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Blandings Castle ... and Elsewhere
Librarian note
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 12 April 1935 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and, as Blandings Castle, in the United States on 20 September 1935 by Doubleday Doran, New York.
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United Kingdom on 12 April 1935 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and, as Blandings Castle, in the United States on 20 September 1935 by Doubleday Doran, New York.
301 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2008
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315 people want to read
About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,708 books6,970 followersSir 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).
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).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 125 reviews
September 30, 2021
This is going on my Favorites shelf for sure!
First, let me say that James Saxon was the narrator of the audiobook version that I listened to, and he was hysterical. I seriously think he made the book 10x funnier just by reading it the way he did.
I normally wouldn't suggest listening to a book over reading it, but this dude is hilarious.
Ok, so this isn't ONE long story. Basically, every new chapter is a short story about characters in this world. And while I loved them all, Lord Emsworth & his son Freddie are my favorites. But seriously every one of these stories is SO worth it.
I swear to you, I actually went back and looked up the publication date, because I thought that maybe I misunderstood and this was a recently written story that was trying to sound like it was written back in the 1930s. <--that's how relatable these characters are!
The stories are silly and full of nonsense in the best way possible and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for a laugh.
I'm currently working my way thought Wodehouse's Jeeves series but (so far) this one is still my top pick.
First, let me say that James Saxon was the narrator of the audiobook version that I listened to, and he was hysterical. I seriously think he made the book 10x funnier just by reading it the way he did.
I normally wouldn't suggest listening to a book over reading it, but this dude is hilarious.
Ok, so this isn't ONE long story. Basically, every new chapter is a short story about characters in this world. And while I loved them all, Lord Emsworth & his son Freddie are my favorites. But seriously every one of these stories is SO worth it.
I swear to you, I actually went back and looked up the publication date, because I thought that maybe I misunderstood and this was a recently written story that was trying to sound like it was written back in the 1930s. <--that's how relatable these characters are!
The stories are silly and full of nonsense in the best way possible and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for a laugh.
I'm currently working my way thought Wodehouse's Jeeves series but (so far) this one is still my top pick.
October 15, 2025
Short stories work for Wodehouse's wit but not for me 😅
The first part of the book was fine but when it changed to the Hollywood stories I lost interest - I don't think they as good as the rest.
The first part of the book was fine but when it changed to the Hollywood stories I lost interest - I don't think they as good as the rest.
July 17, 2019
The day was so warm, so fair, so magically a thing of sunshine and blue skies and bird-song that anyone acquainted with Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, and aware of his liking for fine weather, would have pictured him going about the place on this summer morning with a beaming smile and an uplifted heart.
Right here is probably the best quote that explains the allure of Wodehouse, his almost guaranteed uplifting effect on the spirits of even the weariest reader, the iddylic setting that made Evelyn Waugh comment: “The gardens of Blandings Castle are that original garden from which we are all exiled.”
This is not my first visit here, and no matter how ironic is the author’s introduction to this new volume, I do hope I will find the time to read the rest of the Saga. If there is a cure, I don’t wanna know about it.
Except for the tendency to write articles about the Modern Girl and allow his side-whiskers to grow, there is nothing an author to-day has to guard himself against more carefully than the Saga habit. The least slackening of vigilance and the thing has gripped him. He writes a story. Another story dealing with the same characters occurs to him, and he writes that. He feels that just one more won’t hurt him, and he writes a third. And before he knows where he is, he is down with a Saga, and no cure in sight.
Before we begin, let’s note that here we have two separate collections of short stories instead of a single novel. I prefer the longer form myself, but until I get my hands on one, these short forays will do. Wodehouse is once more spot on in the intro:
The stories in the first part of the book represent what I may term the short snort in between the solid orgies. From time to time I would feel the Blandings Castle craving creeping over me, but I had the manhood to content myself with a small dose.
So, let the summer sunshine in and begin the lecture!
The Custody of the Pumpkin is a fine piece of history to re-familiarize the reader with the main actors and with the usual plot of love triumphing over adversity. We will not meet The Empress of Blandings yet, because the pride of the garden for now is a prize pumpkin.
The ninth Earl of Emsworth was a fluffy-minded and amiable old gentleman with a fondness for new toys.
The toy in question is a telescope that the Lord uses to survey his domain from a tower of his castle. Unfortunately, the instrument also reveals his son, the Hon. Freddie Threepwood kissing a girl in a distant meadow. Further inquiries reveal she is the niece of the head gardener, Angus McAllister, that guy with the heavy accent and inflated sense of his own importance. The ensuing row and the hasty departure of the Scotsman to London puts in grave danger the future growth of the pumpkin. What is Lord Emsworth to do?
Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best is a sequel of sorts to the first story, in that it continues with the romance of Freddie and his new American wife. Back in London to sell a Hollywood script, Freddie is in trouble from his jealous consort and appeals to his father for help. The good-intentioned but clueless Lord Emsworth gets attacked by a savage Pekinese dog, but is more scared to recognize himself in the features of his good-for-nothing son. All’s well that ends well!
Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey! marks the return on the premises of the Empress of Blandings, with the chorus of worries about her prospects for winning the annual Shropshire Agricultural Festival. When her main handler is sent to prison for drunk and disorderly behaviour, the Lord and his friends must learn how Americans call the pigs to feed in Kentucky, helping a couple of young people in love as a bonus.
She resembled a captive balloon with ears and a tail, and was as nearly circular as a pig can be without bursting.
Company for Gertrude is less about pigs and more about the Modern Girl, with Lord Emsworth harassed by a niece sent down to the Castle to recover from an unlucky Love affair.
The family seem to look on the place as a sort of Bastille. Whenever the young of the species make a floater like falling in love with the wrong man, they are always shot off to Blandings to recover. [...] One of the chief drawbacks to entertaining in your home a girl who has been crossed in love is that she is extremely apt to go about the place doing good. All that life holds for her now is the opportunity of being kind to others, and she intends to be kind if it chokes them.
The cure is sometimes more painful than the illness, especially when the solution comes from the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, who sends down Beefy Bingham. Bingham, who is in love with Gertrude, comes disguised as Mr Popjoy and tries to be helpful, but mostly convinces the Lord that he is as crazy as a bat. Hijinks follow!
The Go-Getter continues with the same cast of characters as the previous story, with the addition of a Crooning Tenor as a rival for Bingham in the graces of Gertrude and with more efforts from Freddie to sell his American brand of dog biscuits. Wodehouse underlines once again the theory that even the Modern Girl prefers a man of strength and determination over one singing about moonlight and nightingales.
Lord Emsworth and the Girlfriend is my favorite piece in the first half of the collection (that’s where my opening quote comes from). A perfect summer day is ruined for Lord Emsworth by the insistence of his sister that he puts on formal clothes, including a top hat, and that he gives a speech in front of the neighbours gathered for the annual picnic at the Castle. In addition, Angus McAllister wants to put gravel on his yew alley. The Horror!
Clarence is saved by an unlikely young heroine, a Cockney girl named Gladys, who reminds him what are the most important things in life and helps him find the strength to confront both his sister and his head gardener. Excelent closing to the Blandings visit!
Now, lets go Elsewhere for a glimpse at the secret history of Hollywood. Much as I like Blandings Castle, I must confess that I loved the second half of the collection better and I couldn’t stop laughing as the unflappable Mr Mulliner entertained his bar room audience with outrageous tales from the dream factory.
Mr Potter Takes a Rest Cure is a transition piece form London to Hollywood by a way of a New York publicist, visiting England for a bit of ‘delightful old-world peace’. He finds himself instead pulled between Lady Wickam, his host with literary aspirations, and Clifford Gandle, a young man with political aspirations. Mr Potter’s sees a ray of hope entering the summer garden:
She was a boyish-looking girl, slim and graceful, and the read hair on her bare head glowed pleasingly in the sun.
Miss Roberta Wickam is though more similar to the snake in the grass than to a sunny angel, well capable of taking care of her own well-being and not adverse to a little lying and cheating to get her own way. The ensuing troubles put Mr Potter’s recovery in dire straits, but they are good for a laugh or three!
