Вечера с мистером Муллинером

Mr. Mulliner #3

by P.G. Wodehouse, П.Г. Вудхаус

В сборник Пелема Г.Вудхауса (1881-1975), великого мастера фарса и гротеска, вошли полные изящества и истинно английского юмора рассказы "муллинеровского цикла" о невероятных событиях в жизни бесчисленных родственников главного героя.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Short Stories, Classics, Comedy, Audiobook, British Literature

Paperback

First published January 17, 1933

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[F.R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful collection of stories from The Angler’s Rest. Here, for your enjoyment, are quotes from each tale:

The Smile That Wins
“There was enough of the financier to make two financiers. It was as if Nature, planning a financier, had said to itself: ‘We will do this thing well. We will not skimp.’”

The Story of Webster
“The real objection to the great majority of cats is their insufferable air of superiority. Cats, as a class, have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshipped as gods. This makes them too prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share.”

Cats will be Cats
“Neither Lady Widdrington nor her mother, the aged Mrs Pulteney-Banks, actually struck Lancelot or spiked him with a knitting-needle. But there were moments when they seemed only by a miracle of strong will to check themselves from such manifestations of dislike.”

The Knightly Quest of Mervyn
“Mervyn tells me that he got a good laugh out of a photograph of the girl’s late father on the mantelpiece – a heavily-whiskered old gentleman who reminded him of a burst horsehair sofa.”

The Voice from the Past
“The last time she had seen Sacheverell, it must be remembered, he had been the sort of man who made a shrinking violet look like a Chicago gangster. And here he was now, staring her in the eye and shooting off his head for all the world as if he were Mussolini informing the Italian Civil Service of a twelve percent cut in their weekly salary.”

Open House
“Wittleford-cum-Bagsley-on-Sea, so I am informed by those who have visited it, is not a Paris or a pre-War Vienna. In fact, once the visitor has strolled along the pier and put pennies in the slot machines, he has shot his bolt as far as the hectic world of pleasure is concerned.”

Best Seller
“From far away in the distance came the faint strains of the town band, as it picked its way through the Star of Eve song from Tannhäuser – somewhat impeded by the second trombone, who had got his music-sheets mixed and was playing ‘The Wedding of the Painted Doll’.”

Strychnine in the Soup
“’You don’t know mother. The moment she got the picture postcard, she would come over to wherever we were and put you across her knee and spank you with a hair-brush. I don’t think I could ever feel the same towards you if I saw you lying across mother’s knee, being spanked with a hairbrush. It would spoil the honeymoon.’”

Gala Night
“She was seething with that febrile exasperation which, since the days of Eve, has come upon women who find themselves linked to a cloth-head.”


If all that wasn’t cracking enough, this book also features a cat so supercilious that the man looking after it is forced to don full evening-wear every time he deals with it; as well as creating a world where female romantic novelists spout such saccharine nonsense in interviews that those journalists sent to meet them are frequently found afterwards broken and weeping.

Brilliant!

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much as been said about this wonderful collection of stories that their is nothing new to add.
The two part story with the cat, bloody hilarious. Websters story is a cross between a decadent tale infused with a gothic tale completely turned on its head.

The second Cats Will Be Cats is pure slapstick.

Enjoy!

[Noella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dit is een boekje met verschillende verhaaltjes:
-De winstgevende glimlach
-Het verhaal van Webster
-Katten zijn nu eenmaal katten
-De ridderlijke speurtocht van Mervyn
-De stem uit het verleden
-Het open huis
-De best-seller
-Strychnine in de soep
-Het gala-bal.

Typisch ouderwetse engelse humor.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

P.G. Wodehouse. The man was a genius and one of the great writers of the 20th Century. Period. Boris Vian loved him. Pynchon, I bet, loves him. In fact I suspect he's a writer's writer. If not, then there is something wrong with contemporary writing.

One can choose any title -and it's all the same. In one word, great! For whatever reason, I find Mulliner Nights my favorite. Why? I don't know why. All I can tell you is that it is a set of stories where Mr. Mulliner is in his favorite pub and he starts telling these crazy tales. It's hysterical. But all Wodehouse novels are hysterical. How many books did he write? One million, and every one of them is a hoot. Genius galore! I am not kidding. And I strongly suggest all writers study this man's prose work, because he is a real writer. He doesn't mess around. He gets in and then he gets out. You want to study plotting, how to get from A to Zed? Wodehouse will teach you.

