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The Drones Club
Money For Nothing
The peaceful slumber of the Worcester village of Rudge-in-the-Vale is about to be rudely disrupted. First there’s a bitter feud between peppery Colonel Wyvern and the Squire of Rudge Hall, rich but miserly Lester Carmody. Second, that arch-villain Chimp Twist has opened a health farm, and he and Soapy and Dolly Molloy are planning a fake burglary so Lester can diddle his insurance company. After the knockout drops are served, things get a little complicated. But will Lester’s nephew, John, win over his true love, Colonel Wyvern’s daughter Pat, and restore tranquility to the idyll? It’s a close–run thing...
307 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1928
56 people are currently reading
698 people want to read
About the author
P.G. Wodehouse
1,680 books6,935 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 172 reviews
February 6, 2017
What ho?! A smashing early Wodehouse? Topping!
I thought I'd sworn off early Wodehouse works. The one's I've read so far have been blah. Just drippy romances with the lightest of comedy touches. Nothing worth wasting time on.
However, I grabbed this one on audiobook because I saw that it was narrated by Jonathan Cecil, who does a corking good job with the English toff voice. As far as voicing the upperclass English twit, Cecil's top of his class!
Money for Nothing follows a common Wodehouse template of love combined with caper. Hijinks always ensue!
Perhaps another reason I enjoyed this one so much was that it reminds me so very much of a typical Jeeves & Wooster book. The characters and setting have an old shoe familiarity. In fact some of these characters are recurring:
The action is mostly set at Rudge Hall, home to miser Lester Carmody, and at Healthward Ho, a health farm run by "Chimp" Twist, along with his cohorts "Soapy" and "Dolly" Molloy, who all previously appeared in Sam the Sudden (1925), and returned in Money in the Bank (1946). Hugo Carmody, Lester's nephew, and his friend Ronnie Fish also appear at Blandings Castle, home of Ronnie's uncle Lord Emsworth, in Summer Lightning (1929) and Heavy Weather (1933). - Wikipedia
The main point is, I knew just who was who, even though they were all technically new to me. When you're looking for a reliable laugh, the same old same old isn't always a bad thing. And this book ain't a bad thing!
I thought I'd sworn off early Wodehouse works. The one's I've read so far have been blah. Just drippy romances with the lightest of comedy touches. Nothing worth wasting time on.
However, I grabbed this one on audiobook because I saw that it was narrated by Jonathan Cecil, who does a corking good job with the English toff voice. As far as voicing the upperclass English twit, Cecil's top of his class!
Money for Nothing follows a common Wodehouse template of love combined with caper. Hijinks always ensue!
Perhaps another reason I enjoyed this one so much was that it reminds me so very much of a typical Jeeves & Wooster book. The characters and setting have an old shoe familiarity. In fact some of these characters are recurring:
The action is mostly set at Rudge Hall, home to miser Lester Carmody, and at Healthward Ho, a health farm run by "Chimp" Twist, along with his cohorts "Soapy" and "Dolly" Molloy, who all previously appeared in Sam the Sudden (1925), and returned in Money in the Bank (1946). Hugo Carmody, Lester's nephew, and his friend Ronnie Fish also appear at Blandings Castle, home of Ronnie's uncle Lord Emsworth, in Summer Lightning (1929) and Heavy Weather (1933). - Wikipedia
The main point is, I knew just who was who, even though they were all technically new to me. When you're looking for a reliable laugh, the same old same old isn't always a bad thing. And this book ain't a bad thing!
December 26, 2025
Take it from a guy who's read a lot of this author's novels: If what you're looking for is a relaxing combo of beautiful / clever wordplay, then a Wodehouse book can be a one-stop-shopping destination. Whatever else any of his novels may or may not be (i.e., strong in plot or not; complex in construction or slight), you can more or less take it to the bank that P.G. is going to spend the bulk of his (and your) time in elegant swishing of his tickle-feather.
P.G.'s mission in life was to amuse. In a manner seemingly inexhaustible, his tendency was to shun the easy laugh (with rather rare exception) in favor of the one wrapped in sophistication. He knew the power of words-in-over-abundance and the evidence is he had truckloads of them at his beck and call. Putting them on the page the way he did was no doubt hard work - made to look effortless.
'Money for Nothing' is one of Wodehouse's stand-alone works that appeared just that side of mid-career. With some exceptions, it's populated with characters you won't find elsewhere in his canon. (Wodehouse completists can take pleasure in the author's blatant 'easter egg' habit of dropping certain personalities into an isolated mix of unknowns.)
The main complication this time out (a sidebar insurance fraud scheme involving the theft of family heirlooms) may seem a bit negligible; at least it's treated that way. But ultimately it's in subtle service to a panoply of comic character development. Just about everybody (or scratch that; it may be *everybody*) on-board here veers towards foolishness - even the ones we're rooting for. Unless I'm forgetting something (and I may be), we don't have a Wodehouse-staple (like Aunt Dahlia, for example) who serves up even lip service to pragmatism.
Here we seem to just have a bunch of characters who want either money or love - but never any simultaneous level of both. The one-track minds are maximized for comic effect.