Monkey Business is my first encounter with Mr Mulliner as he tries to impress his pub audience with his insider knowledge of Hollywood.
Mr Mulliner smiled gently.
‘Strange,’he said, ‘how even in these orderly civilized days women still worship heroism in the male. Offer them wealth, brains, looks, amiability, skill at card-tricks or at playing the ukulele ... unless these are accompanied by physical courage they will turn away in scorn.’
This is a recurrent theme in the Wodehouse opus, but never before has Love been demonstrated with the help of a gorilla. Yet this is how the timid young man Montrose Mulliner is asked to demonstrate his devotion to his darling Rosalie Beamish, an aspiring actress. He tries to wiggle out of his predicament by claiming the higher moral ground, but the lady will have none of it:
‘Speaking for myself,’said Montrose, ‘there is nothing I should enjoy more than a quiet wedding in a gorilla’s cage. But has one the right to pander to the morbid taste of a sensation-avid public?
Wodehouse pokes great fun at the American media thirst for sensational headlines and cheap fame, but he reserves some arrows for producers, the press and even for fellow scriptwriters and novelists who claim to be highbrow.
‘I have a tender heart (said Mr Mulliner), and I dislike to dwell on the spectacle of a human being groaning under the iron heel of Fate. Such morbid gloating, I consider, is better left to the Russians.’
Give me a good comedy any day, and leave those Russians to the critics and angsty intellectuals. The more improbable the outcome, the harder the laughter.
The Nodder continues with the expose of the ridiculous Hollywood mentality, as another young man falls in love but is ignored because he has a low status. To illustrate this we go back to the Perfecto-Zizzbaum Motion Picture Corporation of Hollywood and to its president, Mr Schellenhamer, who steers his ship with an iron hand and with the help of certain specialized employees.
It is not easy to explain to the lay mind the extremely intricate ramifications of the personnel of a Hollywood motion-picture organization. Putting it as briefly as possible, a Nodder is something like a Yes-Man, only lower in the social scale.
Young Wilmot Mulliner is paid by the organization to nod at the wise words of its Leader, while his love interest, Miss Mabel Potter, is the private secretary of the President, Mr Schnellenhamer. So you can see why their love is not meant to be. Yet, the secret song of the cuckoo and a few other secrets of the company involving midgets might provide a solution.
The Juice of an Orange is a sequel to the love affair of Wilmot and Mabel, because even happy endings are not forever in Hollywood.
‘Many a girl has fallen into a man’s arms,’said Mr. Mulliner gravely, ‘only to wriggle out of them at a later date.’
Wilmot Mulliner may have had his moment of heroism, but soon enough his love starts comparing him to a “cold-asparagus-back-boned-worm” . It’s a cruel world out there, especially when you tell your boss that you will gladly take a cut in your salary. Few women would endure such spineless behaviour.
‘Don’t dream of cutting your salary, Chief,’ he urged. ‘You’re worth every cent of it. Besides, reflect. If you reduce your salary, it will cause alarm. People will go about saying that things must be in a bad way. It is your duty to the community to be a man and bite the bullet and, no matter how much it may irk you, to stick to your eight hundred thousand dollar a year like glue.’
It's hard not have a tinge of bitterness reading today this dialogue written in 1933 and seeing how little things have changed at the highest levels of management, but in the world of P G Wodehouse there is still hope for Wilmot, even if his first reaction is to fall into depression and into an eating disorder.
No man, however gifted his gastric juices, can go on indefinitely brooding over a lost love and sailing into the starchy foods simultaneously.
The cure recommended is the glass of orange juice from the title, but the effects are all out of proportion with the usually amiable Wilmot. Still funny as hell! Especially when Mr Schnellenhamer tries to find words that just miss him by a letter or two (aiming for sardonic by way of cynical, snickle, Sardinia, sardines and touching down on ‘sardinical’)
The Rise of Minna Nordstrom is focused on the same Perfecto Zizzbaum company, with a plot revolving around the problem of finding good servants in Hollywood and giving a party in the time of the Prohibition.
‘What,’ she demanded passionately at length, ‘is the matter with all you movie magnates? Have you no hearts? Have you no compassion? No sympathy? No understanding? Do the ambitions of the struggling mean nothing to you?’
‘No,’ replied Mr Schnellenhamer in answer to all five questions.
Nevermind, a woman of spirit and courage will always find a way to trick these damn movie moguls!
The Castaways is the last story of the book and I would call it Kafkaesque, if I could stop laughing for a minute or two. The absurdity of kidnapping strangers from the street and locking them up to work as script doctors may have something to do with Mr Wodehouse own experiences in Hollywood, and even more to do with Mr Mulliner’s tendency to twist facts in order to impress his fellow drinkers in the pub. Nevertheless, it has panache, and it has one of the most memorable love scenes never put on the silver screen (I think):
And, seeing her weeping there, Bullstrode could restrain himself no longer. Something snapped in him. It was his collar stud. His neck, normally a fifteen and a eight, had suddenly swelled under the pressure of uncontrollable emotion into a large seventeen. For an instant he stood gurgling wordlessly like a bull-pup choking over a chicken-bone: then, darting forward, he clasped her in his arms and began to murmur all those words of love which until now he had kept pent up in his heart.
I believe Hollywood is the poorer for not embracing Mr Wodehouse more fondly. His dialogue, his screwball plots and the timing of his jokes are some of the best in the genre.
As for me, I will continue with the Sagas, both Blandings and Jeeves, and hopefully I will even meet mt Mulliner again over a hot ‘Scotch and lemon’.
April 1, 2021
Have you ever seen this trefoil plant?
And that fairy fly?
Those three leaves adjoined at one slender stem and that yellowish flower on top of them! This three-leaf structure below and its flower above looks so guiltless to me and that fairy fly looks squeaky-clean, Impeccable. I felt like such a newly born fairy fly of 0.1 mm long size trying to hoop around the circumference of this three trefoil leaves one by one and trying to extract their greenish charm spread over them first and then aiming at that bulbous yellow color next, but failing every time in midway and falling straight to the grimy root of this plant.
During the period of past four years, I have tried to read one or two books of Wodehouse many times. I couldn’t manage to fulfill my want. This is the only book I have in my kitty, the physical copy, procured by me without any rebate… Fully paid in cash… and I made an effort with this one at least three times in the last three years but after reading a few pages once and the other times reaching somewhere midway with the least focus of a reluctant reader trying to cross his comfort boundaries, I jumped to other wagons. I thought this is not for me and my pencil smears on its pages have not set foot beyond a few chapters.
It seems too much aristocratic, I thought to myself pretentiously in my first two readings. Though I did not get the hang of what aristocratic British writing exactly was. I foisted on me this postulation, based on some heresy to justify my act of giving up midway, his books. In my initial book reading days, I had read George Orwell praising the author quite copiously somewhere, as I had read Orwell’s writing, I could mean it. Similarly Evelyn Waugh was also giving him high ratings. These praises were my initial stimulus to try the author. I never forget those names who introduced me to a new author when I was new to reading. At the beginning of this year on one fine day, I drew my breath in sharply and pronounced to myself that this year I will read many British authors seriously and Wodehouse must be among them without fail. And here my resuscitated determination could bring me round as today I finished this book. It was an attentive reading because this sort of book I don’t read much. This thought was just like an unsung ditty revolving in my head for no reason.
Contrary to my initial pretentious belief, the writing of P.G. Wodehouse is very much for the masses. It’s too much amusing and a sort of rib-tickling spree you can be on immediately. I liked the writing, the wit, and the story all three things in this book. But the most enjoyable thing about his writing is those dialogues. In my first try at this book probably I was trying to extract the story behind it without delving deep into the conversations. And those dialogues are in my opinion are the high–octane doses to the readers in the author’s writing. They were cockeyed. They were no-nonsense too. So they were both absurd and pragmatic at the same time producing levity and laughter. My apprehension was perished by the well-crafted and unconfined gliding descriptive sentences of the author making the reading a treat and I enjoyed every bit of the book. This sort of British writing with such a fantastic comic sense was probably what I was not reading lately. At many places, it was chucklesome with a mild dose of fun. So I read Wodehouse too late seriously. I admit.
