Uncle Dynamite (Collector's Wodehouse) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

We might save everyone trouble by not bothering to review Wodehouse audiobooks. Instead, we could simply announce, "Here's a new one. Come and get it!" However, as excellent as the recordings usually are, not every Wodehouse text is wonderful, so we must carry on. Happily, Uncle Dynamite is another winner. First published in 1948, it is one of the few books about Uncle Fred (a.k.a. Lord Ickenham) and the usual complicated Wodehouse story line: A loves B but is engaged to C, whom D secretly loves, and so on. Of course, with Uncle Fred spreading sweetness and light, generous helpings of happy endings can be counted on. What sets this book apart is its outstanding dialog, which gives reader Jonathan Cecil broad scope to spread his wonderful gift for voices. A real treat for those who appreciate exquisite language; highly recommended.
-R. Kent Rasmussen, Thousand Oaks, CA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Product Description

Wodehouse fans beware: Uncle Fred is in town and that means another literary dose of wacky hi-jinks. Love is in the air in Uncle Dynamite, and good old Fred (a.k.a. Lord Ickenham) resorts to impersonations, blackmail and ridiculous irreverence in an effort to sort out the havoc of a matchmaking blunderbuss.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (May 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585678740
• ISBN-13: 978-1585678747
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #569,986 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious!, May 9, 2002

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Uncle Dynamite (Paperback)

This is the first non Jeeves and Wooster book of Wodehouses's that I've read, and I'm pleased to report that the adventures and exploits of Uncle Fred (aka Lord Ickenham) are just as madcap and droll as those of his more renown duo. As with many of the Jeeves and Wooster stories, the plot revolves around (mis)engagements, misunderstandings, country houses, bonny baby contests, blustering pompous old men, duck ponds, and a constable. However, the difference here is that instead of an idiot (Bertie) getting into sticky situations and being rescued by a genius (Jeeves), we have Uncle Fred, who seems to relish creating havoc and then sorting it all out through a variety of impersonations, good natured lies and blackmail, with general irreverence for one and all. The matchmaking leads to all manner of wacky hi-jinks, and as per usual, Wodehouse's comic timing is impeccable. Of course, the real treat is the language, which sparkles as it amuses. The names are especially good in this one, with Pongo, Bill Oakshot, and Sally Potter leading the way. (Coincidentally, two characters share the names of prominent characters from the Harry Potter saga: constable Harold Potter and Hermonie Bostock.) Uncle Fred is the equal of any Wodehouse character, and look forward to tracking down the rest of his tales.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fun read, February 13, 2008

By	badcyclist (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

Wodehouse's books that don't concern Jeeves and Wooster can be a bit hit or miss (or, at least, some of them are so similar that they are pretty much interchangeable). The broad outline of the plot here will seem vaguely familiar to Wodehouse fans, but this book is still definitely among his best. The sharp writing, the softly sarcastic observations, and the jokes are often laugh-out-loud funny. It is a very, very amusing book. Well worth it for Wodehouse fans looking for a few days of quiet pleasure.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Romance at Short Notice Was His Speciality", August 31, 2009

By	Doug - Haydn Fan (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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First - these Collector's Wodehouse are great books to read - the print is not squished or hideously smeared as so often is the case in the paperback editions. The paper is not cheap, but bright, the type attractive and easy on the eye, and the spines hold together and allow you to enjoy the book more than once - a must for a Wodehouse novel!

The plot - must I? Really - no one does plots like Wodehouse does plots - why spoil all the fun by listing names and places and a few isolated incidents? Plot outlines are fine for your ordinary book, but I refuse to sink to such a level of humdrum Utilitarianism for Wodehouse!