Although pleasant mileage can be plumbed from the highlighted absurdity of a 'health farm' designed to swindle the vain / eccentric / malleable rich, the standout threads involve the singular ways Wodehouse tackles both the unconventional love story (the young lady - Pat - is clueless about her own feelings) and the duplicitous details of the fraud caper.
The collective effect of both shows Wodehouse presenting a refreshing yin-and-yang POV of womanhood. He's not really a writer who is effusive in his portraits of females, but here he does noticeably let himself go.
In the muffled affection between John (the protagonist) and Pat, P.G.'s vision of Pat shows her to be untouched yet unconsciously savvy.:
P.G.'s mission in life was to amuse. In a manner seemingly inexhaustible, his tendency was to shun the easy laugh (with rather rare exception) in favor of the one wrapped in sophistication. He knew the power of words-in-over-abundance and the evidence is he had truckloads of them at his beck and call. Putting them on the page the way he did was no doubt hard work - made to look effortless.
'Money for Nothing' is one of Wodehouse's stand-alone works that appeared just that side of mid-career. With some exceptions, it's populated with characters you won't find elsewhere in his canon. (Wodehouse completists can take pleasure in the author's blatant 'easter egg' habit of dropping certain personalities into an isolated mix of unknowns.)
The main complication this time out (a sidebar insurance fraud scheme involving the theft of family heirlooms) may seem a bit negligible; at least it's treated that way. But ultimately it's in subtle service to a panoply of comic character development. Just about everybody (or scratch that; it may be *everybody*) on-board here veers towards foolishness - even the ones we're rooting for. Unless I'm forgetting something (and I may be), we don't have a Wodehouse-staple (like Aunt Dahlia, for example) who serves up even lip service to pragmatism.
Here we seem to just have a bunch of characters who want either money or love - but never any simultaneous level of both. The one-track minds are maximized for comic effect.
Although pleasant mileage can be plumbed from the highlighted absurdity of a 'health farm' designed to swindle the vain / eccentric / malleable rich, the standout threads involve the singular ways Wodehouse tackles both the unconventional love story (the young lady - Pat - is clueless about her own feelings) and the duplicitous details of the fraud caper.
The collective effect of both shows Wodehouse presenting a refreshing yin-and-yang POV of womanhood. He's not really a writer who is effusive in his portraits of females, but here he does noticeably let himself go.
In the muffled affection between John (the protagonist) and Pat, P.G.'s vision of Pat shows her to be untouched yet unconsciously savvy.:
A quick flicker of concern passed through Pat. She was always candid with herself, and she knew quite well that, though she did not want to marry him, she regarded John as essentially a piece of property. If he had fallen in love with her, that was, of course, a pity: but it would, she realized, be considerably more of a pity if he ever fell in love with someone else.For his part, John finds Pat's recent emotional shift vexing.:
There had been a period when, he being fifteen and she ten, Pat had lavished on him all the worship of a small girl for a big boy who can wiggle his ears and is not afraid of cows. But since then her attitude had changed. Her manner towards him nowadays alternated between that of a nurse towards a child and that of the owner of a clumsy but rather likeable dog. Nevertheless he loved her.Both John and Pat will have to sidestep somewhat-flighty cousin Hugo.:
Hugo uttered a short, bitter laugh: and, sinking into a chair, stared bleakly before him. His eyelids, like those of the Mona Lisa, were a little weary. He looked like the hero of a Russian novel debating the advisability of murdering a few near relations before hanging himself in the barn.But Hugo is still small change compared to colorfully bossy, knife-edge-sharp mastermind Dolly Molloy.:
'Aw, be yourself, Chimp!'A generous share of farcical hanky-panky lifts the book's latter half (esp.) to an unexpected degree. And the final chapter is among the most charming conclusions that Wodehouse has ever written.
'I'm being myself, all right, all right!'
'Well, then, for Pete's sake, be somebody else. Pull yourself together, why can't you? Have a drink.'
February 28, 2016
Damn! I usually love Wodehouse, so to read a book of his that I only liked was hugely disappointing.
The beginning was the best with some wonderfully witty lines- especially during the first meeting of Molloy & Lester Carmody. I was hopeful that this book was going to develop at the same mad cap speed of my all time favourite Wodehouse
But the final two thirds of the book was a muddled mess & I hardly cracked a smile.
The beginning was the best with some wonderfully witty lines- especially during the first meeting of Molloy & Lester Carmody. I was hopeful that this book was going to develop at the same mad cap speed of my all time favourite Wodehouse
But the final two thirds of the book was a muddled mess & I hardly cracked a smile.June 24, 2012
I'm a big fan of Wodehouse and consider his writing marvellous in every way. Well, perhaps every way except one: Wodehouse novels are hard to read if you don't plug away at them consistently or devour them in one or two sittings. The plots and characters are simply too similar to remember between one reading and the next, especially if you, like me, have read so many of his books. There's always a Major or a Captain or a policeman in there somewhere, a stupid one. There's a country estate. There's an idiot relation. There's an uncle. But surprise! In "Money for Nothing", there are also gangsters. One gets the impression that Wodehouse watched a bunch of mobster movies set in Chicago before sitting down to write this and the language is ripped straight from American movies and dislocated to the English countryside. A highlight though is the health spa, Healthward Ho, where the inhabitants subject themselves to physical exercise and abstain from smoking, drinking, and rich food. Poor buggers. This is worth reading just for that chapter.
