Re-read on vacation. Not as strong as Summer Lightning, but diverting as per usual

Classic Wodehouse. While most Wodehouse characters bumble about, a few are the exact opposite -- rarely if ever at a loss for what to do. Jeeves is the best known of these, but Uncle Fred is right up there. A congenial uncle, up for adventure to the dismay of his nephew Pongo, with a con man's heart, but never for personal monetary gain. While the comical metaphors and observations that are a Wodehouse trademark are amply present, to me what stands out is the complexity of the plot machinations and the speed with which the novel races through them. My head hurt trying to keep track of the first four or so chapters, and I think the same may have been true for Wodehouse. Characters such as Howard, Lord Emsworth, and Polly, introduced early in the novel, and critical links in several causal chains, have basically left the stage by the two-thirds point. As a result, the concluding chapters are clear and resolved, but I was left with many "but what about...?"

Recommended but not as a first Wodehouse book. ( )

Interesting and fun read. Nice after reading several thriller-killer books to smile and author’s work does that for me. ( )

Delightful romp involving the Duke of Dunstable trying to take Emsworth's pride and joy, the Empress of Blandings, and put her on a reducing diet. In an attempt to avoid this, Emsworth enlists his brother Galahad's old pal, Pongo Twistleton's Uncle Fred.

Jonathan Cecil narrated this audiobook and was once again a treat to listen to. ( )

Delightful from beginning to an amazing end. ( )

Like Galahad Threepwood, in the book I happened to read at about the same time, Uncle Fred has a grand time trying to make young lovers happy. Assumed identities are an important part of his plans.

Lord Emsworth, Lady Constance, Baxter, Sir Roderick Glossop, and the Empress of Blandings appear.

BTW, there are three types of love in the book, all related to Polly Pott: Her father feels paternal love for her; Uncle Fred loves her like an uncle who is willing to do whatever is necessary to see that she is happy, Pongo loves her nobly and is willing to sacrifice his own hopes for happiness with her, and, finally, Reggie loves her romantically and therefore jealously attacks anyone he suspects is a rival for her affections, say, Horace, who likes Polly only as a friend. (I guess that's more than three.)

Uncle Fred's marital advice to Polly, perhaps funny then but troubling now is: "Don't watch his eyes. Watch his knees. They will tell you when he is setting himself for a swing. And when he swings, roll with the punch." [p. 82] ( )

Wodehouse, P. G. Uncle Fred in the Springtime. 1939. Norton, 2012.
Once again, the Earl of Ickenham, better known as Pongo Twistleton’s Uncle Fred, is out spreading “sweetness and light,” good works that are not always appreciated by poor Pongo. It seems that a windfall of 250 pounds is needed to save some romances, and this may involve stealing Lord Emsworth’s prize sow, pretending to be a psychiatrist, and cheating some people at cards. As I said—sweetness and light. Oh, go ahead, read it. It is fun. ( )

Fred, fairy uncle
reuniter of lovers
vanquisher of debts. ( )

Couldn't ask for more! A hilarious and twisty tale. Such genius has not been equaled. My husband and I are both ready to drop everything and start this one again at the beginning. Highest of all recommendations! ( )

"My mistake," said Lord Bosham. "I thought she might be Imposter D."
"George, you're an idiot!"
"Right ho, Aunt Connie."
"Bosham, you're a damned fool!"
"Right ho, Duke."
"Chump!"
"Right ho, Miss Twistleton." ( )

This is a so-so story from Wodehouse. It has the usual set of people, country house, engagements on and off, loopy uncle, brain doctors, butlers and aunts. And they are doing the kinds of thing that only really happen in Wodehouse novels. Kidnapping pigs, betting on outfits, deceiving dukes and generally behaving in a manner unbecomming. This story lets itself down in that the last we see of the Empress of Blandings, she is trotting out of a ground floor bedroom suite. Does she make it to her sty? Will she be pig-napped again? It all becomes rather far-fetched.
And yet, despite all that, it remains fun and the light hearted spirit in which these stories are told went a long way to enliven a dreadfully long return train journey. Not the best, I think the Jeeves books have that edge, but I've read many a worse book. ( )

Lord Ickenham, aka Uncle Fred, is a wonderful character creation. His presence within these pages makes for a great read.

This is one of P. G. Wodehouse’s most chaotic and complex tales. A lot’s going on, which results in great fun and laughter.

The only downside to the number of visitors to Blandings is that the regulars, such as Lady Constance and Beech, are pushed into the background. So is my all-time favourite Wodehouse character Lord Emsworth. I always love the dialogue exchanges between Emsworth and Constance.

