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Summer Lightning Paperback – July 2, 2012
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"[Blandings] is an entire world unto itself and, one senses, Wodehouse pours into it his deepest feelings for England." ―Stephen Fry
The Honourable Galahad Threepwood has decided to write his memoir―a tell-all that could destroy polite society. Everyone wants this manuscript gone, particularly Lord Emsworth’s neighbor Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, who would do anything to keep the story of the prawns buried in the past. But the memoir isn’t the only problem. A chorus girl disguised as an heiress, a double-dealing detective, a stolen prize-winning sow, and a crazy ex-secretary are only a few of the complications that must be dealt with before everyone can have their happy ending.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
- Publication dateJuly 2, 2012
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
- ISBN-100393341615
- ISBN-13978-0393341614
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- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (July 2, 2012)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0393341615
- ISBN-13 : 978-0393341614
- Item Weight : 8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #274,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,295 in Humorous Fiction
- #5,657 in Short Stories (Books)
- #14,952 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (/ˈwʊdhaʊs/; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. Born in Guildford, the son of a British magistrate based in Hong Kong, Wodehouse spent happy teenage years at Dulwich College, to which he remained devoted all his life. After leaving school he was employed by a bank but disliked the work and turned to writing in his spare time. His early novels were mostly school stories, but he later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular characters who became familiar to the public over the years. They include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeves; the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; the feeble-minded Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle set; the loquacious Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and the equally loquacious Mr Mulliner, with tall tales on subjects ranging from bibulous bishops to megalomaniac movie moguls.
Although most of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England, he spent much of his life in the US and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels and short stories. During and after the First World War, together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, he wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies that were an important part of the development of the American musical. He began the 1930s writing for MGM in Hollywood. In a 1931 interview, his naïve revelations of incompetence and extravagance at Hollywood studios caused a furore. In the same decade, his literary career reached a new peak.
In 1934 Wodehouse moved to France for tax reasons; in 1940 he was taken prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans and interned for nearly a year. After his release he made six broadcasts from German radio in Berlin to the US, which had not yet entered the war. The talks were comic and apolitical, but his broadcasting over enemy radio prompted anger and strident controversy in Britain, and a threat of prosecution. Wodehouse never returned to England. From 1947 until his death he lived in the US, taking dual British-American citizenship in 1955. He was a prolific writer throughout his life, publishing more than ninety books, forty plays, two hundred short stories and other writings between 1902 and 1974. He died in 1975, at the age of 93, in Southampton, New York.
Wodehouse worked extensively on his books, sometimes having two or more in preparation simultaneously. He would take up to two years to build a plot and write a scenario of about thirty thousand words. After the scenario was complete he would write the story. Early in his career he would produce a novel in about three months, but he slowed in old age to around six months. He used a mixture of Edwardian slang, quotations from and allusions to numerous poets, and several literary techniques to produce a prose style that has been compared with comic poetry and musical comedy. Some critics of Wodehouse have considered his work flippant, but among his fans are former British prime ministers and many of his fellow writers.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Unlisted photographer for Screenland (Screenland, August 1930 (Vol XXI, No 4); p. 20) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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In a labyrinthine plot designed to assure the reader that none of the lovers will pair up correctly, that the stolen pig will never be returned, and that Galahad, Emsworth's unreconstructed rogue of a brother will befoul the reputations of the entire House of Lords with his impending memoirs, all the knots untangle in their time, and the sated reader is left with a lingering smile and a bevy of patented extended similes.
Among the best of these describes Gally's niece Millicent at a low point in her young life due to her strained relationship with the man of her dreams. "She looked like something that might have occurred to Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments."
Wodehouse's unmatched command of his native tongue at play always yields surprises. In this outing, Nature herself is a character personified in luscious clauses like this one: "It was that gracious hour of a summer afternoon...when Nature seems to unbutton its waistcoat and put its feet up." Or this instant of momentous expectancy: "Nature paused, listening. Birds checked their songs, insects their droning. It was as if it had got about that this young man's fate hung in the balance and the returns would be in shortly."
It is Millicent, hesitantly forgiving of her beau, who says, "Any funny business from now on..."
She is answered:
"As if...!"
Thus anticipating Alicia Silverstone of the movie Clueless by about 50 years.
These are a couple of the treats scattered like a well whacked piñata throughout the text, and reason enough to delve into this singular piece of writing. But there's so much more to savor. The outrageous and hardly Honorable Galahad Threepwood, the young men with hearts afire and brains without a noticeable spark, inordinately homely detectives, efficient ex-secretaries, and the indomitable Aunt Constance, all simmering deliciously in as cleverly crafted a plot as Wodehouse has ever cooked up.
And, of course, there's Sue Brown, the chorus girl far too beautiful and far too good for any man in the kingdom, Sue Brown, who has chosen one of the least worthy to love with all her golden heart. Therein lies my only quibble. The author has chosen to focus on the admittedly hilarious plot twists and turns, thereby leaving little space for continuing development of Sue. So tantalizingly promising at her introduction, her character recedes almost to blandness by the final third of the book, until she is little more than a passive and mournful observer of the goings on swirling about her. She deserved a better shake from her creator, on the order of Sally Nicholas (The Adventures of Sally) or Corky Pirbright (The Mating Season). Nobody does the heroic fair maiden like Plum, and one imagines that he meant to do so here but simply lurched off...so much fun to have; so few pages!
In these trying times, Summer Lightning will have the same effect on you as did lovely Sue on the smitten but jealous Ronnie become convinced of her love for only him: "The cloud had passed from his face, the look of Byronic despair from his eyes. He beamed."
As will you.
I began reading Wodehouse's "Blandings Castle" novels years ago in lovely English Folio Society editions, and while on a recent overseas trip I thought it would be good entertainment to read them again in ebook (Kindle) editions. In my view Wodehouse is one of the finest stylistic authors of the 20th Century While his characters might be considered as great comic characters (as they are), what makes them stand out -- and even more enjoyable and memorable for me -- is that they also come across as real flesh-and-blood people that one gets quite attached to. "Heavy Weather" however is not perhaps a recommended starting point for reading the "Blandings Castle" series. Its various inhabitants first appear in "Something New" followed by "Leave It To Psmith" and "Summer Lightening." The Folio Society multi-volume edition however begins with "Summer Lightening," and that would be quite all right to begin with, as it shares specific plot elements with "Heavy Weather." If one's only prior reading experiences of Wodehouse are the (wonderful) Jeeves and Wooster books, I consider the Blandings books even better (if that were possible!).
The above review of mine holds true also for "Summer Lightening," which would be a good starting point in the Blanding series if one were not inclined to start with the initial offering -- "Something New."
Lord Emsworth; his prize winning Black Berkshire pig, the Empress of Blandings; his secretary, the Efficient Baxter; the Honorable Galahad Threepwood (whose memoirs are the cause of all the excitement); Beach the Butler; and of course, an impostor and some star-crossed lovers.
From Wodehouse's preface to the book:
"A certain critic - for such men, I regret to say, do exist - made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained `all the old Wodehouse characters under different names'. He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy."
This book was also published as "Fish Preferred."
Top reviews from other countries
Further adventure of Ronnie Fish and Hugo Carmody after the prompt failure of their nightclub.
Detective Percy Pilbeam stirs up the action.
The storytelling couldn't be so humorous than the way PG did..
inoltre kindle è impagabile per leggere di tutto e ovunque.