December 10, 2018
Wodehouse wordplay and a few new twists plus one old one, so to speak, on a standard Wodehouse plot. What's not to enjoy?
November 8, 2022
Wodehouse therapy to the rescue when life gets tough. I laugh and smile and feel good when reading his books. Another great one here!
February 22, 2022
Good fun all round. Great writing, great narrating. I love Wodehouse as much now as I did when I was a kid.
August 16, 2019
Mr. Lester Carmody is not having a good time of it. First, his dearest friend Colonel Wyvern is not speaking to Mr. Carmody because the Colonel claims Mr. Carmody shoved his friend in front when faced with nearly being blown up with dynamite. Mr. Carmody refuses to apologize for nothing. Then, Mr. Carmody checks into Heathward Ho! a health spa that restricts his consumption of food, alcohol and cigarettes!!! Dr. Twist even prescribes ... exercise! (Imagine that!) Mr. Carmody manages to escape the torture after two of the three weeks but that scoundrel of a doctor won't refund his money! Money for nothing! Mr. Carmody's nephew Hugh is driving him crazy wanting to buy a nightclub with his pal Ronnie Fish. Now his numbskull nephews have invited some American millionaires to visit the ancestral estate and Mr. Molloy even tried to touch Mr. Carmody for money. Ha! As if Mr. Carmody has any to spare! Sure his ancestral home is full of antiques but they belong to the estate and he can't sell them. Enter the brain of Miss Dolly Molloy. She devises a scheme in which Mr. Carmody and the Molloys will both benefit. Meanwhile, Mr. Carmody's other nephew John is mooning over Colonel Wyvern's only daughter Patricia. Romeo & Juliet this is not.
P.G. Wodehouse had a tried and true formula and it shows here. It sound very familiar yet I don't indicate I have read it. I do remember Soapy, Dolly and Chimp from other books though. It's a pleasant farce and I had a hard time putting it down wondering where the plot was going. I wasn't so much interested in the mediocre dated romance but the heist plot is fun. Also fun is the health spa, this time for humans. Wodehouse was on to something and imagine how unhealthy people were that it took some quack at a health spa to teach them to be healthy. We could learn something from Healthward Ho! today. Of course the business is run by none other than Chimp Twist so while it seems on the "up and up" it probably isn't. I didn't care for the long winded passages in the beginning gossiping with the chemist and even the translated to human speech thoughts of Emily the Welsh Terrier. As much as I love dogs, I found those passages confusing and unnecessary.
Cranky old men are not really my thing but in this case I believe Colonel Wyvern is justified in his anger. Carmody is cranky because he just spent two weeks at a health spa and everyone wants money from him. He's cheap but I do believe him when he says the estate barely pays for itself. Plus his nephew Hugo should work for his money and not just expect handouts. I expect he wouldn't be very good at any job because he's a bit dim-witted but he's charming, fun and kind. John is meant to be a wet blanket but I found him intensely likable. He's shy and reserved. He finds it difficult to express himself clearly or openly. Yet he seems intelligent and unlike most Wodehouse country gentlemen, he actually works. He manages the estate for his uncle! Plus, John is owned by a terrier so how could I not like him? I found him sympathetic in his romantic woes. Hugo isn't helping matters by interfering and Patricia sends him mixed messages! She annoys me a lot. In one breath she says he's like a brother and then she toys with him and ends up jealous when he appears to be going out with Dolly. She can't make up her mind and acts silly and stupid.
Dolly Molloy is a much more likable woman for all she's a con-artist. She's clever enough to understand what Carmody says about his antiques and to find a way around it. She dictates most of the action of the grand con. Her mind is devious and she's greedy but at least she knows what she wants and goes after it. Thomas is a really dumb criminal and Chimp Twist is even more stupid. Dolly is the real mastermind, or so she thinks. They liven up an otherwise dull story and make it more interesting.
Ex-Sergeant-Major Flannery at the health spa is an incredibly annoying character. He's obsessive about bullying the patients, flirts with the kitchen staff but doesn't understand the effect he has on Rosa, the maid. I dislike bullies and Flannery is a pretty big one even though he thinks he has good intentions. Flannery is also stupid and vain. Sturgis the butler is no Jeeves. He's slow and completely unaware of anything that is going on even when he holds vital information. At least he seems that way. He's not a very well-developed character.
I enjoy these country home stories very much. Wodehouse is not meant to be binge read so I will likely not read another for awhile but I will check up on Soapy and Dolly again.
P.G. Wodehouse had a tried and true formula and it shows here. It sound very familiar yet I don't indicate I have read it. I do remember Soapy, Dolly and Chimp from other books though. It's a pleasant farce and I had a hard time putting it down wondering where the plot was going. I wasn't so much interested in the mediocre dated romance but the heist plot is fun. Also fun is the health spa, this time for humans. Wodehouse was on to something and imagine how unhealthy people were that it took some quack at a health spa to teach them to be healthy. We could learn something from Healthward Ho! today. Of course the business is run by none other than Chimp Twist so while it seems on the "up and up" it probably isn't. I didn't care for the long winded passages in the beginning gossiping with the chemist and even the translated to human speech thoughts of Emily the Welsh Terrier. As much as I love dogs, I found those passages confusing and unnecessary.