Still, this is jolly good fun. Bless my soul, it is. ( )

Uncle Fred is the kind of uncle everyone wants, except for certain young Englishmen of a nervous temperament. ( )

An absolutely deadly combination of both Uncle Fred and Blandings Castle is a sure-fire recipe for chaos, misunderstandings, impositions, impostures, and romance. A 1939 story, from the period of Wodehouse's most brilliant efforts. ( )

When a mad Duke plans to kidnap the Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth calls in the ingenious Uncle Fred to pull the fat pig out of the fire."
~~back cover

Another glorious romp of madcap misunderstandings and epic stiff-upper-lip English foolishness. What's not to like? ( )

A good read though being the 3rd of the Blandings books I have read (of 8 books in total) in a 10 day blitz on holiday, I wonder whether I would have had a greater appreciation of it if I had read it as a stand alone.

It just seemed a little contrived/trying too much and there was not as much Ebsworth or Beach as some of the other books

Uncle Fred is a good invention and will be interested in seeing what else he gets up to, but will give him. Arrest before doing so

Big Ship

13 January 2017 ( )

very funny, amazing how funny the escapades of stupid people are ( )

I only remembered I'd read this when I checked the inside cover of the other Wodehouse book I'm reading. Oops! I originally read this for a book club I was apart of for a while and was definitely looking forward to it.

I think Wodehouse is a very warm and charming writer. I do remember thinking that I much preferred his Jeeves and Wooster stories to this particular Blandings tale, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

Wodehouse writes with a lovely ease that I have found in few authors since and even though I don't remember the actual plot, I do remember that it was a classic rollicking sort of an adventure with lots of twists and turns and all very elegantly tied up at the end. He can make his books rather exciting without making them any less domestic.

It's Wodehouse, what else can I say? He is my answer to a reading slump and I enjoy his books without question. I also tend to enjoy his books without reading them critically at all, but that's just how I read them.

Maybe I'll continue this series sometime soon. ( )

Delightful romp involving the Duke of Dunstable trying to take Emsworth's pride and joy, the Empress of Blandings, and put her on a reducing diet. In an attempt to avoid this, Emsworth enlists his brother Galahad's old pal, Pongo Twistleton's Uncle Fred.

Jonathan Cecil narrated this audiobook and was once again a treat to listen to. ( )

A troupe of upper class twits engage in an entirely avoidable scheme of imposture and misidentification in order to allow a pig to continue to be fattened up, to ingratiate a girl with a reluctant in-law by securing funding for an onion-soup bar on Piccadilly Circus, and to allow a gambling youngling to pay off his debts. A chaotic host of side characters serve to comically complicate matters.

Uncle Fred in the Springtime is very much a book of its time (1930s) and its subgenre: a pythonesque poking of fun at British upper class twits. Stereotypes and catch-phrases abound, with silliness, irresponsibility, witticisms and verbal humour aplenty. If that’s not your cup of tea, you probably won’t like this book. If it is, you’ll be delighted. At least, I was, for the prose positively hops and sparkles from joke to joke. I very much giggled my way through this book: it was fast-paced, read splendidly, and was regularly hilarious.

(As an aside, I was pleased to find out that the tag upper class twits existed on LT, and that it had been applied to a bunch of Wodehouse’s works. Bottom-up, people-powered tagging for the win!) ( )

In a pantheon of characters that contains Jeeves, Psmith, and Mr. Mulliner, the most brilliant of them all might be Uncle Fred, Lord Ickenham. The usual Wodehouse zaniness, dialed up a notch -- one of his best. ( )

Whenever Lord Ickenham, ever altruistic and wanting to spread light and happiness to all around him, comes up with plans, you may be sure there will be sufficient impromptu changes in the execution of these plans to test the patience and sanity of the unwitting victims and beneficiaries of these plans.

In this installment, dear Uncle Fred has to plan the rescue of a prized pig, pass himself off as a reknown psychologist to prevent a ducal houseguest from throwing eggs at a whistling gardener, find a way to help his nephew come up with money to repay gambling debts, engineer the purchase of an onion soup bar, and above all, avoid being unmasked before he's ready to leave the country seat of his friend, the pig owner.

All good fun and entertainment. ( )

