Nuts In May

by Richard Gordon

Heinemann 1st F/F.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Richard Gordon is the pen name used by Gordon Ostlere (born Gordon Stanley Ostlere on September 15, 1921), an English surgeon and anaesthetist. As Richard Gordon, Ostlere has written several novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history, mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He is most famous for a long series of comic novels on a medical theme starting with Doctor in the House, and the subsequent film, television and stage adaptations. His The Alarming History of Medicine was published in 1993, and he followed this with The Alarming History of Sex.

Gordon worked as anaesthetist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (where he was a medical student) and later as a ship's surgeon and as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He has published several technical books under his own name including Anaesthetics for Medical Students(1949); later published as Ostlere and Bryce-Smith's Anaesthetics for Medical Students in 1989, Anaesthetics and the Patient (1949) and Trichlorethylene Anaesthesia (1953). In 1952, he left medical practice and took up writing full time. He has an uncredited role as an anesthesiologist in the movie Doctor in the House.

The early Doctor novels, set in the fictitious St Swithin's, a teaching hospital in London, were initially witty and apparently autobiographical; later books included more sexual innuendo and farce. The novels were very successful in Britain in Penguin paperback during the 1960s and 1970s. Richard Gordon also contributed to Punch magazine and has published books on medicine, gardening, fishing and cricket.

The film adaptation of Doctor in the House was released in 1954, two years after the book, while Doctor at Sea came out the following year with Brigitte Bardot. Dirk Bogarde starred as Dr. Simon Sparrow in both. The later spin-off TV series were often written by other well-known British comic performers.

Reviews

[Stephen Robert Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This like Woodhouse book with a mammy 's boy telling him what to do.It has very much fun and has dated but again I read this years ago when nobody cared about sexist jokes

[Tommy Verhaegen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een boek dat heel erg doet denken aan de boeken van P.G. Wodehouse. Misschien een ietsje minder braaf en rekenend op het begrip voor subtiele en fijne humor van de lezer, maar verre van de grove en platvloerse versie van Tom Sharpe.
Het thema is compleet à la Wodehouse: jongen is verloofd, ruzie om domme reden tussen het stel, verloving verbroken, omgeving doet er uit eigenbelang alles aan om de brokken te lijmen, wat door allerlei omstandigheden telkens mislukt. Een beperkte groep personages, vooral uit de betere kringen, belanden in allerlei, althans voor de lezende buitenstaander, dolkomische situaties.
Het geheel speelt zichzelf gedeeltelijk in Londen en voor een merkelijk deel op een cruiseschip op zee af. De goeden zijn niet veel beter dan de slechten en vice versa.
Net zoals bij Wodehouse werkt de naïeve en klaplopende high society zich in nesten en moet het praktisch denkende proletariaat ze er uit redden.
Een must voor wie houdt van Wodehouse. En ook voor wie gewoon een rustig verhaal vol humor mar zonder seks of echt geweld wil lezen. Gesitueerd in een vorige eeuw.

[Rex Brampton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating little time capsule of Britain (esp. London) in the early sixties when any undergraduate who could impersonate the Prime Minister opened a review club in Soho.

[Lynne - The Book Squirrel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crazy read, typical of the period!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10