All I know is that the rich are super funny people!

[Gayatri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I LOVED reading this book. Each story in this book is unique and I enjoyed reading them all. Simply awesome. :D
Mr. Mulliner, his nephews and cousins never cease to amuse you. I wish The Anglers' Rest was real and I could visit it and give the almighty Mr. Mulliner a much deserved bow.
I am smiling even while writing this review, such is the magic of P.G.Wodehouse! Hats off, sir!

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Mulliner and his inexhaustible supply of nephews, nieces and cousins and their incredible tales. Another gem from Wodehouse.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature." (189)

Mulliner Nights completes my reading of the Mulliner stories—it is probably my favorite of the bunch, not least because it contains several cat-centered stories.

[Mauro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Costumo ler nos transportes públicos – pego ônibus para ir ao trabalho e volto de metrô (o ponto e a estação são eqüidistantes da minha casa, mas o primeiro é para baixo e a segunda é para cima).
Estas historietas de Mr. Mulliner (são nove, neste livrinho) esconderam, por uns dias, a paisagem dura da 23 de Maio e as caratonhas de quem pega metrô na São Bento depois da oito da noite – mas o fato de que eu sorria constantemente e gargalhava sozinho ocasionalmente, fez com que o cobrador e meus colegas de vagão passassem a me encarar com certa desconfiança, desde então.
Também houve uma certa desavença num sábado – é que costumo preparar um drink antes do almoço nesse dia e leio enquanto bebo e ouço as notícias da família da minha senhora, diretamente da fonte.
Ocorre que o sogro, parece, teve problemas com o cadastro do INSS justamente no momento em que Eustace Mulliner atirava sanduíches de pepino no gato de sua tia, para evitar que ele engolisse o canário da pretendida namorada. Naturalmente, com o desenvolvimento da intrincada trama aliado a certa leveza que o Martini já produzia, acabei rindo um pouco ruidosamente por trás do livrinho, o que me levou a ser acusado de não levar a sério os problemas da família colateral, “como sempre”.
Meu conselho, portanto, é que quando for ler estas historietas, faça-o reservadamente, longe de olhares críticos do público ignaro e de cônjuges cujos pais passem por dificuldades cadastrais junto aos órgãos públicos.

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have, over the years, read a lot of Wodehouse. I have read all the Jeeves & Wooster (and one hamfisted pastiche which came out a couple of years ago), all of the Blandings, all of the Psmith; I have read anything Drones Club related, all of Uncle Fred, and many one-off novels. I have even read all of the School stories, and a couple of Plum's ill-considered autobiographical writings. What I have been sedulously avoiding, for reasons that are now unclear to me, are the Mulliner stories, the Oldest Member stories, and Ukridge. Then I stumbled across this slim volume, languishing in the free box at work, and said "What-ho! Why not?".
This is Plum, working at the height of his powers: of course it's brilliant. What it boils down to is that I much prefer Plum's novels, or at least his stories which are connected to each other, to his stories. I love it when Plum can extend himself, and introduce a large cast of characters who can bounce off each other.
I'm still not sure why I've given Ukridge (Plum's favorite character) the elbow. This will be remedied.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

P.G.Wodehouse shall never fail to lift my spirits. One of the best books of his I’ve read so far!

The Mulliners shall never fail to find comedy in almost any life situation, shall never fail to be men of “reckless courage”, and shall never fail to adorn the charming phrase “right-ho!”

Favourite stories included Cats Will Be Cats, The Voice From The Past, The Knightly Quest of Mervyn...yet the top spot was taken by the utterly bonkers Strychnine in the Soup! :)

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been probably 20 years since I delved into Wodehouse, a delay that will not recur between this and the next volume.

[Derelict Space Sheep · Rating 4 out of 5]

42 WORD REVIEW:

The stories in this collection read somewhat like unused subplots from Wodehouse’s Blandings Castle and Jeeves & Wooster novels, but in their upgraded state fairly dazzle with insouciance. Wodehouse riffs masterfully on his favourite topic (thwarted engagements), his prose wild and expressive.

