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Summer Lightning (Blandings Castle, #4)

P.G. Wodehouse

Start date: April 1, 2020

Finish date: April 30, 2020

Discussion: Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

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Lesser Know/Wilderness Classics

* 2025 Must Read Lesser Known Classics: Scheduled Reads
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Nov 21, 2015 Antonomasia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: british, 2015, humour, el, decade-1920s

Even more like A Midsummer Night's Dream fortified with extra McGuffins than all the other Wodehouses I've read so far. Would not be surprised if that was the intention here.

It seems my enjoyment of the Blandings stories is partly dependent on the characters of the [usually young] people staying at the house and causing havoc. Something Fresh remains my favourite of the novels so far because I liked Ashe and Joan so much - nor was anyone else notably objectionable. Ronald Overbury Fish, however, Even more like A Midsummer Night's Dream fortified with extra McGuffins than all the other Wodehouses I've read so far. Would not be surprised if that was the intention here.

It seems my enjoyment of the Blandings stories is partly dependent on the characters of the [usually young] people staying at the house and causing havoc. Something Fresh remains my favourite of the novels so far because I liked Ashe and Joan so much - nor was anyone else notably objectionable. Ronald Overbury Fish, however, is an utter arse. (Given his name, I was rather tempted to use the other word, making a bad-taste pun that one is really not supposed to - but it would be rather out of keeping with Wodehouse, never mind potentially attract irate commenters for no worthwhile reason. Besides, in the peculiar unspoken gradations of meaning attached to swearwords, I'm not sure it quite suits him.) But yes, Ronnie Fish has no notable redeeming qualities, is lazy, violent, dishonest, unattractive, and above all has a serious jealousy problem that meant I was sincerely hoping he did not get married in the end. (I thought this was probably irredeemable in 1929, when Freud hadn't so much as arrived in London yet, and a world in which young men usually possessed of a crust of calm detachment from all human emotion, built up by years of Eton and Cambridge would even consider therapy was many decades away.) His ex-girlfriend travels hundreds of miles to his house, uninvited, after being dumped, whilst pretending to be someone else - which is really not on either, but otherwise she basically is a likeable and civilised individual, if deluded in wanting to marry this awful man, whose relatives have the decency to warn her. His cousin Millicent is worryingly jealous too, but I found her likeable otherwise (it was her reading Schopenhauer whilst broken-hearted that sealed it) and at least she displays no inclination to fly off the handle and punch people.
I am relieved to see that Ronnie does not appear in many other books. In the second half he was mostly off-screen which made the rest more enjoyable, with a return of the feelings of warmth and cosiness and good humour that are the point of these books. Still, I was increasingly dismayed by the misunderstanding and mistrust heaped on poor Baxter. (I suspect, that rather like my tendency to feel sorry for Basil Fawlty and hope he would win occasionally, one isn't supposed to feel this way...) Regardless, I do have some strange affection for the rest of the regulars, in whom attributes that would surely be trying in person somehow become loveable eccentricities on the page, and the idyllic setting is undoubtedly a character in itself. I would love a Blandings autumn or winter though; Wodehouse clearly loved his endless summers, but having got through several in succession, as a fan of the colder, darkening months (perhaps such people did not exist in draughty castles of the pre-central heating era) I am starting to find these summers like my equivalent of the Narnian winter... ...more

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Mar 07, 2020 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it really liked it

Shelves: european, british, classics, funny, read-in-2020

Until last month I had never read any Wodehouse books but certainly knew about the Wooster and Jeeves characters. This month I was introduced to his Blandings Castle series through Summer Lightning, which is just as funny and madcap as the more famous books.

The book is full of inventive, well-timed and silly dialogue. The characters are not distinct or unique, but the expected nature of the events that befall them is a perfect formula for entertainment and laughter. We have engagements and break ...more

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Jan 13, 2024 Kara rated it it was amazing

This was my first Wodehouse read and it did not disappoint! A master of comedic writing, Wodehouse wields a tale that is witty, engaging and often hilarious, while never compromising the integrity of the literary tradition. What a treat and the perfect distraction to get me through a nasty winter storm!

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Feb 25, 2023 Kate rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: humor, england, read-in-2023

"A hilarious rhapsody of love and pigs down at Blandings Castle, stately home of Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth."
~~back cover

As far as I'm concerned, Wodehouse's Blandings Castle series is the funniest thing he ever wrote. His command of the English language, especially the British version of the English language is unsurpassed for sly wit and his plotting is over-the-top outrageous. I laughed until my sides hurt. ...more

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