Imperial Blandings: "Full Moon"; "Pigs Have Wings"; "Service with a Smile": An Omnibus (Paperback)

If you have read any of the P.G. Wodehouse books about Blandings Castle, you know that the proprietor, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, is a simple man who simply wants to be left alone to contemplate his prize-winning pig, The Empress of Blandings, who has won the silver prize three years running in the fat pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. But he is beset by sisters who want to organize his life . . . and that of everyone else. The most frequently present of these sisters is Lady Constance Keeble, who is in residence in this book.

Lady Constance is a widow and has her eye on a wealthy American, James Schoonmaker, whose daughter, Myra, has been brought to Blandings Castle by Lady Constance to keep Myra from marrying a curate, a poor but honest man. Lady Constance has no truck with poor people and she's confident that James Schoonmaker would feel the same way.

The castle also contains Clarence's secretary, Lavender Briggs, who desperately wants to start up her own typing bureau but lacks capital; the Duke of Dunstable, who thinks everyone else is potty and wants to save a penny wherever he can; and Clarence's grandson, George, who has a new movie camera from his grandfather. All will play important roles in the developing plot.

The catalyst for this marvelous story is the effervescent Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl of Ickenham. As an old friend of the Schoonmakers, Freddie decides to bring the young people together in holy matrimony. To further this course, Freddie introduces the curate, one Bill Bailey (about whom many song jokes follow), into the castle as a Brazilian business man who has something to do with Brazil nuts.

Freddie's plot is soon foiled though when Dunstable decides to grab the Empress by hook or by crook and Bill Bailey is blackmailed to help. How will the young lovers be brought together?

Ickenham is a less scrupulous version of Galahad Threepwood, Clarence's younger brother, who was such a fixture in the old Pelican Club. He sees fatheaded rich men as being likely sources of capital for poor, but deserving younger people. He also believes in love and soon has two sets of young lovers to sort out. He has a strategic advantage in this plot in that his reputation precedes him and all those in trouble quickly come to seek his counsel. In the process, that allows Freddie to pull the strings almost as well as the fairies do in some of Shakespeare's lightest comedies.

Like all of the best Wodehouse stories, this one positively reeks with humorous names (such as George Cyril Wellbeloved, Clarence's pig man), class humor (fat-headed upper class types being shorn), irony (the simple is exalted over the complex and pretentious) and never-ending humorous confrontations and contretemps.

Save this book for the next time you need cheering up. It's a perfect tonic!

As usual, the themes involve a satire of romantic love, miscommunications between the sexes, the vapid interests of the titled class, and the silliness of people in general.

As the book opens, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth finds himself faced with a threat to the supremacy of his pig, Empress of Blandings, in the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, Bart, of Matchingham Hall, had already hired away Clarence's pig handler, George Cyril Wellbeloved . . . and Clarence is sure that some new skullduggery will soon follow. As the story develops, we find that it's all too true. Soon both pig camps are doing their best to knobble the other man's pig. With everyone else having a bet on the outcome, many other people are soon engaged in trying to sabotage one pig or the other. It's the most pignapping fun caper you can imagine!

In the background, we have all sorts of people who've become engaged to totally unsuitable people on the rebound from slights they feel from the one they really love. P.G. Wodehouse does a yeoman effort of returning all of those twisted loves to the proper party. The plot will keep you constantly chuckling throughout.

There are quite a few books based on the Empress of Blandings. So if you enjoy this one, go on to the others in the series such as the ones in this volume.