Cranky old men are not really my thing but in this case I believe Colonel Wyvern is justified in his anger. Carmody is cranky because he just spent two weeks at a health spa and everyone wants money from him. He's cheap but I do believe him when he says the estate barely pays for itself. Plus his nephew Hugo should work for his money and not just expect handouts. I expect he wouldn't be very good at any job because he's a bit dim-witted but he's charming, fun and kind. John is meant to be a wet blanket but I found him intensely likable. He's shy and reserved. He finds it difficult to express himself clearly or openly. Yet he seems intelligent and unlike most Wodehouse country gentlemen, he actually works. He manages the estate for his uncle! Plus, John is owned by a terrier so how could I not like him? I found him sympathetic in his romantic woes. Hugo isn't helping matters by interfering and Patricia sends him mixed messages! She annoys me a lot. In one breath she says he's like a brother and then she toys with him and ends up jealous when he appears to be going out with Dolly. She can't make up her mind and acts silly and stupid.
Dolly Molloy is a much more likable woman for all she's a con-artist. She's clever enough to understand what Carmody says about his antiques and to find a way around it. She dictates most of the action of the grand con. Her mind is devious and she's greedy but at least she knows what she wants and goes after it. Thomas is a really dumb criminal and Chimp Twist is even more stupid. Dolly is the real mastermind, or so she thinks. They liven up an otherwise dull story and make it more interesting.
Ex-Sergeant-Major Flannery at the health spa is an incredibly annoying character. He's obsessive about bullying the patients, flirts with the kitchen staff but doesn't understand the effect he has on Rosa, the maid. I dislike bullies and Flannery is a pretty big one even though he thinks he has good intentions. Flannery is also stupid and vain. Sturgis the butler is no Jeeves. He's slow and completely unaware of anything that is going on even when he holds vital information. At least he seems that way. He's not a very well-developed character.
I enjoy these country home stories very much. Wodehouse is not meant to be binge read so I will likely not read another for awhile but I will check up on Soapy and Dolly again.
January 19, 2020
Lots of fun! I had actually read a subsequent book with some of these characters (Hugo Carmody and Ronnie Fish) earlier this year - "Summer Lightening".
I started reading this as an ebook (borrowed from the Open Library) but really wanted to listen to the audiobook edition. So much so that in fact I bought it when I couldn't find a library that I belong to that had it! Jonathan Cecil is so wonderful narrating and his voices for the various characters are just right. 4.5* for this audiobook edition
I started reading this as an ebook (borrowed from the Open Library) but really wanted to listen to the audiobook edition. So much so that in fact I bought it when I couldn't find a library that I belong to that had it! Jonathan Cecil is so wonderful narrating and his voices for the various characters are just right. 4.5* for this audiobook edition
April 13, 2010
After reading a spate of Jeeves and Wooster books, Money for Nothing seems refreshingly, umm...fresh. It could be I'm a sucker for a book where the guy actually wants the girl. Or maybe I was just in the mood for some character development. Bertie Wooster, bless his heart, is a character from the start, but he doesn't seem to develop one smidgen from one book to the next.
In Money for Nothing, P.G. Wodehouse doesn't have to worry about keeping Bertie "just-so", and his characters develop quite nicely from start to finish. The setting is quite nice to spend time reading about too, and there is no shortage of the laugh-aloud scenes that keep me reading and rereading Wodehouse.
In Money for Nothing, P.G. Wodehouse doesn't have to worry about keeping Bertie "just-so", and his characters develop quite nicely from start to finish. The setting is quite nice to spend time reading about too, and there is no shortage of the laugh-aloud scenes that keep me reading and rereading Wodehouse.
May 4, 2023
A fun, funny, and quick read. There are quite a few laugh out loud moments. It didn’t finish as strongly as it began but my enjoyment level only sagged a bit.
February 26, 2024
Whenever the story would wander off into the romance between Pat and John, I would lose interest, but as soon as mad Dr Twist and the roaring Sergeant Major at the fat farm came back into the story, I was happy again. For some reason whenever I think of Dr Twist as Old Monkey Brand I can't stop laughing like a lunatic.
October 30, 2024
Not one of the best from P G Wodehouse; nevertheless I enjoyed it. The signature Wodehouse humour shone through a poorly constructed storyline.
Hugo Carmody, Dolly, Soapy and Chimp et al were involved in this drama.
Hugo Carmody, Dolly, Soapy and Chimp et al were involved in this drama.
August 6, 2020
All right, we all know what is going on here. No more excuses.
I had forgotten everything about this one, and ended it with an apparently much better impression compared to last time. The love story was a bit of a squib, but the jokes landed solidly, and it is always nice to see the expanded Wodehouse universe, so to speak. We see here how the late, lamented Hot Spot came to be, and a side to Ronnie Fish no one would have expected. Sample this:
'I won't,' said Mr. Molloy. Give me Oil......The Universal Fuel of the Future.'
'Absolutely,' said Ronnie Fish. 'What did Gladstone say in '88? You can fuel some of the people all the time, and you can fuel all the people some of the time, but you can't fuel all the people all the time. He was forgetting about Oil.'
I mean, damp, squibby love stories are fillers anyway.