Jonathan swift’s somewhere said that the Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own. At many places I found the realization of this thought of Swift while reading the comical circumstances produced by characters of this story, where one particular character became the center of wit through his or her actions and other characters just participated quietly without wearing-off, making the experience for the reader even more amusing. This one significant skill I found in the author. Initially, I needed some focus and read it scrupulously as the writing was not that much free-flowing for my case but my efforts paved the way from chapter three with the title PIG-HOO-O-O-O-EY. And what a funny chapter this one was. I laughed abundantly and then my tone was set for the movement further. A character describes how pigs are described in a different part of America.
“In Wisconsin, for example, the words “Poig, Poig, Poig” bring home in both the literal and figurative sense- the Beacon. In Illinois, I believe they call “Burp, Burp, Burp” while in Iowa the phrase” Kus, Kus, Kus” is preferred. Proceeding to Minnesota we find “Peega, Peega, Peega” or alternatively “Oink, Oink, Oink” whereas in Milwaukee so largely inhabited by those of German descent you will hear the good old Teuton “Komm Schweine, Komm Schweine, Komm Schweine.”Oh yes, there are all sorts of pig calls from Massachusetts, “Phew, Phew, Phew” to the “Loo-ey, Loo-ey, Loo-ey” of Ohio. Not counting various local devices such as beating on a tin can with axes or rattling pebbles in the suitcase.”
This book has two parts. The first one is the story of Lord Emsworth, his famous characters Fredrick, his pig Empress and the Beach, his butler, and his family members making loads of humor inside the Blanding castle. The second part is Titled ELSEWHERE, which has new separate stories, talking about whispered stories of Hollywood and this part is equally fun and frolic. A very satisfying read this time.
I am a fan now piercing my way into his more famous Wooster and Jeeves series.
And that fairy fly?
Those three leaves adjoined at one slender stem and that yellowish flower on top of them! This three-leaf structure below and its flower above looks so guiltless to me and that fairy fly looks squeaky-clean, Impeccable. I felt like such a newly born fairy fly of 0.1 mm long size trying to hoop around the circumference of this three trefoil leaves one by one and trying to extract their greenish charm spread over them first and then aiming at that bulbous yellow color next, but failing every time in midway and falling straight to the grimy root of this plant.
During the period of past four years, I have tried to read one or two books of Wodehouse many times. I couldn’t manage to fulfill my want. This is the only book I have in my kitty, the physical copy, procured by me without any rebate… Fully paid in cash… and I made an effort with this one at least three times in the last three years but after reading a few pages once and the other times reaching somewhere midway with the least focus of a reluctant reader trying to cross his comfort boundaries, I jumped to other wagons. I thought this is not for me and my pencil smears on its pages have not set foot beyond a few chapters.
It seems too much aristocratic, I thought to myself pretentiously in my first two readings. Though I did not get the hang of what aristocratic British writing exactly was. I foisted on me this postulation, based on some heresy to justify my act of giving up midway, his books. In my initial book reading days, I had read George Orwell praising the author quite copiously somewhere, as I had read Orwell’s writing, I could mean it. Similarly Evelyn Waugh was also giving him high ratings. These praises were my initial stimulus to try the author. I never forget those names who introduced me to a new author when I was new to reading. At the beginning of this year on one fine day, I drew my breath in sharply and pronounced to myself that this year I will read many British authors seriously and Wodehouse must be among them without fail. And here my resuscitated determination could bring me round as today I finished this book. It was an attentive reading because this sort of book I don’t read much. This thought was just like an unsung ditty revolving in my head for no reason.
Contrary to my initial pretentious belief, the writing of P.G. Wodehouse is very much for the masses. It’s too much amusing and a sort of rib-tickling spree you can be on immediately. I liked the writing, the wit, and the story all three things in this book. But the most enjoyable thing about his writing is those dialogues. In my first try at this book probably I was trying to extract the story behind it without delving deep into the conversations. And those dialogues are in my opinion are the high–octane doses to the readers in the author’s writing. They were cockeyed. They were no-nonsense too. So they were both absurd and pragmatic at the same time producing levity and laughter. My apprehension was perished by the well-crafted and unconfined gliding descriptive sentences of the author making the reading a treat and I enjoyed every bit of the book. This sort of British writing with such a fantastic comic sense was probably what I was not reading lately. At many places, it was chucklesome with a mild dose of fun. So I read Wodehouse too late seriously. I admit.
Jonathan swift’s somewhere said that the Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own. At many places I found the realization of this thought of Swift while reading the comical circumstances produced by characters of this story, where one particular character became the center of wit through his or her actions and other characters just participated quietly without wearing-off, making the experience for the reader even more amusing. This one significant skill I found in the author. Initially, I needed some focus and read it scrupulously as the writing was not that much free-flowing for my case but my efforts paved the way from chapter three with the title PIG-HOO-O-O-O-EY. And what a funny chapter this one was. I laughed abundantly and then my tone was set for the movement further. A character describes how pigs are described in a different part of America.
“In Wisconsin, for example, the words “Poig, Poig, Poig” bring home in both the literal and figurative sense- the Beacon. In Illinois, I believe they call “Burp, Burp, Burp” while in Iowa the phrase” Kus, Kus, Kus” is preferred. Proceeding to Minnesota we find “Peega, Peega, Peega” or alternatively “Oink, Oink, Oink” whereas in Milwaukee so largely inhabited by those of German descent you will hear the good old Teuton “Komm Schweine, Komm Schweine, Komm Schweine.”Oh yes, there are all sorts of pig calls from Massachusetts, “Phew, Phew, Phew” to the “Loo-ey, Loo-ey, Loo-ey” of Ohio. Not counting various local devices such as beating on a tin can with axes or rattling pebbles in the suitcase.”
This book has two parts. The first one is the story of Lord Emsworth, his famous characters Fredrick, his pig Empress and the Beach, his butler, and his family members making loads of humor inside the Blanding castle. The second part is Titled ELSEWHERE, which has new separate stories, talking about whispered stories of Hollywood and this part is equally fun and frolic. A very satisfying read this time.
I am a fan now piercing my way into his more famous Wooster and Jeeves series.
October 28, 2018
It's a long time since I have read a Wodehouse book afresh - I have finished them all long back so I have to do with re-reads. This was also one, but since there was thirty-five year gap between my previous perusal (during my college days) and this, most of the stories were forgotten and came across as fresh.
Of the dozen stories in this volume, half are dedicated to Blandings Castle and its vacuous peer, Lord Emsworth - attended by his ever-faithful butler Beach, the redoubtable head-gardener Angus MacAllister, his pig-man Cyril Wellbeloved, his prize pig the Empress of Blandings and - to the chagrin of the easy-going peer - his gorgon of a sister Lady Constance Keeble and the blot on his sunshine, his younger son the Hon. Freddie Threepwood.
For the earl is not fond of his younger progeny: in this matter, he is singularly unlike the codfish.
In the opening story, that jaundiced eye falls on the young aristocrat in close embrace with an unsuitable female - the cousin of the head gardener, no less! By the time the affair is satisfactorily settled, Emsworth is called in to heal the rift between his son and his fiance, in a hotel suit infested with snapping toy dogs and gun-wielding females. Even more irritating is the changed Freddie, the go-getter marketing executive of Donaldson's Dog-Joy biscuits. No wonder we find the earl musing thus:
No sooner than he had managed in getting rid of Freddie, Lord Emsworth is tasked with acting as jailer to young nieces who have been dumped into his home to save them from unsuitable alliances by his formidable sisters: also, he is forced to appear in a stiff collar at a school fete arranged in his grounds. One could almost feel that this is some kind of Russian tragedy, with the inexorable hand of fate grinding the poor souls beneath its iron heel. But as with any Wodehouse tale, everything works out in the end, with God in his heaven and everything right with the world.
