Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #310690 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-12
• Binding: Hardcover
• 259 pages

Customer Reviews

"Spats" Falls Flat...
While I love Wodehouse—he is indisputably one of the masters of modern literature—this particular collection of stories (which originally appeared in Strand and Cosmopolitan in the early '30s) is rather weak. The main problem is that they are all of a piece, virtually every one revolves around a silly young man (generally one of the Drones Club cohort) and his affections for a beautiful girl. Invariably, the man falls for the woman and then due to various simple comic misfortunes, loses her. One or two is fine, but a whole book of the plot over and over gets rather tedious. What makes Wodehouse's longer stories work to much better effect are the existence of multiple storylines which elegantly dovetail a the end, along with smart, clever, or willful other characters to provide contrast and balance (for example, Jeeves, Uncle Fred, various Aunts). It should come as no surprise that the standout story here is the lone Uncle Fred entry. In short, this collection lacks the wit, pleasantly convoluted schemes, and even high level of prose, that one expects when picking up one of Plum's works.

Young Man at the Height of his Powers
The titular `Young Men in Spats' of this collection of Wodehouse short stories are the Eggs, Beans and Crumpets of the Drones Club, a private members club which boast Bertie Wooster, Bingo Little and Freddie Threepwood amongst it's more well known clientele. Of the eleven stories assembled eight are narrated by the Eggs, Beans and Crumpets themselves and three by Mr Mulliner, a Wodehouse sage of some renown.

Of the stories told by Egg to Bean, four of them concern one Freddie Widgeon and his various attempts to maintain the affection of his latest beau. In the first story `Fate' Freddie is happily engaged to Mavis Peasemarch (whom eventually makes a habit of becoming engaged to Freddie) but fate comes between them in the form of Freddie's chivalry and a collection of Bowler hated detectives.

Pongo Twistleton is also featured in three of the stories and more importantly we are granted our first meeting with his Uncle Fred whom is one of Wodehouse's greatest creations and my own personal favourite. `Uncle Fred Flits By' to `leave this foul hole a better and happier foul hole than I found'. As a crumpet would put it `I don't know if you happen to know what the word `excesses' means, but these are what Pongo's Uncle Fred from the country, when in London, invariably commits'.

Mr Mulliner joins the party initially to tell us of Archibald Mulliner also a member of the Drones, whose party piece was the imitation of a hen laying an egg, but somewhat inevitably he goes off topic telling us of the pyrotechnics of poet Mordred Mulliner.

Another wonderful collection; worth the price of admission alone to receive Uncle Fred into the best of all possible worlds. `Top Hole' as one of our more seasoned Eggs would no doubt put it.

Superb readings of brilliant stories
Jonathan Cecil's renditions of the works of P. G. Wodehouse are comic masterpieces. The audiobook medium is sadly underrated, but no collection of classic British comedy is complete without these timeless readings. 'Young Men in Spats' contains eleven short stories and are, as always with Cecil, superbly read. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect combination of reader and material. It was delightful to discover this latest addition, and I sincerely hope that we can look forward to many nore in the future.