Heavy Weather
P.G. Wodehouse
Penguin Books. First published 1933.
This is a tale of
Blandings Castle from PGW's golden period, involving Ronnie Fish, Sue
Brown, Monty Bodkin, 'Stinker' Pyke a.k.a. Lord Tilbury, Sir Gregory
Parsloe, Lady Julia Fish, Lady Constance Keeble, Percy Pilbeam the
detective, Pirbright the pig-man, Beach the butler, Lord Emsworth,
the Hon. Galahad Threepwood, and of course the Empress of Blandings.
There are no impostors, though. I give the cast almost in its
entirety, since, from this list, the complicated and superbly etched
plot can be imagined in outline by any PGW fan. Lady Fish, who does
not appear elsewhere in the canon, is a delightful antagonist, unlike
her sister Lady Constance, who is always painted as a stuffy bore.
But Galahad, and later Ronnie, get the better of them both, and
Ronnie gets Sue. I must have read this book at least half-a-dozen
times earlier, but it retains its freshness and delightfulness. PGW's
descriptions of summer nights in the castle gardens, of one or two
oppressive summer afternoons (the Heavy Weather of the title, along
with Ronnie's jealousy, his making 'heavy weather' of trifles), of
the sentimental feelings of Galahad when he has occasion to recall
the love affair in his youth, of the perfect English town of Market
Blandings, and so on, are marvellously lyrical. Here's a description
which conveys its meaning perfectly, but at same time does so with
great humour.
'...of all the admirable
hosteleries in the town, [the Emsworth Arms] possesses the largest
and shadiest garden. Green and inviting, and dotted about with rustic
tables and snug summerhouses, it stretches all the way down to the
banks of the river; so that the happy drinker, already pleasantly in
need of beer, may acquire a new and deeper thirst from watching
family parties toil past in row-boats. On a really sultry day, a
single father, labouring at the oars of a craft loaded down below the
Plimsoll mark by a wife, a wife's sister, a cousin by marriage, four
children, a dog and a picnic basket, has sometimes led to such a rush
of business at the Emsworth Arms that seasoned barmaids have
staggered beneath the strain.'
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