--------------------
Of the remaining six, one is about Bobbie Wickham, the flighty young girl whom Jeeves thought entirely unsuitable for Bertie Wooster (and was proven right, as usual). Bobbie is being compelled by her mother, the forceful Lady Wickham, to marry the unspeakable Clifford Gandle - however, she has other plans and manages to thwart authority in her own typically idiosyncratic way.
The other five are narrated by that gentleman of the bar parlour of Angler's Rest, the redoubtable Mr. Mulliner. As usual, he speaks with complete honesty about the escapades of his nephews and cousins, this time in Hollywood. And as one can expect with the dream city, everything is a bit larger than life. We have weddings proposed in gorilla cages; child stars who are actually midgets; temperamental lady stars out to brain people with roman swords, people virtually imprisoned to write nonexistent scripts, and the strangest of them all, the Yes-Men and the Nodders.
In fact, business as usual in Hollywood.
--------------------
It's amazing how Wodehouse can keep on spinning the same kind of tale without inciting even an iota of boredom in his reading public. My personal opinion is that it is his consummate mastery over the English language that does it. The following passage serves to illustrate how his prose takes on the wings of poesy even while describing something as mundane as a pig at the feeding trough.
Wodehouse's books are as good as Jeeves's pick-me-ups to raise one from the dumps.
Of the dozen stories in this volume, half are dedicated to Blandings Castle and its vacuous peer, Lord Emsworth - attended by his ever-faithful butler Beach, the redoubtable head-gardener Angus MacAllister, his pig-man Cyril Wellbeloved, his prize pig the Empress of Blandings and - to the chagrin of the easy-going peer - his gorgon of a sister Lady Constance Keeble and the blot on his sunshine, his younger son the Hon. Freddie Threepwood.
For the earl is not fond of his younger progeny: in this matter, he is singularly unlike the codfish.
Unlike the male codfish, which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons. And Freddie Threepwood was one of those younger sons who rather invite the jaundiced eye.
In the opening story, that jaundiced eye falls on the young aristocrat in close embrace with an unsuitable female - the cousin of the head gardener, no less! By the time the affair is satisfactorily settled, Emsworth is called in to heal the rift between his son and his fiance, in a hotel suit infested with snapping toy dogs and gun-wielding females. Even more irritating is the changed Freddie, the go-getter marketing executive of Donaldson's Dog-Joy biscuits. No wonder we find the earl musing thus:
Years before, when a boy, and romantic as most boys are, his lordship had sometimes regretted that the Emsworths, though an ancient clan, did not possess a Family Curse. How little had he suspected that he was shortly about to become the father of it.
No sooner than he had managed in getting rid of Freddie, Lord Emsworth is tasked with acting as jailer to young nieces who have been dumped into his home to save them from unsuitable alliances by his formidable sisters: also, he is forced to appear in a stiff collar at a school fete arranged in his grounds. One could almost feel that this is some kind of Russian tragedy, with the inexorable hand of fate grinding the poor souls beneath its iron heel. But as with any Wodehouse tale, everything works out in the end, with God in his heaven and everything right with the world.
--------------------
Of the remaining six, one is about Bobbie Wickham, the flighty young girl whom Jeeves thought entirely unsuitable for Bertie Wooster (and was proven right, as usual). Bobbie is being compelled by her mother, the forceful Lady Wickham, to marry the unspeakable Clifford Gandle - however, she has other plans and manages to thwart authority in her own typically idiosyncratic way.
The other five are narrated by that gentleman of the bar parlour of Angler's Rest, the redoubtable Mr. Mulliner. As usual, he speaks with complete honesty about the escapades of his nephews and cousins, this time in Hollywood. And as one can expect with the dream city, everything is a bit larger than life. We have weddings proposed in gorilla cages; child stars who are actually midgets; temperamental lady stars out to brain people with roman swords, people virtually imprisoned to write nonexistent scripts, and the strangest of them all, the Yes-Men and the Nodders.
It is not easy to explain to the lay mind the extremely intricate ramifications of the personnel of a Hollywood motion-picture organization. Putting it as briefly as possible, a Nodder is something like a Yes-Man, only lower in the social scale. A Yes-Man's duty is to attend conferences and say "Yes." A Nodder's, as the name implies, is to nod. The chief executive throws out some statement of opinion, and looks about him expectantly. This is the cue for the senior Yes-Man to say yes. He is followed, in order of precedence, by the second Yes-Man - or Vice-Yesser, as he is sometimes called - and the junior Yes-Man. Only when all the Yes-Men have yessed, do the Nodders begin to function. They nod.
In fact, business as usual in Hollywood.
--------------------
It's amazing how Wodehouse can keep on spinning the same kind of tale without inciting even an iota of boredom in his reading public. My personal opinion is that it is his consummate mastery over the English language that does it. The following passage serves to illustrate how his prose takes on the wings of poesy even while describing something as mundane as a pig at the feeding trough.
They looked at him, awed. Slowly, fading across hill and dale, the vast bellow died away. And suddenly, as it died, another, softer sound succeeded it. A sort of gulpy, gurgly, plobby, squishy, wofflesome sound, like a thousand eager men drinking soup in a foreign restaurant. And, as he heard it, Lord Emsworth uttered a cry of rapture.
The Empress was feeding.
Wodehouse's books are as good as Jeeves's pick-me-ups to raise one from the dumps.
September 7, 2021
Once again Wodehouse delivers screwball comedy and absurd situations. Twelve short stories. So set in the familiar Blandings Castle setting with Clarence the eccentric, put upon and absent minded Nonth Earl of Emsworth in lovely Shropshire. The other six stories are across the ocean in that flesh pot city of LA where over a scotch and hot lemon we hear six tales related to the Muliner family.
The Custody of the Pumpkin is where Clarence locks horns with his Glasgow head gardener. He also gets his second son Freddie out of his hair thanks to Donaldsons Dog Biscuits millionaire owners daughter falling in love with Freddie.
Lord Elmsworth Acts the Best sees Beach concerned about his Lordships beard. Clarence also has to act to reunite Freddie with his wife after a misunderstanding concerning a starlet.
Pig-Hoo-O-O-O-EY! Where the Empress is off her feed and Clarence discovers the wonders of pig calling.
Company for Gertrude where Freddie tries to play matchmaker and Clarence is driven to breaking point by good intentions.
The Go-Getter where Freddie tries to make a sale of dog biscuits. Gertrude avoids a bad decision and Rupert her fiancée shows his true colours and Freddie sells two tons of dog biscuits.
Lord Elmsworth and the Girlfriend where the annual fete causes Clarence problems. However, a young girl gives him the courage to avoid a gravel path between his yew trees.
Mr Potter takes a rest cure where Lady Wickham is thwarted by her plans for Bobbie her daughter to marry the obnoxious Mr Gandle MP. Hilarious with an apparent homicidal killer and a suicidal publisher.
We then cross over to the US.
Monkey Business is funny in Mr Mulliner proving his courage to his fiancée Rosalee.
The Nodder or yes man of Hollywood who gets promoted to Executive thanks to a hangover and Mr Schnellenhamer fearing exposure of his child star.
The Juice of an Orange tells us the dangers of a only orange juice diet.
The rise of Mina Nordstrom tells the true story of how she became a movie star. Thanks to her one mindness, perseverance and Prohibition.
The Castaways tells the dangers of writing for Hollywood despots.
These were entertaining, funny and witty stories. Some great sentences.
A sort of gulpy, gurgly, plobby, swishy, wofflesone sound, like a thousand eager men drinking soup in a foreign restaurant. And, as he heard it, Lord Elmsworth uttered a cry of rapture. The Empress was feeding.
The Custody of the Pumpkin is where Clarence locks horns with his Glasgow head gardener. He also gets his second son Freddie out of his hair thanks to Donaldsons Dog Biscuits millionaire owners daughter falling in love with Freddie.
Lord Elmsworth Acts the Best sees Beach concerned about his Lordships beard. Clarence also has to act to reunite Freddie with his wife after a misunderstanding concerning a starlet.