Not counting an unbeatable earlier short story, "Uncle Fred Flits By" found in "Young Men In Spats" Young Men in Spats (Collector's Wodehouse)along with this title "Uncle Dynamite" there are three other novels featuring Lord Ickenham, aka Uncle Fred - the finest of the four by far is, "Uncle Fred in the Springtime" Uncle Fred In The Springtime; later in life the author also gave us "Cocktail Time" Cocktail Time; and "Service With a Smile" Service with a Smile. All offer a front row seat for the zany breath-taking productions of Wodehouse's most daring master of ceremonies. Where Jeeves might be said to operate his magic tricks behind the scenes, off stage, Lord Ickenham delights in operating the most brazen impersonations and deceiving stratagems front and center, and without benefit of a net for the perilous heights of his tightrope act. Someone once wrote - quite perfectly and most cunningly - that Jeeves might be Iago, called back to do penance for his crimes as a comic character. One might say the same for Lord Ickenham - for his confidence man is on such a high order as to suggest Felix Krull himself has returned to Earth and is serving out a wild Purgatory.

Although even as a boy Uncle Fred was pegged by his peers with the moniker 'Barmy', meaning silly, foolish, or eccentric, one should not underestimate his abilities. He certainly doesn't - "There are no limits to what I can accomplish" - and he doesn't fail to deliver! Though purely altruistic in nature, Lord Ickenham is nothing less than Anarchy let loose in the staid world of Upper Crust England. Those who come in contact with him when in full regalia stagger away as if hit by a human tornado - even the book's most unflinching character, his nephew Reginald's proud and cold beauty of a fiancee, Hermione, finds herself completely undone by his potent perpetrations of perjuries. After running down his nephew Reginald to Hermione with twenty minutes full litany of lies, falsehoods, and the most monstrous untruths, unprecedented in number even for so grand a fabulist as himself, Lord Ickenham shakes his head before the now revolted and stunned young woman and announces with a straight face, "One wonders if Reginald Twistleton knows the difference bewteen right and wrong."

Some of this dash is decidely out of tunes with British behavior - the frontier spirit of twenty years spent in all sorts of odd jobs in America has carried over in Lord Ickenham's sixties into an unbeatable energy and unbridled optimism - the more mindboggling his situation, the greater his creativity in response. In the end Lord Ickenham emerges as Cupid in all his glory, and his God of Love proves an irresistible force majeure in breaking up unhealthy relationships as he rights wrongs and sets love on its proper course, all done with an unsurpassed hilarity.

Lord Ickenham is of course Wodehouse's alter ego in much the same way several of his leading characters might be said to be. All writers of course write fiction - some are honest enough to admit it. Wodehouse writes lies in excelsis and flaunts his ruses in both form and content. What seemingly could be less natural and thus less truthful on the surface than farce? But it is just this up front admission of untruth that serves the author's noble purpose of first tantalizing us with the confusing image of goodness wrapped in falsehoods, then perplexing us as he sets his deus ex machina, Lord Ickenham, to reordering the chaos he stirs up into a better world of sweetness and light. Wodehouse finds in Lord Ickenham a doyen among his champions of the justice in comic misrule and mischief. Where Wodehouse in person was shy and rather dull, his creations take the most extreme chances and color every scene with gobs of personality. The various plots cooked up as he goes by the fun-loving Lord are merely a complex and highly evolved reflection of the author's own efforts to find natty devices and secondary themes.

How remarkably far along Wodehouse has carried what are essentially the very basic simple house rules of Scribe's theater. Aesthetically, Wodehouse is untouched at balancing a vertiable Chinese acrobats troupe of characters aloft and gyrating madly for a full 300 pages. Some call it farce, I call it high art.

It also helps to read Wodehouse with a background in the Classics - What could possibly be droller than the mother of a modern young girl named Hermione, daughter of Helen of Troy, having as a mother "a woman in her late forties who looked like a horse."
The 'lost' Helen must be reborn in some guise, so Lord Ickenham, the de facto ruling chieftan of the entire melee that is the story decrees young heroine Sally Painter (though Ms Painter is actually a sculptress, another of the endless verbal jokes) as looking like "Helen of Troy after a facial." and a world deprived of beauty has been righted.