I had forgotten everything about this one, and ended it with an apparently much better impression compared to last time. The love story was a bit of a squib, but the jokes landed solidly, and it is always nice to see the expanded Wodehouse universe, so to speak. We see here how the late, lamented Hot Spot came to be, and a side to Ronnie Fish no one would have expected. Sample this:
'I won't,' said Mr. Molloy. Give me Oil......The Universal Fuel of the Future.'
'Absolutely,' said Ronnie Fish. 'What did Gladstone say in '88? You can fuel some of the people all the time, and you can fuel all the people some of the time, but you can't fuel all the people all the time. He was forgetting about Oil.'
I mean, damp, squibby love stories are fillers anyway.
May 3, 2024
This is one of Wodehouse's books that I don't like very much. It has some great side characters and scenes. My favorite side character is Sergeant-Major Flannery who is a very fun stereotypical sergeant character. I listen to the version narrated by Jonathan Cecil and he does a great voice for the Flannery. There is also a fun old Butler named Sturgis, who mispronounces the word rabbit as robert. Lastly, there is dog, Emily. We get to hear the translation of what her barks mean, and Wodehouse is always good at writing animals.
But I really dislike the lead female character, who has no likable qualities, and the main male character isn't that great either. But Wodehouse's writing is always enjoyable, so I still listen to it occasionally.
But I really dislike the lead female character, who has no likable qualities, and the main male character isn't that great either. But Wodehouse's writing is always enjoyable, so I still listen to it occasionally.
November 18, 2021
It's a rare Wodehouse novel that I have only read once or twice. But I suspect this reading was only my third or so since bringing the Penguin UK paperback back from London 25 years ago, stuffed into a suitcase with about 30 other Wodehouses.
I'm not sure why I've neglected this one, except that it's a good Wodehouse novel, rather than a great one. Of course, that means that it's still better than the vast majority of English comic fiction. That hapless trio of crooks, "Chimp" Twist and Soapy & Dolly Molloy, make their second appearance here, and, as usual, end up with nothing to show for their nefarious efforts. The romantic comedy plotline is still a prominent Wodehouse feature at this point, the the young couple ends up together without too much grief along the way.
This shouldn't be anyone's first Wodehouse book, I don't think, but it's certainly worth reading for followers of Plum.
I'm not sure why I've neglected this one, except that it's a good Wodehouse novel, rather than a great one. Of course, that means that it's still better than the vast majority of English comic fiction. That hapless trio of crooks, "Chimp" Twist and Soapy & Dolly Molloy, make their second appearance here, and, as usual, end up with nothing to show for their nefarious efforts. The romantic comedy plotline is still a prominent Wodehouse feature at this point, the the young couple ends up together without too much grief along the way.
This shouldn't be anyone's first Wodehouse book, I don't think, but it's certainly worth reading for followers of Plum.
August 4, 2018
PG Wodehouse will always get 5 stars from me. Not because of his insight into human nature or his straightforward plots, but for the way he can turn a phrase. It’s always refreshing, totally entertaining and a wonderful light summer read.
April 18, 2021
Even though Bertie and Jeeves weren't present in this story, similar antics occurred, until all was settled and we could happily congratulate the lovers. Another great audio reading by Jonathan Cecil.
August 26, 2018
Comic genius at work in top form! Who but Wodehouse can dream up scenes like
1. A lord stuck on a second floor windowsill with a curious bird investigating proceedings.
2. A sozzled aristocrat quoting Shakespeare to a terrified burglar.
And many more!
The world would be a much poorer place without regular doses of PGW.
1. A lord stuck on a second floor windowsill with a curious bird investigating proceedings.
2. A sozzled aristocrat quoting Shakespeare to a terrified burglar.
And many more!
The world would be a much poorer place without regular doses of PGW.
July 29, 2019
Burglars bungle. Cavemen triumph.
December 18, 2023
After making the dreadful mistake of reading Wodehouse's final book, written in the 1970's, I made sure this time to pick one of his novels from the 1920s. Whew! Back to the Wodehouse I love and adore. While I have a soft spot in my heart for Bertie and Jeeves, the characters in Wodehouse's other books are just as amusing. There aren't many novels where I literally laugh out loud so it's always a pleasure to read one that does incur actual laughter.
The plot is the usual slapstick shenanigans, this time mainly set at a British country estate. Lots of hijinks ensue, with a satisfying resolution at the end.
Kindle Highlights:
It was not as if he enjoyed staying at country-houses in a purely aesthetic spirit. On the contrary, a place like Rudge Hall afflicted his town-bred nerves. Being in it seemed to him like living in the first act set of an old-fashioned comic opera. He always felt that at any moment a band of villagers and retainers might dance out and start a drinking-chorus.
The head waiter had returned, and was either doing sums or drawing caricatures on a large pad chained to a desk. He seemed so much the artist absorbed in his work that John would not have dreamed of venturing to interrupt him. Pat had no such delicacy.
A youth and middle age spent on the London Stock Exchange had left Lester Carmody singularly broad-minded. He had to a remarkable degree that spacious charity which allows a man to look indulgently on any financial project, however fishy, provided he can see a bit in it for himself.
He had always hated heights, and this morning found him more prejudiced against them than ever. It says much for Crime as a wholesome influence in a man's life that the lure of the nefarious job which he had undertaken should have induced him eventually after much hesitation to set foot on the ladder's lowest rung. Nothing but a single-minded desire to do down an innocent insurance company could have lent him the necessary courage.