Pig-Hoo-O-O-O-EY! Where the Empress is off her feed and Clarence discovers the wonders of pig calling.
Company for Gertrude where Freddie tries to play matchmaker and Clarence is driven to breaking point by good intentions.
The Go-Getter where Freddie tries to make a sale of dog biscuits. Gertrude avoids a bad decision and Rupert her fiancée shows his true colours and Freddie sells two tons of dog biscuits.
Lord Elmsworth and the Girlfriend where the annual fete causes Clarence problems. However, a young girl gives him the courage to avoid a gravel path between his yew trees.
Mr Potter takes a rest cure where Lady Wickham is thwarted by her plans for Bobbie her daughter to marry the obnoxious Mr Gandle MP. Hilarious with an apparent homicidal killer and a suicidal publisher.
We then cross over to the US.
Monkey Business is funny in Mr Mulliner proving his courage to his fiancée Rosalee.
The Nodder or yes man of Hollywood who gets promoted to Executive thanks to a hangover and Mr Schnellenhamer fearing exposure of his child star.
The Juice of an Orange tells us the dangers of a only orange juice diet.
The rise of Mina Nordstrom tells the true story of how she became a movie star. Thanks to her one mindness, perseverance and Prohibition.
The Castaways tells the dangers of writing for Hollywood despots.
These were entertaining, funny and witty stories. Some great sentences.
A sort of gulpy, gurgly, plobby, swishy, wofflesone sound, like a thousand eager men drinking soup in a foreign restaurant. And, as he heard it, Lord Elmsworth uttered a cry of rapture. The Empress was feeding.
July 21, 2017
Not as good as Jeeves & Wooster, but the narration was good and they did make me laugh out loud. The last two stories, without Lord Emsworth & co., did not hold my attention and I skipped them. They might be better on paper, but the narrator's American-accented voices were unpleasant to listen to.
May 22, 2021
I loved the Blandings stories! I would rate them 4+ stars.
October 12, 2018
I slipped in another Wodehouse, since these are trying times and he is balm for the soul. The stories in this collection are what he refers to in the preface as "the short snorts in between the solid orgies" (8). There are a couple of Blandings stories, a Bobbie Wickham story, and some American stories about the Mulliners of Hollywood (not as interesting).
Overall, these stories aren't his best—there are still some hilarious moments, but some of the stories were rather predictable, which takes away from the fun (Wodehouse is at his best when he keeps you on your toes and, although you feel something coming, you're still surprised when it happens).
Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend was cute.
Overall, these stories aren't his best—there are still some hilarious moments, but some of the stories were rather predictable, which takes away from the fun (Wodehouse is at his best when he keeps you on your toes and, although you feel something coming, you're still surprised when it happens).
Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend was cute.
February 15, 2017
[4.5] Like at least half the other people on this book page, for now I've only read the Blandings stories in this volume. And, whilst I'm not usually a fan of short stories, I have to say that the format of chronological shorts really suits these characters and plots. In the novels, not an awful lot happens ultimately - it's just convoluted; here, whilst there is the odd impersonation and conspiracy, the plots are simpler and so a greater number of substantial events occur (in so far as substantial events occur in the world of Blandings at all): a pumpkin and the Empress win prizes; not one but several marriages are decided (I wonder if Freddie's will still have happened in subsequent volumes - also quite fascinating to notice he's an early example of a film nerd); staff go and return, and Emsworth even stands up to the fearsome MacAllister. (Whom I'm now in the habit of visualising as Groundskeeper Wullie from The Simpsons... it's not impossible, perhaps, that the character might have been partly based on MacAllister.)
I had meant to stop reading the Blandings books, but discovery of the BBC adaptation of Heavy Weather (the out of print & non-ebooked 5th in the series - and the film features Richard Briers and Peter O'Toole, and fromwhat I can see, not the excess zaniness of trailers for the recent Blandings televisualisation) means I'd now rather like to read up Summer Lightning and then watch it. Yes, there is a certain amount of repetition, even whole paragraphs - principally character descriptions - in different books among the first three. But it's the usual story: if you like something enough in the first place, it doesn't matter that successive novels, albums etc are similar.
It becomes even clearer than in Leave It to Psmith that Lady Constance is the one with the qualities traditionally expected of an earl, whilst due to both generation and gender she is often restricted to chivvying her brother into doing things she would be more capable of doing herself. This is pretty much openly acknowledged towards the end of the final story, when, exasperated and unusually assertive, he tells her to make a speech herself if it matters so much. (Although Blandings under Constance's rule would be a far less amusingly chaotic place, it must be admitted.) I continue to be suprised that people hardly ever discuss feminism in Wodehouse novels: unless these recent Arrow editions have been edited within the last 20 years (yet for some reason did not amend the iffy title of the otherwise utterly adorable final Blandings story in this collection, or certain attitudes to pets which wouldn't be acceptable now) the underlying attitudes to men and women often seem to me more like fairly recent historical fiction than a series that started 100 years ago.
Now, it's not exactly Godzilla v Predator or Superman v Batman, but the penultimate Blandings story here struck me with a similarly frivolous hypothetical conundrum. If I were, like the swithering cousin Gertrude in the amber drawing room after dinner, having to choose between two otherwise equally attractive men, one who was phobic about small creatures (I rather like getting rid of spiders for men, although she has disdain for said gentleman's fear of rats), and another who had the nerve and strength to physically pull apart two fighting dogs (one ex had done so on a few occasions with wolfhounds, no less, and that level of toughness, when not expected from occupation or appearance, is hot) - I am not quite sure which I would prefer, or if it would always be the same result.
End Dec 2015 - Finished all.
...and Elsewhere
There are faults to pick with these if you really want to, mild 'isms' mostly - these are more 'of their time' than most other Wodehouse I've read - but eclipsed by many hilarious lines, far more than I expected. Leaves me keener to read more non-Blandings, non-J&W Wodehouse, when I had thought it would be damp-squibbish.
'A Bobbie Wickham Story: Mr Potter Takes a Rest Cure' - Appaling slander and manipulation in aid of outwitting an overbearing parent, in the days when such beings had more of a say over marriages.
'The Mulliners of Hollywood' - I'm not the biggest fan of early talkie comedy, but most of these made me laugh more than the films themselves, and I couldn't help but visualise them played by supporting casts from Chaplin & Harold Lloyd films, and on the set of that W.C. Fields about a scriptwriter I only watched because it was someone else's favourite (Never Give a Sucker an Even Break).
I had meant to stop reading the Blandings books, but discovery of the BBC adaptation of Heavy Weather (the out of print & non-ebooked 5th in the series - and the film features Richard Briers and Peter O'Toole, and fromwhat I can see, not the excess zaniness of trailers for the recent Blandings televisualisation) means I'd now rather like to read up Summer Lightning and then watch it. Yes, there is a certain amount of repetition, even whole paragraphs - principally character descriptions - in different books among the first three. But it's the usual story: if you like something enough in the first place, it doesn't matter that successive novels, albums etc are similar.
It becomes even clearer than in Leave It to Psmith that Lady Constance is the one with the qualities traditionally expected of an earl, whilst due to both generation and gender she is often restricted to chivvying her brother into doing things she would be more capable of doing herself. This is pretty much openly acknowledged towards the end of the final story, when, exasperated and unusually assertive, he tells her to make a speech herself if it matters so much. (Although Blandings under Constance's rule would be a far less amusingly chaotic place, it must be admitted.) I continue to be suprised that people hardly ever discuss feminism in Wodehouse novels: unless these recent Arrow editions have been edited within the last 20 years (yet for some reason did not amend the iffy title of the otherwise utterly adorable final Blandings story in this collection, or certain attitudes to pets which wouldn't be acceptable now) the underlying attitudes to men and women often seem to me more like fairly recent historical fiction than a series that started 100 years ago.
