Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to our March 2024 of the second in the Blandings series....



Summer Lightning (1929)

by

P.G. Wodehouse




All are welcome

Come one, come all

Please feel free to contribute at any time



The Honourable Galahad Threepwood has decided to write his memoirs, and England's aristocrats are all diving for cover, not least Galahad's formidable sister Lady Constance Keeble who fears that her brother will ruin the family reputation with saucy stories of the 1890s. But Galahad's memoirs are not the only cause for concern. Yet again Lord Emsworth's prize pig has been stolen and, as usual, the castle seems to be buzzing with imposters all pretending to be one another. Love and natural justice triumph in the end, but not before Wodehouse has tangled and untangled a plot of Shakespearean complexity in a novel which might as well be subtitled The Price of the Papers.

I would like to join you but I am very late to the party. I read Wodehouse eons ago but have forgotten everything except a vague impression of smileyness. I’ve just downloaded Something Fresh so might catch up by March.

Great news SueLucie - no pressure, all the discussions are always open to new comments

It's the 1st of the month and I'm bumping this thread just because I'm delighted to be heading back to Blandings - even that Penguin cover is making me smile 🐷

I have Summer Lightning on the go just now.

I have a library edition of the Blandings Life omnibus. The cover art is wonderful. I’ll be starting soon. I feel overcommitted but Wodehouse is such a treat.

Not sure when I'll get to this but it will during March


Can't wait - it's a pip and a dandy

Screeching handbrake turn


I'm going to read this next so I am reading at the same time as you lovely lovely people

I just started and i’m more lighthearted already. Who doesn’t love an Empress pig fed by an Earl? The suspense is building as everyone is worried about Galahad’s upcoming tell all…

Ah yes Gally’s explosive memoirs


And of course this all takes place after the Psmith book in which Baxter so memorably chuck’s flowerpots at Lord Emsworth.

Constance just can’t forget him though 😬

I’m listening this time round and sadly it’s not Jonathan Cecil narrating which is taking some getting used to, as John Wells is no JC and has his own somewhat idiosyncratic style

Ah well. First world problems and all that

Ooh, should I have read Leave it to Psmith before this one?

I think narrators are a serious problem. Recently I have struggled a bit and I will be listening to samples prior to committing if they are available.

Constance is grating in me and she just showed up. I laughed out loud when reading about the flower pots.
What a phrase Clarence going “pigward”. Ha ha!

SueLucie wrote:


"Ooh, should I have read Leave it to Psmith before this one?"

It really doesn't matter in the slightest SueLucie. They all work as stand alone and generally there's very little continuity. This one mentions those events in passing but not so they'd dimish your enjoyment of Leave It to Psmith, and you certainly don't need to have read that to enjoy this one


Susan_MG wrote:

"I think narrators are a serious problem. Recently I have struggled a bit and I will be listening to samples prior to committing if they are available."

I think in this instance I just need a slight period of adjustment. This is the first of many Wodehouses that I have listened to that is not narrated by Jonathan Cecil and he is just so good.

That’s good to know, thanks. My library has Psmith so I can slot it in at a later date.

Nigeyb wrote: "Ah yes Gally’s explosive memoirs


And of course this all takes place after the Psmith book in which Baxter so memorably chuck’s flowerpots at Lord Emsworth.

Constance just can’t forget him thoug..."

You might want to try this option https://archive.org/details/summer-li...

Thanks Sonia


I’m getting used to it now 🤠

All very agreeable so far with the usual subplots being laid out so comedic mishaps can delight us as the tale unfolds

I'm also pleased to note that I don't remember too much about this one either

Oh Beach 😱

Nigeyb wrote: "Oh Beach 😱"

Haha! I'm planning on starting this very evening.

Well, deliciously surprised at Beach's off-duty reading:

'reading a weekly paper devoted to the doings of Society and the Stage' - sounds like an early version of Heat magazine, my secret guilty pleasure, now shared with Beach! 😂

Yes indeed, Beach loves a bit of gossip

I've just enjoyed the scene at Mario's


So fabulously described, I was grinning throughout

This is, of course, a complete delight

It certainly is, especially with the wind and rain blowing against the windows today.