Another delightful Wodehouse novel, combining the setting of Blandings Castle, with Lord Emsworth, Lady Constance, Beach, Baxter and the Empress of Blandings as backing characters, and the anarchy that is Uncle Fred (5th Earl of Ickenham) and his unfortunate nephew, Pongo Twistleton.
The main story, to the extent that it is important, involves Horace Pendlebury-Davenport (a poet and friend of Pongo) who needs a sum of money (starting at £500 but reduced later to £250) to purchase an onion soup bar, so that he has an income and can marry Polly Pott.
Now the Duke of Dunstable (uncle of Horace and the man with the money to fund the soup bar purchase) has invited himself to stay at Blandings Castle. Uncle Fred views Polly Pott as a surrogate daughter and so wants to be able to introduce Polly Pott to the Duke of Dunstable and for him to think well of her, so that he will let Horace have the money to purchase the soup bar.
To achieve this, Uncle Fred impersonates Sir Roderick Glossop to get himself (and Polly Pott impersonating his daughter) invited down to Blandings Castle by Lord Emsworth.
Lord Emsworth invites Uncle Fred (posing as Glossop) as he wants to evict the Duke of Dunstable, who has shocked him by advising that he wants to take the Empress of Blandings (an enormous, prize winning black Berkshire sow) to make her fit.
Uncle Fred (posing as Glossop) is to certify that the Duke of Dunstable is insane, as he throws eggs at gardeners (and others) who whistle or sing The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond,
All of this is the recipe for one of the most delightful and amusing stories that I have ever read.
Even less than with any of the other Wodehouse novels that I have read is the plot important. The complicated plot and numerous characters just form a structure upon which Wodehouse can place vastly humorous scenes and incidents. It is extremely silly and very funny.
I particularly enjoyed the character of Claude "Mustard" Pott, a private detective and former bookie, and having checked Wikipedia am somewhat disappointed that this was Wodehouse's only outing of this character.
However, although this is a very funny novel, this is not where to start reading Wodehouse, as the novel benefits from the inclusion of minor characters from other novels, mainly the earlier Blandings novels, so that you appreciate the full humour of some of the scenes with Lord Emsworth, Baxter and Beach, by knowing their previous exploits. There is also a colliding of fictional universes with the cameo appearance of Sir Roderick Glossop, who appears in several Jeeves and Wooster short stories and novels .
Highly recommended for those already well acquainted with Wodehouse's timeless stories. ( )

This was Wodehouse's last full-scale novel of the thirties (Quick Service is only a novelette, really) and the book that many Wodehouse enthusiasts list as their absolute favourite. It's a sort of pendant to Leave it to Psmith with a buzzer character introduced into Blandings Castle as an impostor to steal pigs, spread sweetness and light, and generally cause chaos. The buzzer in this case is of course the inimitable and irrepressible peer, Lord Ickenham (Uncle Fred), whom we met for the first time in "Uncle Fred flits by" (1935). Wodehouse rather cleverly realised that irresponsible behaviour is funnier in the elderly than in the young, and that it is even funnier if the person concerned is an embarrassing uncle. Poor old Pongo, the nephew, has a rather dull but essential role as straight-man.

But it doesn't stop there: we actually get three comic peers this time, with the welcome return of the absent-minded Lord Emsworth and the introduction of the supremely irascible Duke of Dunstable. There's a Drones Club prologue featuring an untoward incident at a fancy-dress ball and a ludicrous betting tragedy; Emsworth's heir, Lord Bosham, emerges from his previous obscurity to display supreme quantities of upper-class twittishness; the Efficient Baxter is back with his death-ray spectacles; nerve-specialist Sir Roderick Glossop has a walk-on part, and we meet Claude "Mustard" Pott, private detective and former bookie with a talent for the game of Persian Monarchs. What more could you want?

Well, perhaps it is all a little bit too hectic. Certainly, the girls Valerie and Polly don't get much to do - just two scenes each where they actually speak, the rest of the time they are off-stage. Beach and the Empress are rather marginalised as well. But those are tiny quibbles. All in all, it is a magnificent tour-de-force, with quite a few of Wodehouse's best throwaway lines. I always love the Tennysonian detail of Uncle Fred heading for the bathroom "armed with his great sponge Joyeuse", for instance. And Burns being (most unfairly) ticked off for rhyming "Loch Lomond" with "afore ye". And it's great to watch Lady Constance Keeble being manoeuvred into a position where she can accuse someone else of being a snob.

Greatest Wodehouse novel? - possibly, but there are several other serious contenders.
A book every Wodehouse-lover should read? - definitely. ( )

Polly frowned. In a world scented with flowers and full of soft music, these sentiments jarred upon her.
'I don't see why it's got to be a sort of fight.'
'Well, it has. Marriage is a battlefield, not a bed of roses. Who said that? It sounds too good to be my own. Not that I don't think of some extraordinarily good things, generally in my bath.'

When his sister Lady Constance agrees to give his beloved Empress to the visiting Duke of Dunstable, for fear that he will trash the castle if he doesn't get his own way, the Earl of Emsworth turns to his brother's Gally's friend Fred, the Earl of Ickenham for help. Fred arrives at Blandings Castle disguised as distinguished psychiatrist Sir Roderick Glossop (who has been summoned by Lady Constance to examine the Duke), along with his nephew and a girl who is engaged to one of the Duke's nephews.

As usual the story includes impostors infiltrating the castle, pignapping, a broken engagement, a jealous boyfriend getting the wrong end of the stick, and impoverished young men trying to get money from their richer friends and relatives. Uncle Fred is an alarming character who thinks it fun to try his hand at a confidence trick just to see if can do it, and is prepared to steal, cheat at cards and slip people Micky Finns, so for once I felt that Wodehouse's disapproving females could be right to keep their husbands and male relatives on a tight leash. ( )