Now, it's not exactly Godzilla v Predator or Superman v Batman, but the penultimate Blandings story here struck me with a similarly frivolous hypothetical conundrum. If I were, like the swithering cousin Gertrude in the amber drawing room after dinner, having to choose between two otherwise equally attractive men, one who was phobic about small creatures (I rather like getting rid of spiders for men, although she has disdain for said gentleman's fear of rats), and another who had the nerve and strength to physically pull apart two fighting dogs (one ex had done so on a few occasions with wolfhounds, no less, and that level of toughness, when not expected from occupation or appearance, is hot) - I am not quite sure which I would prefer, or if it would always be the same result.
End Dec 2015 - Finished all.
...and Elsewhere
There are faults to pick with these if you really want to, mild 'isms' mostly - these are more 'of their time' than most other Wodehouse I've read - but eclipsed by many hilarious lines, far more than I expected. Leaves me keener to read more non-Blandings, non-J&W Wodehouse, when I had thought it would be damp-squibbish.
'A Bobbie Wickham Story: Mr Potter Takes a Rest Cure' - Appaling slander and manipulation in aid of outwitting an overbearing parent, in the days when such beings had more of a say over marriages.
'The Mulliners of Hollywood' - I'm not the biggest fan of early talkie comedy, but most of these made me laugh more than the films themselves, and I couldn't help but visualise them played by supporting casts from Chaplin & Harold Lloyd films, and on the set of that W.C. Fields about a scriptwriter I only watched because it was someone else's favourite (Never Give a Sucker an Even Break).
February 28, 2023
I actually listened to Stephen Fry read this, rather than the edition listed.
It is flipping brilliant!
And it's great to have some more Mulliner stories to sink my teeth into.
Here - because left to my own devices all I would do is repeat is how brilliant it is - are some quotes from these pages:
“It is never difficult to distinguish between with a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”
“Unlike the male codfish, which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons. And Freddie Threepwood was one of those younger sons who rather invite the jaundiced eye.”
“Presently, the cow’s audience-appeal began to wane. It was a fine cow, as cows go, but, like so many cows, it lacked sustained dramatic interest.”
“The reactions of a country-house party to an after-dinner dog-fight in the drawing-room always vary considerably according to the individual natures of its members."
It is flipping brilliant!
And it's great to have some more Mulliner stories to sink my teeth into.
Here - because left to my own devices all I would do is repeat is how brilliant it is - are some quotes from these pages:
“It is never difficult to distinguish between with a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”
“Unlike the male codfish, which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons. And Freddie Threepwood was one of those younger sons who rather invite the jaundiced eye.”
“Presently, the cow’s audience-appeal began to wane. It was a fine cow, as cows go, but, like so many cows, it lacked sustained dramatic interest.”
“The reactions of a country-house party to an after-dinner dog-fight in the drawing-room always vary considerably according to the individual natures of its members."
February 17, 2017
Wodehouse, however droll and repetitive, never fails to please. I must admit that I can't quite stomach binge reading his works, but I take a great delight in all that I've read, and this is another comedic masterpiece.
June 6, 2021
I agree with others that the Blandings stories were much more amusing than the Mulliner ones. But there were a good number of laugh out loud moments.
March 10, 2025
The Blandings stories are fantastic, with Lord Emsworth at his battiest. The 'elsewhere' ones, most of them set in Hollywood, are more uneven, although they have their moments,
September 5, 2023
Wodehouse at his best, first in the settings of Blandings Castle and then across the pond in the USA, where undoubtedly he weaves some of his own experiences of the Golden Age of Hollywood into a couple of the stories.
The prize pig the Empress of Blandings features when she is entered for the Shropshire Agricultural Show, a pumpkin is nearly strangled at birth when the only man who can tend it successfully, gardener Angus McAllister, resigns and Lord Emsworth, ubiquitous with his presence throughout, has to eat humble pie.
In the Hollywood tales there is plenty about the scriptwriters and the unusual way they are treated plus some nodding from the nodders, second on the list to yes-men!
All the while there is romance which falters only to be restored when all the perceived problems are proved to be groundless.
Great characters, great fun, it is a veritable feast of Wodehouse at his funniest.
The prize pig the Empress of Blandings features when she is entered for the Shropshire Agricultural Show, a pumpkin is nearly strangled at birth when the only man who can tend it successfully, gardener Angus McAllister, resigns and Lord Emsworth, ubiquitous with his presence throughout, has to eat humble pie.
In the Hollywood tales there is plenty about the scriptwriters and the unusual way they are treated plus some nodding from the nodders, second on the list to yes-men!
All the while there is romance which falters only to be restored when all the perceived problems are proved to be groundless.
Great characters, great fun, it is a veritable feast of Wodehouse at his funniest.
May 11, 2021
Although my edition calls the book “Blandings Castle” on its cover, the actual title is Blandings Castle and Elsewhere. The book contains the following stories:
6 Blandings Castle
1 Bobby Wickham, and
5 Mr. Mulliner
I enjoyed Blandings Castle but, except for the Bobby Wickham story, not Elsewhere. The Blandings Castle stories were as entertaining as other Blandings tales I’ve read. I was especially pleased to finally read these stories as they occur in time between Leave it to Psmith and Summer Lightning, both of which I have read, and it helps give some background to Summer Lightning situations.
However, I did not enjoy the 5 Mr. Mulliner stories nearly as much. These 5 stories all involve Mulliner relatives’ experience in Hollywood and are intended to satirize and poke fun at the Hollywood studios and their methods of hiring and treating screenwriters, actors and other employees. I thought the satire got old by the 3rd story as PG’s desire to ridicule the Hollywood he had worked in overcame his desire to evoke laughter and smiles from the reader. The ridicule resulted in too much ridiculousness. I had far less chuckles, guffaws and smiles than in my usual Wodehouse read.
So while the first seven stories are all 4 stars, due to the last 5 stories, I rate this collection overall as 3 stars.
6 Blandings Castle
1 Bobby Wickham, and
5 Mr. Mulliner
I enjoyed Blandings Castle but, except for the Bobby Wickham story, not Elsewhere. The Blandings Castle stories were as entertaining as other Blandings tales I’ve read. I was especially pleased to finally read these stories as they occur in time between Leave it to Psmith and Summer Lightning, both of which I have read, and it helps give some background to Summer Lightning situations.
However, I did not enjoy the 5 Mr. Mulliner stories nearly as much. These 5 stories all involve Mulliner relatives’ experience in Hollywood and are intended to satirize and poke fun at the Hollywood studios and their methods of hiring and treating screenwriters, actors and other employees. I thought the satire got old by the 3rd story as PG’s desire to ridicule the Hollywood he had worked in overcame his desire to evoke laughter and smiles from the reader. The ridicule resulted in too much ridiculousness. I had far less chuckles, guffaws and smiles than in my usual Wodehouse read.
So while the first seven stories are all 4 stars, due to the last 5 stories, I rate this collection overall as 3 stars.
August 14, 2016
I liked the Blandings stories, most of which involved Emsworth's younger son Freddy, better than the final 4 Mr. Mulliner stories, which all involved Hollywood. I think that those 4 were too similar - one I would have liked but by the fourth one, I found myself disappointed. Ah well...
James Saxon was OK as the narrator but he didn't have that little extra which lifts the narration into the superb category that Jonathan Cecil has.
James Saxon was OK as the narrator but he didn't have that little extra which lifts the narration into the superb category that Jonathan Cecil has.
August 22, 2019
This book has been absolutely hilarious. I've laughed out loud so many times that I've inspired my roommate to take up and read it too. Undoubtedly one of the most hilarious Wodehouse's I've ever read.
July 25, 2017
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere to give it its full title, contains half a dozen cracking stories about Lord Emsworth and the other inhabitants of Blandings, a top rank Bobbie Wickham story and five Mr Mulliner tales about some of his more distant relations and their experiences in Hollywood. The Blandings stories are among some of Wodehouse's best work and contain some classic one liners ('it is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine' among them). Pig Hoo-o--o-ey! And Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend are two of Wodehouse's most anthologised short stories and show his talent off at its absolute best, but I also love The Go-Getter. The last five stories in the book, about the Mulliners of Hollywood are not quite as strong. They bear the mark of having been written from Wodehouse's personal experience of working as a writer in the Hollywood studio system in its golden age, but the characters are not as well developed as in the Blandings stories and the plots somewhat repetitive.
