follow the standard pattern of comedies of manners. Wodehouse enjoys shining the spotlight on his characters, however, and as they deal with their problems, for better or worse, some of them develop personalities beyond their stereotypes. The reader hopes for their success in love, despite their manipulations of the truth, and their sometimes foolish behavior adds an element of charm to the novel. Light in tone, despite the satire, Wodehouse novels show the absurdities of the aristocratic class, but they also show that aristocrats, too, are human, and in that respect they achieve an element of universality often missing from other satire. n Mary Whipple

Something Fresh (The Collector's Wodehouse), 1915
Leave It to Psmith, 1923
Heavy Weather, 1933
Blandings Castle, 1935
Uncle Fred in the Springtime, 1939

Although Wodehouse prided himself on his intricately-woven plots, his books succeed largely because of brilliant dialogue and humorous situations. Summer Lightning, written during Wodehouse's long creative peak, succeeds on all levels. A stolen pig, an embarrassing memoir, young love, and doddering old aristrocrats keep the action moving. Thoroughly-enjoyable escapist fare. In this Blandings Castle episode, Lord Emsworth is a relatively minor character and his son, Freddie Threepwood, is all but nonexistent, but Wodehouse's other characters are so amusing that this book succeeds nonetheless.

Having read many of the jeeves stories 20 years ago and watched again recently the ITV Jeeves and Wooster starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, I thought it was time to get back to Wodehouse for some good cheer. But, I wanted to start on something different, so I decided to start with the Blandings novels - this is my third one to read in a row. Being woken up by pain every night, I find Wodehouse the perfect tonic - one is transported to a different gentlemanly world, a world where suffering appears distant and unreal.

Anyway, one of the problems about reading three in a row is that one can begin to confuse the books and characthers because the ones I have read to date all have involved stealing, Blandings and impersonation. This one reached a new level of zanyness with the main plot concerning the stealing of Lord Emsworth's prize pig. Baxter, his officious secretary, makes a comeback and is effectively humiliated and Emsworth's assumption that Baxter is a lunatic is confirmed. What makes this so entertaining is Wodehouse's descriptions. Thus, his description of Ronnie getting angry in a nightclub in being intercepted by waiters for his dress when he was making his way towards someone moving in on his girlfriend.

"Ronnie Fish in the course of his life had many ambitions. As a child, he had yearned some day to become an engine-driver. At school, it had seemed to him that the most attractive career the world had to offer was that of the professional cricketer. Later, hae had hoped to run a prosperous night-club. But now, in his twenty-sixth year, all these desires were cast aside and fogotte. The only thing in life that seemed really worthwhile was to massacre waiters; and to this task he
addressed himself with all the energy and strenth at his disposal"

And this one of the guilty Butler Beach:

"For the Butler jerked from his reverie, had jumped a couple of inches and shaken all over in a manner that was most trying to watch. A butler, felt the Hon Galahad, is a butler, and startled fawn is a starled fawn. He disliked the blend of the tow in a single body."

It is then noted that the butler "when addressed quiver like a harpooned whale".

Anyway the book is full of these obervations, humour and as usual contains buckets of romance.

This is probably my favorite Blandings story. It has it all -
Lord Emsworth; his prize winning Black Berkshire pig, the Empress of Blandings; his secretary, the Efficient Baxter; the Honorable Galahad Threepwood (whose memoirs are the cause of all the excitement); Beach the Butler; and of course, an impostor and some star-crossed lovers.

From Wodehouse's preface to the book:
"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."

This book was also published as "Fish Preferred."

P. G. Wodehouse was indeed a genius! I have not yet read all his Blandings Castle stories, but what I have read I have enjoyed thoroughly. Though Wodehouse is probably best known for his "Jeeves and Wooster" stories since that had been turned into a remarkable BBC series, even that cannot top anything connected with Lord Emsworth, the Honourable Galahad, Beach, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, Lady Constance, etc. I first stumbled across the inmates at Blandings Castle when I came across an audio of "Pigs Have Wings" which I liberated from Limewire on my computer several years ago. Since then I have been hooked. For having done so I have a keener sense of all their mannerisms. Having just finished reading this classic from 1929 I am left with some regrets; mainly that the story is over and ultimately that I have never personally experienced Lord Emsworth's "Garden of Eden"! Oh well, perhaps in my next life! Until then I will immerse myself with more P.G. Wodehouse when the next Amazon.com installment arrives!

P. G. Wodehouse is at his most delightful in this generational romp at Beautiful Blandings Castle, where Lord Emsworth is grieving, first, the dispossession of his beloved prize pig which was somehow stolen in at least four distinct acts of thievery and, second, the untimely return of his erstwhile secretary, the efficient Baxter, while the title's summer lightning strikes every youth in sight with love's blinding ferocity.

In a labyrinthine plot designed to assure the reader that none of the lovers will pair up correctly, that the stolen pig will never be returned, and that Galahad, Emsworth's unreconstructed rogue of a brother will befoul the reputations of the entire House of Lords with his impending memoirs, all the knots untangle in their time, and the sated reader is left with a lingering smile and a bevy of patented extended similes.

Among the best of these describes Gally's niece Millicent at a low point in her young life due to her strained relationship with the man of her dreams. "She looked like something that might have occurred to Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments."

Wodehouse's unmatched command of his native tongue at play always yields surprises. In this outing, Nature herself is a character personified in luscious clauses like this one: "It was that gracious hour of a summer afternoon...when Nature seems to unbutton its waistcoat and put its feet up." Or this instant of momentous expectancy: "Nature paused, listening. Birds checked their songs, insects their droning. It was as if it had got about that this young man's fate hung in the balance and the returns would be in shortly."

It is Millicent, hesitantly forgiving of her beau, who says, "Any funny business from now on..."

She is answered:

"As if...!"

Thus anticipating Alicia Silverstone of the movie Clueless by about 50 years.

These are a couple of the treats scattered like a well whacked piñata throughout the text, and reason enough to delve into this singular piece of writing. But there's so much more to savor. The outrageous and hardly Honorable Galahad Threepwood, the young men with hearts afire and brains without a noticeable spark, inordinately homely detectives, efficient ex-secretaries, and the indomitable Aunt Constance, all simmering deliciously in as cleverly crafted a plot as Wodehouse has ever cooked up.

And, of course, there's Sue Brown, the chorus girl far too beautiful and far too good for any man in the kingdom, Sue Brown, who has chosen one of the least worthy to love with all her golden heart. Therein lies my only quibble. The author has chosen to focus on the admittedly hilarious plot twists and turns, thereby leaving little space for continuing development of Sue. So tantalizingly promising at her introduction, her character recedes almost to blandness by the final third of the book, until she is little more than a passive and mournful observer of the goings on swirling about her. She deserved a better shake from her creator, on the order of Sally Nicholas (The Adventures of Sally) or Corky Pirbright (The Mating Season). Nobody does the heroic fair maiden like Plum, and one imagines that he meant to do so here but simply lurched off...so much fun to have; so few pages!

In these trying times, Summer Lightning will have the same effect on you as did lovely Sue on the smitten but jealous Ronnie become convinced of her love for only him: "The cloud had passed from his face, the look of Byronic despair from his eyes. He beamed."

As will you.