[Raluca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A barkeep keeps telling stories about his relatives. His relatives are dealing with everyday issues, mostly related to trying to marry girls who dislike them, or whose parents dislike them. There are are lot of bishops and vicars and at least one judgemental cat, and it's all happening in Ridiculousvillage-by-Somethingbritish-on-Thames. I get it, and I giggled, but the book very much betrays its venerable age. It was my first Wodehouse, and it's not pushing me to desperately seek out my next.

(PopSugar Reading Challenge 2020, "A book with a pink cover" - there's some pink in the cover of my edition, which is not the same as the one shown here, so you'll just have to believe me)

[Jason Koivu · Rating 3 out of 5]

These Mulliner books don’t come up to Jeeves/Wooster standards or even Blandings. They’re short stories with simple plots and little of the fun and surprises that herald Wodehouse at his best. Having said that, they’re not bad.

[Eloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute little collection of romantic short stories all about the most ridiculous and humorous people.

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 9 Mr. Mulliner stories:
1. The Smile That Wins – Mulliner’s (M’s) detective nephew Adrian is faced with losing the woman he loves due to her father’s arranging a marriage to an older wealthier friend. Adrian is advised by a specialist that, to cure his dyspepsia, Adrian needed to smile more. Adrian attempts to do so while he spends a weekend at a country manor seeking to win permission from his hopefully future father-in-law. The smile turns into an asset. This was a moderately entertaining work but, appropriately, it evoked only smiles and no chuckles. 3.7 stars.
2. The Story of Webster –M’s cousin Edward’s son Lancelot has to cat-sit his Uncle Theodore’s cat Webster. Lancelot is an artist with a fairly loose attitude toward the ‘proprieties and wants to marry a girl who, fortunately, shares his values. To marry, Lancelot must ‘touch’ his Uncle for a sufficient amount of money. To satisfy his Uncle. Lancelot must take good care of Webster, who is persnickety with high standards and the means of enforcing them on his supposed master. This first of 2 cat stories is about cat and human grow to adapt to each other. Even though I’m a dog person, I enjoyed the personification of Webster, and the whole story. 4 stars
3. Cats Will Be Cats – Webster’s tale continues as Uncle Theodore returns from his trip and needs Lancelot’s assistance in escaping the clutches of a marriage-hungry woman he met on a ship from Asia to England. Webster’s personification continues as he contributes to this attempt to rescue Uncle Theodore. Similar in feel to the better Jeeves stories, I very much enjoyed these two cat stories 4.3 stars
4. The Knightly Quest of Mervyn – M’s cousin’s son Mervyn wants to woo a young woman who accurately considers him an ‘ass,’ but will allow him to woo her if he gets her some strawberries in the middle of December. Mervyn goes on the quest and has some adventures. Will Mervyn win a shot at true love or prove he is an ‘ass?” Only moderately interesting. 3.3 stars.
5. The Voice From the Past – M’s shy and timid nephew Sacheverell Mulliner Is engaged to the hearty Muriel Branksome. His shyness is a scar left by his traumatic experience with a very intimidating public-school headmaster. Muriel loves him for his shyness, but Mulliner needs to obtain the confidence to deal with her father, the Lieutenant-Colonel. Mulliner’s ingrained headmaster fears get a new chance to impact his fate. Moderately entertaining. 3.3 stars.
6. Open House – M’s nephew Eustace wants to decline taking a foreign service job to stay in England and court young lady Marcella and toady up to his wealthy and elderly aunt. When Marcella leaves on a trip, Eustace tests his skills at caring for Marcella’s dog and canary. Some foreseeable hijinks occur but ends in a proper resolution. Moderately entertaining. 3.3 stars.
7. Best Seller – M’s nephew Egbert is a mild-mannered assistant editor at a literary weekly whose greatest strain is having to listen to female novelists. Life takes a turn when his mild-mannered fiancé takes up writing and becomes an overnight sensation as a romantic novelist, Obviously, this strains the relationship to the breaking point. The story progress and resolution are pleasant and satisfying but the main fun comes from PG’s highly humorous comments and bon mots on the literary set. This one evoked more chuckles than any story so far. 4.3 stars
8. Strychnine in the Soup – M’s nephew and interior decorator Cyril wrangles a stay at the Wigham country estate in order to convince Lady Bassett that he is a viable candidate to wed her daughter, Amelia Bassett. A competing more manly suitor is involved as is the then-current societal fascination with mystery novels, especially the newest sensation, “Strychnine in the Soup,” a copy of which plays a vital and humorous part in the estate hijinks. Very good, if familiar Wodehouse country estate and societal humor. 4.3 stars.
9. Gala Night - Ronald, a friend of M’s curate nephew, seeks to wed Hypatia whose desire to wed Ronald is being blocked by her guardians, an Aunt and Bishop Uncle who is also Augustine’s boss. Ronald’s attendance at new dance clubs is an issue. Things come to a head when all parties are staying at Augustine’s residence where Mulliner’s medicinal Buck-U-Uppo plays a vital role in the resulting evening hijinks. More fun than it sounds. 4 stars.