July 27, 2015
This book is another of Wodehouse's collection of stories involving characters like, Mr Mulliner and Lord Emsworth. It is worth reading not only by a Wodehouse fan but also by one who loves good simple humour that all of his stories offer.
August 28, 2023
Some of the Blandings stories in this one shot to the top of my favorites list, but the Elsewhere ones didn't really grab me.
June 6, 2015
Nature has made some men quicker thinkers than others. Lord Emsworth's was one of those leisurely brains.
this is technically a re-read for me, but i first read it so long ago that it felt like an altogether new experience - with the exception of the story "lord emsworth and the girl friend," which struck me with the comedic force of a thousand suns when i first read it and which remains one of the most perfect and wonderful stories i have ever read in my entire life, EVER. that may sound like hyperbole but it isn't. in the preface to this collection wodehouse laments "the Saga habit" he's fallen into (with j&w and blandings castle) but a story like "lord emsworth and the girl friend" owes everything to that habit. a newcomer to blandings might certainly be able to appreciate the humor of the story - but she will not understand what a tour de force of writing it really is unless she's already become acquainted with lord emsworth, and the force of nature that is his sister constance, and his scottish terror of a gardener angus mcallister, and all the rest of the gang.
as "short snorts in between the solid orgies" (wodehouse's own words!), the other blandings stories certainly get the job done as well, though when it comes to romantic hijinks and entanglements featuring sheep-brained british men j&w is really the place to go. quite enjoyed the mulliner stories tacked on at the end, too, but they don't arouse the same kind of love and affection as wodehouse's Sagas do - which just goes to show that they can be habit-forming for readers, too.
"How do you do," he said. "What pretty flowers."
..."I got 'em for 'im up at the big 'ahse. Coo! The old josser the plice belongs to didn't arf chase me. 'E found me picking 'em and 'e sharted somefin at me and come runnin' after me, but I copped 'im on the shin wiv a stone and 'e stopped to rub it and I come away."
Lord Emsworth might have corrected her impression that Blandings Castle and its gardens belonged to Angus McAllister, but his mind was so filled with admiration and gratitude that he refrained from doing so. He looked at the girl almost reverently. Not content with controlling savage dogs with a mere word, this super-woman actually threw stones at Angus McAllister – a thing which he had never been able to nerve himself to do in an association which had lasted nine years – and, what was more, copped him on the shin with them. What nonsense, Lord Emsworth felt, the papers talked about the Modern Girl. If this was a specimen, the Modern Girl was the highest point the sex had yet reached.
(from "lord emsworth and the girl friend." and also this:)
"Ern bit her in the leg?"
"Yes, sir. Pliying 'e was a dorg. And the lidy was cross and Ern wasn't allowed to come to the treat, and I told 'im I'd bring 'im back somefing nice."
Lord Emsworth breathed heavily. He had not supposed that in these degenerate days a family like this existed. The sister copped Angus McAllister on the shin with stones, the brother bit Constance in the leg ... It was like listening to some grand old saga of the exploits of heroes and demigods.
this is technically a re-read for me, but i first read it so long ago that it felt like an altogether new experience - with the exception of the story "lord emsworth and the girl friend," which struck me with the comedic force of a thousand suns when i first read it and which remains one of the most perfect and wonderful stories i have ever read in my entire life, EVER. that may sound like hyperbole but it isn't. in the preface to this collection wodehouse laments "the Saga habit" he's fallen into (with j&w and blandings castle) but a story like "lord emsworth and the girl friend" owes everything to that habit. a newcomer to blandings might certainly be able to appreciate the humor of the story - but she will not understand what a tour de force of writing it really is unless she's already become acquainted with lord emsworth, and the force of nature that is his sister constance, and his scottish terror of a gardener angus mcallister, and all the rest of the gang.
as "short snorts in between the solid orgies" (wodehouse's own words!), the other blandings stories certainly get the job done as well, though when it comes to romantic hijinks and entanglements featuring sheep-brained british men j&w is really the place to go. quite enjoyed the mulliner stories tacked on at the end, too, but they don't arouse the same kind of love and affection as wodehouse's Sagas do - which just goes to show that they can be habit-forming for readers, too.
"How do you do," he said. "What pretty flowers."
..."I got 'em for 'im up at the big 'ahse. Coo! The old josser the plice belongs to didn't arf chase me. 'E found me picking 'em and 'e sharted somefin at me and come runnin' after me, but I copped 'im on the shin wiv a stone and 'e stopped to rub it and I come away."
Lord Emsworth might have corrected her impression that Blandings Castle and its gardens belonged to Angus McAllister, but his mind was so filled with admiration and gratitude that he refrained from doing so. He looked at the girl almost reverently. Not content with controlling savage dogs with a mere word, this super-woman actually threw stones at Angus McAllister – a thing which he had never been able to nerve himself to do in an association which had lasted nine years – and, what was more, copped him on the shin with them. What nonsense, Lord Emsworth felt, the papers talked about the Modern Girl. If this was a specimen, the Modern Girl was the highest point the sex had yet reached.
(from "lord emsworth and the girl friend." and also this:)
"Ern bit her in the leg?"
"Yes, sir. Pliying 'e was a dorg. And the lidy was cross and Ern wasn't allowed to come to the treat, and I told 'im I'd bring 'im back somefing nice."
Lord Emsworth breathed heavily. He had not supposed that in these degenerate days a family like this existed. The sister copped Angus McAllister on the shin with stones, the brother bit Constance in the leg ... It was like listening to some grand old saga of the exploits of heroes and demigods.
May 19, 2023
A constant is scatter-brained youths who get their girls, by accident, by intervention of kindly elder, such as Lord Emsworth. Nonsense is convoluted.
Names are ridiculously silly. Mr Jacob Z Schnellenhemer is forced by housemaid Prebble to merge company Colosssal-Exquisite with Fishbein's Perfecto-Fishbein, and Zizzbaum's Zizzbaum-Celluloid.
For 15 years, Clarence, Lord Emsworth has reluctantly helped younger son Freddie Threepwood out of trouble. Now Blandings Castle draws children home for happy pairings in complicated times.
Cousin Gertrude aims to Beefers, now vicar in need of living. Niece Angela heads for James Belford after he teaches Clarence magic phrase "Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey. The call brings prize-winning sow Empress to the trough. Freddie begs Clarence to intervene when wife Aggie moves away to hotel with friend Jane Yorke who "poisoned her mind" p 43.
Bobbie misleads admirers Clifford Gandle, and Hamilton Potter, promised rest cure by her dominating mother, publisher Lady Wickham, so men believe other is crazy. "Is everybody mad?" p 187. The plot spins out of sense, into spoiler.
Names are ridiculously silly. Mr Jacob Z Schnellenhemer is forced by housemaid Prebble to merge company Colosssal-Exquisite with Fishbein's Perfecto-Fishbein, and Zizzbaum's Zizzbaum-Celluloid.
For 15 years, Clarence, Lord Emsworth has reluctantly helped younger son Freddie Threepwood out of trouble. Now Blandings Castle draws children home for happy pairings in complicated times.
Cousin Gertrude aims to Beefers, now vicar in need of living. Niece Angela heads for James Belford after he teaches Clarence magic phrase "Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey. The call brings prize-winning sow Empress to the trough. Freddie begs Clarence to intervene when wife Aggie moves away to hotel with friend Jane Yorke who "poisoned her mind" p 43.
Bobbie misleads admirers Clifford Gandle, and Hamilton Potter, promised rest cure by her dominating mother, publisher Lady Wickham, so men believe other is crazy. "Is everybody mad?" p 187. The plot spins out of sense, into spoiler.
May 4, 2010
My favorite here is probably Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best because it's the wackiest of the lot. I mean, the part when Freddie tries to pass himself off as Lord Emsworth by 'dressing up' as him is just insane. "Strange as it seemed that a person of such appearance should not have been shot on sight early in his career, he had obviously reached an extremely advanced age. He was either a man of about a hundred and fifty who was rather young for his years or a man of about a hundred and ten who had been aged by trouble." Wodehouse had a twisted mind...
