Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fruity Fun Frolics About British Upper Class Follies, 13 Aug 2004
P.G. Wodehouse once said that you could write about life as it is or as musical comedy. He chose to do the latter. As a result, I strongly prefer to listen to audio recordings of Mr. Wodehouse's novels. The dramatic portrayals add a great deal to the humor of the stories. This is the first one that I have heard by Jeremy Sinden. He is very talented and flexible in his characterizations, moving easily from men to women, from one English class to another, and even to including Americans.If you are familiar with the stories about Jeeves and the gentleman he serves, Bertram (Bertie) Wooster, which Mr. Wodehouse also wrote, you will feel at home with this tale, as well. Galahad plays the Jeeves-like role, but with greater elan than Jeeves ever did. You'll like Galahad. He's never let a pal down, and he has lots of them from his days carousing at the old Pelican Club. He's the bright, ne'er-do-well younger brother of Clarence, Lord Emsworth (who is fond of pigs, especially his prize-winning, Empress of Blandings, and his peace and quiet). The story begins with a misunderstanding (not unlike the ones that Shakespeare used in his comedies -- it must be something about the water in England). An American millionaire, Tipton Plimsoe (I apologize for the fact I may have the spellings wrong in this review, since I have only heard the audio cassettes), runs into his fiancee's cousin, and they imbibe a bit too much. In the middle of the night, he awakens to find himself in jail. Someone has taken the millionaire's wallet, so he has no money to post bail. The cousin remembers that Lord Emsworth is in New York, staying at the Plaza, so they call him. Lord Emsworth is a little simple and has a poor memory. Although he dispatches the $20 by messenger to release the two, he mistakenly interprets this as meaning that the millionnaire has lost all of his money in the stock market crash of 1929 (the backdrop of this story). The consequences of this misunderstanding almost cause three sets of lovers to be kept apart and Lord Emsworth to become engaged to a most unsuitable person. Worse yet, the Empress of Blandings herself is put at risk! You might think that such a story would have a very predictable plot. Nothing could be less true. Just when the plot seems to be comfortably taking you left, Wodehouse puts in a complication that suddenly causes a u-turn. Then, when you get settled into that direction, he sends you off suddenly at a 45 degree angle. And pretty soon, you are overwhelmed with complications to keep you amusingly occupied with how in the world this can ever be straightened out . . . even though you have a pretty good idea of how things must turn out eventually. But the complications serve an important purpose beyond keeping up the suspense. They also provide wonderful chances to show the true nature of the characters, and to flesh them out. This I found to be particularly well done in this book. Basically, Wodehouse likes to contrast those who care about others in a sincere way with those who are only concerned with their self-interest. The self-obsessed people unwittingly do themselves in, while the caring people somehow muddle through. The caring people have to also clean up the messes the self-interested ones make. This book includes two of P.G. Wodehouse's most intimidating and unstoppable older women, Clarence's and Galahad's sister, Lady Hermione, and her friend, Dame Daphne Winkworth, who has her eye on Clarence. The upper class men are, as usual, very unintelligent (except for Galahad), which makes for much of the humor. I suggest that you use your experience with hearing the narration of this story to think of a story that you would like to read aloud to a child you know. Then do so. Be sure to pick one that you can make very entertaining and which teaches valuable lessons. See the humor . . . even in the worst circumstances!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Walk up. Clasp in arms. Kiss. And say `My woman!' It's as easy as falling off a log.", 28 Jul 2009
In this ninth of his eleven Blandings Castle farces, P. G. Wodehouse brings a large cast of mostly repeating characters to Blandings Castle in Shropshire, where their adolescent behavior, their misplaced values, and their obliviousness to real issues in a real world, allow Wodehouse to create gentle but pointed satire of the British upperclass, of which he himself was also a member. Written in 1965, but set in 1929, this novel, like all Wodehouse writing, is timeless in its ability to capture the silly, the petty, and the laughable in complex and hilarious plots in which numerous misunderstandings occur because characters refuse to be honest with themselves and with each other.
Tipton Plimsoll, who begins the novel "sleeping it off" in the pokey in New York City after a riotous night on the town with fellow Englishman Wilfred Allsop, discovers that his wallet has been stolen during the night. Unable to pay his way out of jail, despite his large fortune, he calls Lord Emsworth, a future in-law, who is in New York, telling him he has lost his money and needs to borrow a small sum. This is October, 1929, however, and Lord Emsworth and everyone else who hears this story, assumes that Tipton, engaged to marry Lord Emsworth's niece, is bankrupt as a result of the stock market crash. While in New York, Tipton has discovered that his friend and cellmate, the slightly built Wilfred Allsop worships from afar the Amazonian Monica Simpson, who takes care of the Empress of Blandings, Lord Emsworth's prized pig. Tipton determines to bring them together.
When all the characters have returned to Blandings, Tipton Plimsoll's fiancée, Veronica Wedge, is instructed by her demanding mother Hermione to break off her engagement to Tipton, her now "penniless" fiance. Galahad Threepwood, Lord Emsworth's younger brother and an incorrigible meddler, also at Blandings Castle, is determined to keep his overbearing sister out of the relationship. He himself plans to bring together Sandy Callender, Lord Emsworth's "secretary" and her former fiance Samuel Galahad Bagshott, who in pique has called her a "ginger-haired fathead." As one might expect in a farce, complications arise in even the most elementary plot lines, and as the various lovers try to "conquer all," Galahad Threepwood remains front and center pulling the strings.
The action is fast and furious, with one complication following another. The humor is obvious and very visual, with silly characters behaving much the way they do in the early TV sitcoms or Marx Brothers movies. Wodehouse's sense of timing and his fine grasp of his characters, many of whom repeat throughout the series, keep readers amused and feeling as if they are reading about the escapades of old friends who don't quite "get it." A delightful entertainment which allows Wodehouse to tweak upperclass pretensions and values, which he has seen up close in his own life, Galahad at Blandings is fun to read for the memories it conjures of a much earlier time and place. n Mary Whipple
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb, 5 Jan 2001
By A Customer
What can you say. Classic Wodehouse, wonderful escapism, a mastery of the comical side of the English language unsurpassed. Emsworth, Gally, Connie and the obligiatory sundered hearts. Top stuff
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