Bedridden ladies of advanced age seldom bubble over with fun and joie de vivre. This one's attitude towards life seemed to have been borrowed from her favourite light reading, the works of the Prophet Jeremiah
There was a man he knew in London, a fellow who had a glass eye, and the only thing that enabled anyone to tell which of his eyes was which was that the glass one had rather a more human expression than the other.
John's first impulse, as always when his cousin paid him a visit, was to tell him to get out. People who, when they saw Hugo, immediately told him to get out generally had the comfortable feeling that they were doing the right and sensible thing.
He looked like the hero of a Russian novel debating the advisability of murdering a few near relations before hanging himself in the barn.
It was on the tip of Sergeant-Major Flannery's tongue to point out that other people were clever, too, but he refrained, not so much from modesty as because at this moment he swallowed some sort of insect.
The prudent man, before embarking on any enterprise which may at a moment's notice necessitate his skipping away from a given spot like a scalded cat, will always begin by preparing his lines of retreat.
Rudge Hall's old retainer did not look the sort of man who would pop up through traps, but there seemed no other explanation of his presence.
He became aware that the Last of the Great Victorians proposed to make this thing a social gathering. He appeared to be regarding Soapy as the nucleus of a salon.
To a man interested in rabbits but too lazy to look the subject up in the Encyclopedia the narrative would have been enthralling. It induced in Soapy a feverishness that touched the skirts of homicidal mania.
It was about an acquaintance of his who had kept rabbits, and it suffered in lucidity from his unfortunate habit of pronouncing rabbits 'roberts', combined with the fact that by a singular coincidence the acquaintance had been a Mr Roberts. Roberts, it seemed, had been deeply attached to roberts. In fact, his practice of keeping roberts in his bedroom had led to trouble with Mrs Roberts, and in the end Mrs Roberts had drowned the roberts in the pond and Roberts, who thought the world of his roberts and not quite so highly of Mrs Roberts, had never forgiven her.
It began to seem to Soapy that the staffs of English country. houses must be selected primarily for their powers of conversation. Every domestic with whom he had come in contact in Rudge Hall so far had at his disposal an apparently endless flow of lively small-talk. The butler, if you let him, would gossip all day about rabbits, and here was the chauffeur apparently settling down to dictate his autobiography.
There was only one adjective to describe this push-bike - the adjective blackguardly. It had that leering air, shared by some parrots and the baser variety of cat, of having seen and being jauntily familiar with all the sin of the world. It looked low and furtive. Its handle-bars curved up instead of down, it had gaps in its spokes, and its pedals were naked and unashamed. A sans-culotte of a bicycle. The sort of bicycle that snaps at strangers.
This sudden activity on the part of one whom they had regarded as under the influence of some of the best knock-out drops that ever came out of Chicago had had upon them an effect similar to that which would be experienced by a group of surgeons in an operating-theatre if the gentleman on the slab were to rise abruptly and begin to dance the Charleston.
The plot is the usual slapstick shenanigans, this time mainly set at a British country estate. Lots of hijinks ensue, with a satisfying resolution at the end.
Kindle Highlights:
It was not as if he enjoyed staying at country-houses in a purely aesthetic spirit. On the contrary, a place like Rudge Hall afflicted his town-bred nerves. Being in it seemed to him like living in the first act set of an old-fashioned comic opera. He always felt that at any moment a band of villagers and retainers might dance out and start a drinking-chorus.
The head waiter had returned, and was either doing sums or drawing caricatures on a large pad chained to a desk. He seemed so much the artist absorbed in his work that John would not have dreamed of venturing to interrupt him. Pat had no such delicacy.
A youth and middle age spent on the London Stock Exchange had left Lester Carmody singularly broad-minded. He had to a remarkable degree that spacious charity which allows a man to look indulgently on any financial project, however fishy, provided he can see a bit in it for himself.
He had always hated heights, and this morning found him more prejudiced against them than ever. It says much for Crime as a wholesome influence in a man's life that the lure of the nefarious job which he had undertaken should have induced him eventually after much hesitation to set foot on the ladder's lowest rung. Nothing but a single-minded desire to do down an innocent insurance company could have lent him the necessary courage.
Bedridden ladies of advanced age seldom bubble over with fun and joie de vivre. This one's attitude towards life seemed to have been borrowed from her favourite light reading, the works of the Prophet Jeremiah
There was a man he knew in London, a fellow who had a glass eye, and the only thing that enabled anyone to tell which of his eyes was which was that the glass one had rather a more human expression than the other.
John's first impulse, as always when his cousin paid him a visit, was to tell him to get out. People who, when they saw Hugo, immediately told him to get out generally had the comfortable feeling that they were doing the right and sensible thing.
He looked like the hero of a Russian novel debating the advisability of murdering a few near relations before hanging himself in the barn.
It was on the tip of Sergeant-Major Flannery's tongue to point out that other people were clever, too, but he refrained, not so much from modesty as because at this moment he swallowed some sort of insect.
The prudent man, before embarking on any enterprise which may at a moment's notice necessitate his skipping away from a given spot like a scalded cat, will always begin by preparing his lines of retreat.
Rudge Hall's old retainer did not look the sort of man who would pop up through traps, but there seemed no other explanation of his presence.