The other standout story is The Juice of an Orange, a Mulliner tale. To lose weight, Wilmot Mulliner's doctor orders him to consume nothing but the juice of an orange for his 3 meals. So, this diet puts Wilmot in an extremely bad mood, making his loathe his co-workers. "Wilmot Mulliner was sitting in a corner of the commissary, glowering sullenly at the glass which had contained his midday meal. He had fallen into a reverie, and was musing on some of the characters in History whom he most admired....Genghis Khan...Jack the Ripper...Attila the Hun. There was a chap, he was thinking. That Attila. Used to go about taking out people's eyeballs and piling them in neat heaps. The ideal way, felt Wilmot, of getting through the long afternoon. He was sorry Attila was no longer with us. He thought the man would have made a nice friend."
Of course, all the stories are great and worth reading.
The other standout story is The Juice of an Orange, a Mulliner tale. To lose weight, Wilmot Mulliner's doctor orders him to consume nothing but the juice of an orange for his 3 meals. So, this diet puts Wilmot in an extremely bad mood, making his loathe his co-workers. "Wilmot Mulliner was sitting in a corner of the commissary, glowering sullenly at the glass which had contained his midday meal. He had fallen into a reverie, and was musing on some of the characters in History whom he most admired....Genghis Khan...Jack the Ripper...Attila the Hun. There was a chap, he was thinking. That Attila. Used to go about taking out people's eyeballs and piling them in neat heaps. The ideal way, felt Wilmot, of getting through the long afternoon. He was sorry Attila was no longer with us. He thought the man would have made a nice friend."
Of course, all the stories are great and worth reading.
November 12, 2012
I don't know why I decided I needed to read this, but it was just one of those nagging things-- I've seen clips of Jeeves and Wooster on youtube and felt like I sort of knew the idea behind the stories. But I was bored and felt like I hadn't read any canonical British stuff in a while, and this is what I fell on.
I liked the Blandings stuff well enough, though it took a couple for me to get into it and see that it was, as promised, pretty funny. But the stories were also pretty repetitive: two of the six stories deal with raising large objects (a pumpkin, a pig) for a competition, after all. But to me, the gems of this book are the Hollywood satires of the Mulliner stories at the end of this book: I suppose those have an equally small range, taking as they do the confusion between Hollywood and real life, but I still thought they sparkled. They are all frame stories, told from England by a gang at a pub, usually known only by what they drink, and the way Wodehouse describes H'wood feels as distant from the real thing as the English speakers are from the West Coast of the US. But it's a frantic, packed sense of chaos and it's pretty delightful-- it reminds me, just a little, of Fante's Bandini, without the need to make any kind of point at all.
Really, a fun collection and one I'm tickled to have read.
I liked the Blandings stuff well enough, though it took a couple for me to get into it and see that it was, as promised, pretty funny. But the stories were also pretty repetitive: two of the six stories deal with raising large objects (a pumpkin, a pig) for a competition, after all. But to me, the gems of this book are the Hollywood satires of the Mulliner stories at the end of this book: I suppose those have an equally small range, taking as they do the confusion between Hollywood and real life, but I still thought they sparkled. They are all frame stories, told from England by a gang at a pub, usually known only by what they drink, and the way Wodehouse describes H'wood feels as distant from the real thing as the English speakers are from the West Coast of the US. But it's a frantic, packed sense of chaos and it's pretty delightful-- it reminds me, just a little, of Fante's Bandini, without the need to make any kind of point at all.
Really, a fun collection and one I'm tickled to have read.
December 11, 2021
Top draw Wodehouse. I was a bit sceptical about a number of things in this book before I started. Primarily I was worried the short story format would not lend itself to the Blandings setting. One of my favourite things about the longer Blandings novels was their ensemble casts, winding and overlapping storylines and the generally larger scale of the stories than you get with other Wodehouse, Jeeves & Wooster for example. However the fat was well trimmed, and focusing on just smaller singular storyline proved just as effective, although I feel the Jeeves & Wooster short stories are still superior.
I was also concerned about the last set of chapters having nothing to do with Blandings, but the Mulliner stories was generally also very good. I enjoyed Wodehouses technique of naming the pub going characters, which make no impact on the stories, by their drinks rather than coming up with a unique name for each of them only to be used once.
I was also concerned about the last set of chapters having nothing to do with Blandings, but the Mulliner stories was generally also very good. I enjoyed Wodehouses technique of naming the pub going characters, which make no impact on the stories, by their drinks rather than coming up with a unique name for each of them only to be used once.
January 16, 2010
A humorous anthology of stories. The first half are set at Blandings Castle in the company of the distrait Earl of Emsworth, his prize-worthy pumpkin, his prize-winning pig, and his less than commendable son, the Hon. Freddie. This is followed by a Bobby Wickham story, in which the eponymous young heroine ingeniously sets an unwanted suitor against an anxious publisher. The rest are anecdotes about the Mulliners of Hollywood. The highlights are 'Monkey Business' in which Montrose Mulliner discovers his fiancee wants to get hitched in a gorilla cage - with gorilla present; 'The Nodder' about one specimen of this lower class of yes-man; and 'The Juice of an Orange', which after reading the story, is a phrase that will stay with me as one of the funniest phrases in the world. Glorious.
February 13, 2016
The half-dozen Blandings stories here are more directly related to the TV series (as being easier to adapt than the novels, I expect, though still heavily adapted). "Lord Emsworth and the Girlfriend" was one of my favorites in both forms.
Most of the "elsewhere" stories were of the Hollywood Mulliners, and it was interesting to read the typical Wodehousian style and themes transposed into that environment.
It's fun to pick out favorite quotes from Wodehouse books, if difficult to narrow them down to just one. In this case, I'll pick the following:
"It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine, and
Lord Emsworth, gazing upon the dour man, was able to see at a glance into which category Angus McAllister fell."
Most of the "elsewhere" stories were of the Hollywood Mulliners, and it was interesting to read the typical Wodehousian style and themes transposed into that environment.
It's fun to pick out favorite quotes from Wodehouse books, if difficult to narrow them down to just one. In this case, I'll pick the following:
"It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine, and
Lord Emsworth, gazing upon the dour man, was able to see at a glance into which category Angus McAllister fell."
April 10, 2014
The Blandings castle part is hilarious, a laughter riot if ever there was one. I haven't had such a good laugh in a long time. Lord Emsworth is usually the protagonist, but Freedie Threepwood is quick becoming one of my favourite characters ever.
The 'Elsewhere' part refers to Hollywood. These stories are good, but only just so. Sort of formulaic too, come to think about it - there will be a young man whose advances towards a nuptial alliance are spurned by the lady in question, and he has to do something heroic to win her back. Typical Wodehouse, but charming nonetheless.
I'll be dashed if I don't recommend this to everybody. Read the Blandings part, at least.
The 'Elsewhere' part refers to Hollywood. These stories are good, but only just so. Sort of formulaic too, come to think about it - there will be a young man whose advances towards a nuptial alliance are spurned by the lady in question, and he has to do something heroic to win her back. Typical Wodehouse, but charming nonetheless.
I'll be dashed if I don't recommend this to everybody. Read the Blandings part, at least.
March 22, 2025
This book contains six stories about Blandings Castle and its inhabitants, one story set in Skeldings Hall, and five stories about Hollywood. I quite enjoyed the Blandings stories, but Wodehouse writing about Hollywood in the Prohibition era doesn’t seem to hit the spot for me.
While all the stories in the book are of course dated, the Blandings stories seem agreeably dated, whereas the Hollywood stories seem to me less agreeably dated. I wonder whether American readers would experience a mirror image of my reactions.
While all the stories in the book are of course dated, the Blandings stories seem agreeably dated, whereas the Hollywood stories seem to me less agreeably dated. I wonder whether American readers would experience a mirror image of my reactions.
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