Product Description

Uncle Fred is one of the hottest earls that ever donned a coronet. Or as he crisply said, 'There are no limits, literally none, to what I can achieve in the springtime.' Even so, his gifts are stretched to the limit when he is urged by Lord Emsworth to save his prize pig, the Empress of Blandings, from the enforced slimming cure of the haughty Duke of Dunstable. Pongo Twistleton knows his debonair but wild uncle shouldn't really be allowed at large - especially when disguised as a brain surgeon. He fears the worst. And his fears are amply justified.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35243 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Back Cover
A Blandings novel

Uncle Fred is one of the hottest earls that ever donned a coronet. Or as he crisply said, ‘there are no limits, literally none, to what I can achieve in the springtime.’

Even so, his gifts are stretched to the limit when he is urged by Lord Emsworth to save his prize pig, the Empress of Blandings, from the enforced slimming cure of the haughty Duke of Dunstable. Pongo Twistleton knows his debonair but wild uncle shouldn’t really be allowed at large – especially when disguised as a brain surgeon. He fears the worst. And his fears are amply justified.

About the Author
The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P.G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies, and at one stage had five shows running simultaneously on Broadway. At the age of 93, in the New Year's Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue Knighthood, only to die on St Valentine's Day some 45 days later.

Customer Reviews

P G Tips
There are certain books and certain authors one is coy about naming in the realms of favourites - Mr Wodehouse is one.

Ever since teenageness I've been drawn to the chaos of the phantom upper-class world he scratched out - less enamoured, I have to say, of the American excursions. What attracts is difficult to say - maybe the downright silliness of them.

Wodehouse was a writer of copious amounts - included lyrics for musical comedies (some 30 all told - around 250 songs). And therein lies the first clue to enjoying a Wodehouse - a good one will be like spending a couple of hours in the theatre - a `musical comedy' approach is necessary, a `between-the-wars', musical comedy approach in fact.

Love and ridiculous complications, mad uncles and tart aunts, rich old fogies and poverty stricken young things ... warm balmy, never to be repeated summer days, and policemen (who appear solely for the purpose of knocking their helmets off in order to be captured and dragged along to the local magistrate - who will turn out to be the offenders, as-yet-un-met father of newly affianced fiancé).

Uncle Fred in the Springtime has most of these elements or a variation thereof - and the Blanding's Pig.

The story is not really essential - in this case it revolves around one Uncle, Fred, trying to get another Uncle, the Loony Duke of Dunstable, to behave in a reasonable manner and cough up lots of money to support his poetry writing nephew in the enterprise of an onion soup stall in Picadilly, which will facilitate the said poet's marriage - to the dance teaching daughter of a private detective. There is also the sub plot of preventing the removal of Lord Emsworth's pig by the poker wielding Duke, who is convinced Emsworth wishes to enter the pig in the Derby, and the supplying of even more money to Fred's nephew who is in danger of several broken limbs and a long stay in a hospital bed on account of debts unpaid.

Confused? - you are allowed to be. And yet there is a clarity in the confusion - you never get confused enough to lose track, (either that, or you are laughing too much to care) and something new pops up so quickly you do not notice any confusion in yourself whilst noticing it in the story.

And that's my next tip - take a chair into the garden, a bowl of strawberries (peppered) and an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne and one flute. Position yourself - and read. Don't `do' a Wodehouse in too many sessions - it's a two act-er rather than five. Just let the whole silly story flow over you and worryeth not about following every detail. Being tipsy helps.

Most Wodehouses have a central character around whom things fly (revolve is far too sedate a word). Here it is Uncle Fred - not surprising really, given the title.

He's a lovely old buffer - Shakespeare quoting, so an instant success with me - although not so with his nephew and niece, nor his fortunately absent wife. He has an aging Puck-like quality of solving problems in a way which causes maximum difficulties for all around, including `Uncle Fred'. Rarely does he doubt himself - everything will resolve satisfactorily, by magic it seems.

Fred is very `hands-on' - preferably his nephews or other gullible young tyke, or co-operative young tyke-ess (who knows a good plan when she sees it). Nice young things fall for him instantly - sour prunes not so (one is left with the suspicion his absent wife is more the former than latter - but plays a good part in appearing shrivelled).

Fred's biggest challenge is his contemporaries - who seem to have grown crabbed with age. Principle is Emsworth's wife - who is the sort of woman who'd take a hairbrush to the backside of some poor nephew at the drop of a cricket ball (through the greenhouse window). Her biggest weapon is knowledge - of Fred's wife - and access to a jungle telegraph more effective than e-mail. A minor danger, swiftly dealt with, is his neice - who is apprentice sour prune.

In a similar class to the niece, is the secretary - male. I suspect Wodehouse had problems with one of these early in life and consequently took a hatchet to the species whenever the opportunity arouse. Dishonest, devious, cowardly, ganging up with the united forces of vinegar-women and Loony-Dukedom. Fortunately he gets truly egged.

And there is the-passion-for-taking-money-off-other-people-with-a-card-game, Private Detective - who just happens to be the father of a wanna-be poet's bride.

How could a story fail with such a classic bunch of caricatures? Quite easily - but not on Wodehouse's typewriter. Lesser writers would find it very difficult to assemble an entertaining castle on such foundations.

Wodehouse's cement is a wit with language - and spare, effective, cutting dialogue (no doubt sharpened in the fifteen plays he joint wrote). It is not surprising adaptations of his novels and stories make such good television.

Uncle Fred Flits by Blandings
If not the best then, at worst, `Uncle Fred in the Springtime' is one of the best Wodehouse novels. It is a sort of a `Best of Wodehouse' with Pongo Twistleton and his Uncle Fred, whom we met previously in `Young Men in Spats', flitting by Blandings Castle under an assumed name, as is traditional to first time visitors. The name in question belongs to Roderick Glossop, renowned psychiatrist, whom has had to pronounce Bertie Wooster certifiable on more than one occasion.

Also present at Blandings are Valerie Twistleton whom has become estranged from her fiancée, Horace Pendlebury-Davenport, whose Uncle, the Duke of Dunstable is determined to remove Lord Emsworth's beloved pig with the help of the efficient Baxter, Emsworth's discharged secretary. Polly Pott is also posing as a secretary to secure the funds she requires to marry her estranged fiancée, Ricky Gilpin, a further nephew of Dunstable.

Uncle Fred believes that it is his mission to spread sweetness and light throughout the world but to unite Valerie and Horace, Polly and Ricky whist separating Dunstable and the Empress and Baxter and Emsworth without driving Pongo to desertion will take all of his and Wodehouse's guile. The sweetness and light is infectious not just through Blandings Castle but is easily caught by the reader. The symptoms are so great only a fool would seek a cure.

What joy!
This is one of the best audio books that I have ever enjoyed. I must have listened to mine at least 300 times. Well, there's a reason why Martin Jarvis reads absolutely everything and it's because he's absolutely fabulous at it.

Nearly every evening I drift back to Blandings, where Pongo Twistleton goggles at the amazing powers of Uncle Fred who confounds mistaken fiances and fierce sisters as if they were mere gnats on a hot summery day. And not forgetting that magnificent pig, the Empress of Blandings, who also plays a major role......

The first time I listened to this tape I was slightly disappointed because I did not know the characters as well as in the Jeeves and Wooster tales. But now I can happily say that this is one of Wodehouse's best, and highly recommended.