This is by far the best book featuring Uncle Fred in the Wodehouse canon. The author cleverly combines all the characters best feature into a fantastic story which just gets better and better as it goes on. On balance, Uncle Fred himself is probably a shade more altruistic than he was in the previous two books. However, he’s far from sentimental, convincing a kind hearted butler he’s a secret service agent and duping him into locking his employer in the coal cellar!
Positives
The start of this book is one of the best beginnings to any story in the Wodehouse canon. Uncle Fred’s endeavour to successfully knock his brother-law’s top hat off, using a catapult and a brazil nut, perfectly sums up his sense of whimsy and mischief. Add to that the prose, which deliberately invokes the jargon of big game hunting (‘I think we’ll be able to bag some fine heads’) and you have a piece of near perfect writing. The other funniest moments of this book come from Wodehouse’s observations on the publishing industry. From his observation that all British authors long for their work to be denounced by a bishop to his cynical critique of publishers as a class, Wodehouse is on superb form throughout this story. Other than that, there are the characters to consider. Uncle Fred is on superb form; manipulative, irrepressible and kind hearted, he bestrides the narrative like a colossus. Whether he’s impersonating a member of British intelligence or a police inspector, potting top hats or joining sundered hearts, he is seldom if ever at a loss. Then there are the side characters. This book sees the return of Oily Carlisle and his psychopathic wife Gurty (armed with cosh), the fish eyed publisher Mr Howard Saxby (who is obsessed with knitting, bird watching, and is more than a little mad), the irascible Nanny Bruce (with her constant quotations from Ecclesiastes) and her suitor, the stout hearted police constable McMurdo. I particularly enjoy the first (and I think only failure) of the Ickenham system of love making which results in the poor constable being boxed on the ears by an enraged Nanny! All in all, this is a very funny, very well written book that had me in tears on more than one occasion.
Negatives
Very few, to be honest! There’s only a cameo appearance from Pongo Twistleton but his place as Uncle Fred’s straight man is more than adequately compensated by butler Albert Peasemarch. If anything, Peasemarch is in an even more in the soup as he’s instinctive deference to a social superior makes him putty in Uncle Fred’s hands. There is also very little young love in this book which is a surprise from a Wodehouse story. What there is is left entirely on the back burner with the reader never actually getting to meet the female love interest of one of the central characters. While some people might find this annoying, I was personally refreshed by this as most female love interests in Wodehouse’s work are essentially the same!
Conclusions
This is a fantastic book which I would heartily recommend. It is very funny, extremely well written and contains very little of the plot recycling which dogs some of Wodehouse’s other work.
- Goodreads rating – 4.15
- REVIEW – Jonathan