He became aware that the Last of the Great Victorians proposed to make this thing a social gathering. He appeared to be regarding Soapy as the nucleus of a salon.
To a man interested in rabbits but too lazy to look the subject up in the Encyclopedia the narrative would have been enthralling. It induced in Soapy a feverishness that touched the skirts of homicidal mania.
It was about an acquaintance of his who had kept rabbits, and it suffered in lucidity from his unfortunate habit of pronouncing rabbits 'roberts', combined with the fact that by a singular coincidence the acquaintance had been a Mr Roberts. Roberts, it seemed, had been deeply attached to roberts. In fact, his practice of keeping roberts in his bedroom had led to trouble with Mrs Roberts, and in the end Mrs Roberts had drowned the roberts in the pond and Roberts, who thought the world of his roberts and not quite so highly of Mrs Roberts, had never forgiven her.
It began to seem to Soapy that the staffs of English country. houses must be selected primarily for their powers of conversation. Every domestic with whom he had come in contact in Rudge Hall so far had at his disposal an apparently endless flow of lively small-talk. The butler, if you let him, would gossip all day about rabbits, and here was the chauffeur apparently settling down to dictate his autobiography.
There was only one adjective to describe this push-bike - the adjective blackguardly. It had that leering air, shared by some parrots and the baser variety of cat, of having seen and being jauntily familiar with all the sin of the world. It looked low and furtive. Its handle-bars curved up instead of down, it had gaps in its spokes, and its pedals were naked and unashamed. A sans-culotte of a bicycle. The sort of bicycle that snaps at strangers.
This sudden activity on the part of one whom they had regarded as under the influence of some of the best knock-out drops that ever came out of Chicago had had upon them an effect similar to that which would be experienced by a group of surgeons in an operating-theatre if the gentleman on the slab were to rise abruptly and begin to dance the Charleston.
May 4, 2014
even minor P G Wodehouse gives more pleasure than virtually anything else that you can read.
February 25, 2024
Not in the absolute first rank of Wodehouse, but a solid, amusing piece nonetheless, featuring several characters who turn up in other books; the hapless criminals "Chimp" Twist and Dolly and Soapy Molloy first appeared in
Sam the Sudden
and also have roles in several subsequent books, and Ronnie Fish and Hugo Carmody are later seen in the Blandings novels
Summer Lightning
and
Heavy Weather
(Ronnie being a nephew of the Earl of Emsworth).
The central romance involves Hugo's cousin John, a worthy but diffident man, unlike most other Wodehouse characters in that he has a job (manager of his uncle Lester Carmody's dairy farm), is good at it, and apparently likes it. He is, and has been for years, in love with Pat, the daughter of his uncle's currently-estranged friend Colonel Wyvern (the stock retired military man of the village), but she doesn't rate him because she sees him as lacking backbone. In the course of the book, he demonstrates that this is not the case.
Lester Carmody conspires with the criminals, not knowing that they're career criminals, to defraud his insurance company and convert some family heirlooms that are entailed to the estate into ready money. Of course, everyone double-crosses everyone else, and through a combination of courage and outright good luck, John is able to foil the scheme; in this sense, it's a kind of anti-caper in the same way that the Jeeves and Wooster books are generally anti-romances. Along the way, we meet a typical menagerie of vivid minor characters, from the elderly, rabbit-loving Carmody butler to the ex-sergeant-major who works for "Chimp" Twist under the impression that he's a respectable physician running a legitimate health farm, the gossipy local chemist, and John's opinionated Welsh terrier, Emily.
It's all good fun, well paced, full of reversals and near-misses and shenanigans, conveyed in the trademark playful-but-apt Wodehouse language. The copy I had from Project Gutenberg is based on the US publication, which has a few passages that the British edition lacked, according to the Madam Eulalie fan-site; it's well edited and shows minimal scan issues.
The central romance involves Hugo's cousin John, a worthy but diffident man, unlike most other Wodehouse characters in that he has a job (manager of his uncle Lester Carmody's dairy farm), is good at it, and apparently likes it. He is, and has been for years, in love with Pat, the daughter of his uncle's currently-estranged friend Colonel Wyvern (the stock retired military man of the village), but she doesn't rate him because she sees him as lacking backbone. In the course of the book, he demonstrates that this is not the case.
Lester Carmody conspires with the criminals, not knowing that they're career criminals, to defraud his insurance company and convert some family heirlooms that are entailed to the estate into ready money. Of course, everyone double-crosses everyone else, and through a combination of courage and outright good luck, John is able to foil the scheme; in this sense, it's a kind of anti-caper in the same way that the Jeeves and Wooster books are generally anti-romances. Along the way, we meet a typical menagerie of vivid minor characters, from the elderly, rabbit-loving Carmody butler to the ex-sergeant-major who works for "Chimp" Twist under the impression that he's a respectable physician running a legitimate health farm, the gossipy local chemist, and John's opinionated Welsh terrier, Emily.
It's all good fun, well paced, full of reversals and near-misses and shenanigans, conveyed in the trademark playful-but-apt Wodehouse language. The copy I had from Project Gutenberg is based on the US publication, which has a few passages that the British edition lacked, according to the Madam Eulalie fan-site; it's well edited and shows minimal scan issues.