Overall, the stories were of varying quality. The first 3 provide a strong start, if you like the cat stories, followed by a lull of mediocrity during the middle 3 stories, redeemed by a return to form for the last 3 stories. The individual story ratings result in 3.8 stars, so an overall rating rounded up to 4 stars

[Illiterate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pint at the Anglers Rest could make even fishing fun.

[Bidita · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

The real tabasco! Top hole! Wise not to mix metaphors, mind you. Putting tabasco in any of your holes not advised.

This is a collection of stories told around the fireplace at the Angler's Rest pub by the loquacious but mild-mannered Mr. Mulliner. Each story features one of his relatives, each with a particular personal quirk or ill-starred circumstance.

My fave in this stewpot is "Best Seller." A literary critic chap falls in love, making sure at first his intended has no intention of writing a romance novel. But after they've sealed the deal, she does just that, not only going back on her word but quoting his (the carefully chosen ones in his proposal) verbatim. He reads it, and it's rot. Wouldn't you know, it conquers the heights of fandom? He can't bear it, and they part. He returns to her divan later to get an interview for his magazine and finds her incapable of writing another word. Romance is restored when he offers to gift her all his own trashy unpublished manuscripts. They decide to use her famous nom-de-plume and have a bit of a chuckle all the way to the bank.

[Madison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've heard before that P.G Wodehouse is funny, but it wasn't until half a story and a few laughs into the book when I realized just how funny. As anyone could expect when reading a book of short stories, there were some I liked more than others, but each one had an aspect I very much enjoyed. Sometimes it was the situations Wodehouse created and other times it was his delivery and clever use of vocabulary which captured my attention. Also for someone who likes cats, I was very happy to read two stories which featured felines prominently and captured characteristics of their diverse personalities perfectly.

This is the only Wodehouse book I've read, so I'm not sure how it compares to his other works. But, this is something I hope to change in the near future.

[Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I downloaded the Goodreads app, clicked 'Quotes' and one of the first things I saw was the highly-rated quote by Wodehouse 'There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature', which I'd only read a few hours earlier in this very book and thought wholesome, a quite serendipitous coincidence. As for the book itself he lives up to the hype, only my second Wodehouse, he seems to have had a thing for describing the motion of thrown food, his use of metaphors is astonishing and unlike any other writer I've discovered thus far. I am glad to hear there's about a hundred more of his books to get through.

[Sandheep · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some really funny short stories in the 2nd half of the book. Archaic english is always a concern while reading Wodehouse, but the comedies are worth the pain. A very very leisurely read that is sure to make you leap out with laughter, atleast in some of the stories.

[X · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing deep here, but it was a fun collection of stories (my favorite being "Best Seller" which had such a sweet, happy ending!) and was nicely written and nicely British as well.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr Mulliner is always fun, with his unlikely stories of distant relatives (told in the bar-parlour of a fishermen's pub, so we know upfront that they're likely tall tales). Like the Oldest Member of the golf club, Wodehouse's other famous raconteur, he cannot be prevented from telling a story once he starts, though I would imagine that the regulars looked forward to these absurd, hilarious tales as much as I do. Those regulars, and any visitors to the pub, are always referred to by the drinks they have ordered, rather than by name. Only Mr Mulliner himself and the barmaid, Miss Postlethwaite, get names.

