One of Wodehouse's sunniest and most charming farces, "Summer Lighting" forms a sort of sequel to "Heavy Weather" but pursues a crazy logic of its own in putting the long-suffering inhabitants of Blandings Castle through one of the author's most deranged plots. 'Immortal...gloriously, a book about nothing, and all the better for it' - Nick Hornby.
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* Get it soonest; Jarvis is the lick The Guardian * Light hearted, sunny farce The Financial Times * Each character comes alive with Jarvis' expert interpretations. Audiofile Magazine * An idyllic world of sublime comedy. No better place to escape. The Sunday Times
--This text refers to the
Audio CD
edition.
From the Back Cover
A Blandings novel
'You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour.' Stephen Fry
The Empress of Blandings, prize-winning pig and all-consuming passion of Clarence, Ninth Earl of Emsworth, has disappeared.
Blandings Castle is in uproar and there are suspects a-plenty - from Galahad Threepwood (who is writing memoirs so scandalous they will rock the aristocracy to its foundations) to the Efficient Baxter, chilling former secretary to Lord Emsworth. Even Beach the Butler seems deeply embroiled. And what of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, Clarence's arch-rival, and his passion for prize-winning pigs?
With the castle full of deceptions and impostors, will Galahad's memoirs ever see the light of day? And will the Empress be returned...?
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
By Aquinas
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Paul D
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Summer Lightning, first published in 1929, was the third book in P. G. Wodehouse's Blandings saga, and the first to deal exclusively with the assortment of aristocratic eccentrics and oddities, and their employees and hangers-on who inhabit or, as Lord Emsworth might put it, infest, the place. The first novel in the sequence, Something Fresh, dealt primarily with life `below stairs', the only Wodehouse book so to do. The second, Leave it to Psmith, focuses primarily on this eminent buzzer and uses Lord Emsworth and the others mainly as background material. In Summer Lightning, however, Emsworth comes to the fore. As such, this is the first novel to mention his obsession with his prize-winning pig, Empress of Blandings, and therefore the first to have the theft of said porcine champion as a major plot point. This is also the first appearance of Lord Emsworth's younger brother Galahad Threepwood, he of the scandalous early life, and the sort of man for whom padded cells were invented.
Lord Emsworth's nephew Ronnie Fish needs money to marry his beloved, chorus girl Sue. But Lord Emsworth is his trustee, and he is unlikely to unloose the purse-strings to allow his nephew to marry a mere chorus girl, particularly when Ronnie's last financial venture was a night club which went bankrupt very quickly. Meanwhile, his former partner in this ill-starred venture, Hugo Carmody, is now working as Lord Emsworth's secretary, and is in love with Millicent, Lord Emsworth's niece. Sue herself is being sent flowers by Percy Pilbeam, who, in his capacity of private detective, takes up a place at Blandings. Sue has also been dancing with Hugo, and these two potential rivals cause Ronnie a great deal of jealousy. Add to the mix the Hon. Galahad's decision to write his salacious memoirs, and the inhabitants of Blandings and its environs are far from sleeping easy in their beds. Ronnie, in order to try to get his money out of Lord Emsworth, decides to steal his uncle's prize pig. Lord Emsworth's former secretary, the efficient Baxter, returns to the castle at the behest of his long-time champion, Lady Constance. With all these subplots and subterfuges going on, the scene is set for a classic Wodehouse farce.
As the title suggests, this is a light, summery book, which no lover of fine comic writing will want to miss.
Lord Emsworth's nephew Ronnie Fish needs money to marry his beloved, chorus girl Sue. But Lord Emsworth is his trustee, and he is unlikely to unloose the purse-strings to allow his nephew to marry a mere chorus girl, particularly when Ronnie's last financial venture was a night club which went bankrupt very quickly. Meanwhile, his former partner in this ill-starred venture, Hugo Carmody, is now working as Lord Emsworth's secretary, and is in love with Millicent, Lord Emsworth's niece. Sue herself is being sent flowers by Percy Pilbeam, who, in his capacity of private detective, takes up a place at Blandings. Sue has also been dancing with Hugo, and these two potential rivals cause Ronnie a great deal of jealousy. Add to the mix the Hon. Galahad's decision to write his salacious memoirs, and the inhabitants of Blandings and its environs are far from sleeping easy in their beds. Ronnie, in order to try to get his money out of Lord Emsworth, decides to steal his uncle's prize pig. Lord Emsworth's former secretary, the efficient Baxter, returns to the castle at the behest of his long-time champion, Lady Constance. With all these subplots and subterfuges going on, the scene is set for a classic Wodehouse farce.
As the title suggests, this is a light, summery book, which no lover of fine comic writing will want to miss.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Can't put it down!
I love Blandings books. They are nicely written, excellent descriptions. I love the way in which they start off as a very readable light novel and then suddenly turn into ah... Read more
Published 20 days ago by Wendy
5.0 out of 5 stars
great book good read
if you wont agreat read and a good laugh then buy this book its as good any of is books
Published 2 months ago by joseph
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Master at his Sunniest and Best
Of all the magnificent canon, 'Summer Lightning' remains my desert island Wodehouse. There are more uproarious scenes to be found elsewhere, but this is the most elegaic of all the... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mark Daniel
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic from PG Wodehouse
A classic from PG Wodehouse, well worth buying. Having read many of the jeeves stories many years ago I thought it was time to get back to Wodehouse for some good cheer. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Richard Emblem
5.0 out of 5 stars
A comedy of manners focused not on the drawing room but on the pig...
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... Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2009 by Mary Whipple
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant writing, excellently read
Martin Jarvis is a delight as he invests every character with their own voice. He alternates smoothly between interpretations of the put upon butler Beach, the scheming... Read more
Published on 17 Jun 2008 by Graham R. Hill
5.0 out of 5 stars
Summer lightning Strikes Home.
`Summer Lightning' is the third novel in the Blanding's saga and the fist in which the residents of Blanding's themselves take centre stage. Read more
Published on 25 Nov 2007 by Ian Wood, Author of 'Here's 2 Absent Fathers'
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very good, light read
What Ho! Anyone wanting to escape for a while to a pleasant little world full of bizarrly funny, yet lovable characters must read this. Read more
Published on 21 Nov 2003
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hillarious
Although the one I read was an earlier edition, since the content is the same I can recommend this book to anyone who has no objection to laughing out loud when reading a novel. Read more
Published on 15 Mar 2001 by Ganime B. Akin
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