March 28, 2022
It's a typical Wodehouse plot, with all the usual kinds of characters: the crotchety Colonel, the uncle holding onto the nephew's inheritance with hoops of steel, the smart and spunky girl, the young men about town with their big ideas, etc. I thought about this while I was reading. I have other authors I've stopped reading because their books are too similar to each other (Dan Brown, for instance). What is it about Wodehouse that keeps me reading, even though I know exactly how Johnnie and Pat are going to end up, and can predict accurately what will happen with Soapy and Dolly Molloy?
It's writing like this:
And the dog Emily, in a scene where Hugo's been clumsy and slow at extricating her from some shrubbery, resulting in them losing the burglar they were chasing:
To be clear, Emily isn't a talking dog, this is a translation of her bark. I don't remember many Wodehouse books where he does this, but I enjoyed it here, and Emily turns out to be one of my favorite characters.
I pulled this one off my own shelf so it's a reread. I also found the audio version on Audible, included in my subscription so I didn't have to use a credit for it, and alternated between eyes and ears. The reader is the excellent Jonathan Cecil, who doesn't make the Americans sound like they come from Brooklyn or Alabama, which I appreciate.
It's writing like this:
The picturesque village of Rudge-in-the-Vale dozed in the summer sunshine. Along its narrow High Street the only signs of life visible were a cat stropping its backbone against the Jubilee Watering Trough, some flies doing deep-breathing exercises on the hot window-sills, and a little group of serious thinkers who, propped up against the wall of the Carmody Arms, were waiting for that establishment to open.
And the dog Emily, in a scene where Hugo's been clumsy and slow at extricating her from some shrubbery, resulting in them losing the burglar they were chasing:
She came back to where Hugo sat, her tongue lolling, and disgust written all over her expressive features. There was a silence. Emily thought it was all Hugo's fault, Hugo thought it was Emily's. A stiffness had crept into their relations once again, and when at length Hugo, feeling a little more benevolent after three cigarettes, reached down and scratched Emily's head, the latter drew away coldly.
'Damn fool!' she said.
To be clear, Emily isn't a talking dog, this is a translation of her bark. I don't remember many Wodehouse books where he does this, but I enjoyed it here, and Emily turns out to be one of my favorite characters.
I pulled this one off my own shelf so it's a reread. I also found the audio version on Audible, included in my subscription so I didn't have to use a credit for it, and alternated between eyes and ears. The reader is the excellent Jonathan Cecil, who doesn't make the Americans sound like they come from Brooklyn or Alabama, which I appreciate.
May 1, 2023
P.G. Wodehouse wrote sooo many books, that one can sometimes forget that he has books outside the Jeeves & Wooster/ PSmith/Blandings canon. Money for Nothing is a stand alone romp, and Wodehouse fans won’t find any of their favourite characters here. (Although, let it be said, this is very much a world in which you might expect Bertie or Mike, any second.)
Money for Nothing is like a perfectly constructed watch mechanism, a perfectly plotted story of insurance fraud, confidence tricks and cough drop loving dogs, where every bit of foreshadowing pays off, and every Chekovian gun goes off. Like a croissant, it seems lighter than air, but it is constructed in layers with exquisite care. The plot moves faster and faster, farcical to the end, and then resolves into just the ending you it must. A hoot, top to bottom.
Money for Nothing is like a perfectly constructed watch mechanism, a perfectly plotted story of insurance fraud, confidence tricks and cough drop loving dogs, where every bit of foreshadowing pays off, and every Chekovian gun goes off. Like a croissant, it seems lighter than air, but it is constructed in layers with exquisite care. The plot moves faster and faster, farcical to the end, and then resolves into just the ending you it must. A hoot, top to bottom.
November 17, 2025
Published in 1928, this is pretty much the moment Wodehouse achieves, after a long apprenticeship, his status as Master. The main plot revolves around Soapy and Dolly Molloy and their partner/antagonist Chimp Twist, who we first met in Sam the Sudden, attempting the theft of valuable heirlooms from Rudge Hall, the home of tubby skinflint Lester Carmody. We also get the usual subplot involving sundered hearts, bashful young men unable to articulate their feelings for the adored object, and a couple of Drones Club types, one of whom, Ronnie Fish, will turn up at Blandings Castle in a later novel. Top-hole.
January 7, 2020
This was the most British thing ever. And I mean that in the best way possible. There are disgruntled landed gentry, con artists from Chicago who sound like they fell out some bad film noir, star-crossed lovers, wayward spendthrift nephews who stand to inherit, and merry mishaps, all of which you just know will resolve by the end of the book under happy and ridiculous circumstances. This is my first Wodehouse; I'd definitely be up for more of the same.
March 19, 2023
A rich but pragmatic country gentleman hires thieves to steal his family heirlooms so he can collect on the insurance money. A bumbling nephew interferes. A wiser-than-all dog comments. Pretty standard Wodehouse and of course pretty delightful.
September 30, 2023
It's always difficult to rate Wodehouse, because he exists within his own system. Even a so-so Wodehouse is superior to most other writing. While Money for Nothing isn't one of my favorites, it's still hilarious and was an absolute joy to read.
June 11, 2020
A pretty fun Wodehouse story, especially for one lacking in both Blandings and Jeeves.
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