If there's a theme to this volume, it's subtle moral influence, whether that's the detective with a smile that gives aristocrats with a bad conscience the sense that he knows all and will, unless conciliated, tell all; the cat, raised in ecclesiastical surroundings, who projects such an aura of upright disapproval that the artist whose clerical uncle asked him to look after the beastie changes his whole way of life; the feeble youth who gets the wrong correspondence course in the mail and accidentally develops an iron will; or the female novelists who gush such nonsense in interviews that their interviewers have mental breakdowns. Only in a society like that of Britain before World War II (or parts of East Asia to this day) could social and interpersonal expectations be so powerful in people's lives. Along the way, we see a man in quest of strawberries in December for his lady-love, and another man and his prospective mother-in-law at odds over a copy of a detective novel.

The thing Wodehouse does so incredibly well is that he takes someone who is pursuing something that really, in the great scheme of things, matters very little or not at all, and somehow gets us to care about it as intensely as the character does, and want them to succeed. Not that the assorted Mulliner relatives in these stories always succeed; sometimes they end up not getting what they want, but getting something else that is probably, in the broad view, better, though they might not think so at the time. Not every love affair works out, and sometimes that's a good thing, if the person the young fool is in love with is patently unsuitable.

And when things go wrong, they go hilariously and catastrophically wrong, and the hero is left attempting to babble implausible explanations to which nobody is listening. Sometimes, all he can do is exercise the better part of valour and escape through a window.

Compared with some of Wodehouse's other classic series (Jeeves and Blandings Castle, specifically), these are more stories of the middle class. "The Smile that Wins" specifically roasts the aristocracy. Part of how that manifests is that most of the protagonists have jobs of some sort, and they're a lot less given to quoting English (and Latin) literature. In place of all the aristocratic foolishness, there's more slapstick. This makes them, to me at least, more relatable - not that I don't thoroughly enjoy the Jeeves and Blandings stories, but they're about a very different place and time and stratum of society that has little to do with my daily life, whereas the Mulliner stories are a bit more grounded.

If you enjoy Wodehouse at all, you will probably enjoy these.

[S. Suresh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third and final instalment of Mulliner short story collection, Mulliner Nights, is, as outrageous as it is funny. Two stories, Strychnine in the Soup & The Smile than Wins appear in the recent book that I read, Wodehouse on Crime. Stories of Webster, the cat takes the cake in this collection, each of which is narrated by the loquacious Mr. Mulliner from that charming watering hole, Angler’s Rest to his avid listeners, Pint of Stout, Whiskey Sour, Rum and Milk, Whisky and Splash, and such, while he himself sips Hot Scotch and Lemon.

I was fortunate to lay my hands on the original 1937 edition of the book, with a fair warning to handle the fragile book with extreme care. Not just the stories, but holding the specially bound first edition of Mulliner Nights transported me to Wodehouse’s magical world of pure joy, where love triumphs (mostly), sometimes with the aid of Buck U Uppo potion, other times with fortuitous turn of events that only Plum can come up with.

[Beau Stucki · Rating 5 out of 5]

As exciting as a stay at Blandings Castle or Bertie's penthouse might be, it is difficult to imagine a more enticing or inviting endroit than The Angler's Rest. I would love experience one of Mulliner's nights. I suppose I just did.

[Rizowana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very witty. Great use of language, after overlooking the obvious colonial undertones of the times. Excellent characterisation: this book is a wonderful study into human psychology through the lens of humour.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this was the best of the Mulliner books! I loved every story but especially Gala Night, the last one.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third and final (except the omnibus) dedicated Mulliner collection. Still our faithful fisherman -- though we don't have him assuring us of his honesty here, perhaps he assumes we know.

A quest for strawberries, a bishop's cat, a conflict over a murder mystery, and more in his tales. Only one alludes to a tale in the earlier volumes and it gives enough information for you to understand.

[Richa · Rating 5 out of 5]

All sweetness and light here. Alas, it is the third and last book of Mulliner's anecdotes.