Oh, Hugh Carmody instead of the Efficient Baxter. His comment on Gally: 'That old bird must have been pretty hot stuff, I imagine, back in the days of Edward the Confessor.' 😂

I'm really warming to Hugh Carmody. A splendid character


Sue Brown is fab too

Indeed, anyone who makes their entrance masquerading as a bush to Beach gets my instant appreciation!

Snow here now! Thank goodness I have a good book to keep me indoors.

Poor Pilbeam, I fear some mishaps await him.

He still thought Pilbeam should not have been wearing pimples with a red tie. One or the other if he liked. But not both.

I don't even understand how PGW makes everything he writes so hilarious:

"Gally," he said. "What would you say that the procedure was when a fellow wants to buy tea? How would a fellow set about it"
"Tea?" I said. "What do you want tea for?"
"To drink," said Buffy.
"Pull yourself together, dear boy," I said. "You're talking wildly. You can't drink tea. Have a brandy and soda."

SueLucie wrote: "Snow here now! Thank goodness I have a good book to keep me indoors."

Urgh! You're right, stay in and enjoy the perpetual sunshine of Blandings 🌞

Such a scene! Mario’s has experienced a “sensation.” Haha, that’s one word to describe every waiter (A to H?), a manager and the police called to action. The best part is the misdirection of the phone call and the unfortunate arrival of …

I like that the author has included a caravan in this story. The artwork on my book cover looks like my first small vintage camper that I took to music festivals for years.

I agree with every word


Sublime stuff

I’m reeling from the revelation that you attended festivals on a regular basis in a van 🤠

Oh yes! My step up from tent camping in Yosemite for weekend biannual major music festivals was a vintage pull trailer. We spent 15 years attending concerts with most of the major musicians and bands of that time mid 90’s to 2005. (accoustic, blue grass, some country, Allison Krause, Laurie Lewis, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, So so many.) those are wonderful memories

Sounds wonderful


I’m embarking on Chapter 7.

Sue has a plan to make things right ❤️‍🔥

Need I say I've never been camping in my life?!

But Baxter in a yellow caravan is a sight I never expected.

Sue is another of PGW's cute girls, but so far she hasn't outdone Joan Valentine in my affections 😏

The caravan was quite unexpected for me too. At Blanding Castle? Not a lot is said about it except it was part of a ruse.

Just started this for some light relief.

Stephen wrote: "Just started this for some light relief."

I honestly think there's nothing funnier and more uplifting than a decent PGW - and this one has me giggling like a silly thing right from the start!

Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments - genius

This is going from good to wonderful

Gally's description of Mint Juleps!

RC wrote : I honestly think there's nothing funnier and more uplifting than a decent PGW - and this one has me giggling like a silly thing right from the start!

I enjoy the humour.

And I thought a talking bush was reserved for the Old Testament and the call of Moses. Ha!

Often the humor comes from a word Wodehouse uses in the sentence. I think having a drink/chat with PGW might have been a lot of fun.

We've also got a great blend of characters here and most are very well defined. In that regard it's a clear step up from Something Fresh (1915), the first in the Blandings Castle series, which we read last month.

Mario's! 😂

I agree, this has all the loveliness of Something Fresh but raises the game - there's barely a sentence that doesn't have me smirking and spluttering. PGW has set himself the challenge of the most convoluted plot yet.

Susan_MG wrote: "Often the humor comes from a word Wodehouse uses in the sentence. I think having a drink/chat with PGW might have been a lot of fun."

Yes, his vocabulary and word placement is sublime, including the unexpected epithet - someone rightly mentioned 'pigward' above.

But he really is a genius in all kinds of comedy, not just the verbal: there's the physical and slapstick such as Baxter's flowerpots and people falling out of windows. The absurd, like the false teeth wrapped up in the cigar case, and the farcical.

There's also the knowing use of foreknowledge: we hear people making plans that we know will go hilariously wrong so we're just waiting to see them unravel.

Anyone else slightly disappointed that we don't see the actual abduction of the Empress?

The abduction scene is ripe with comedic possibilities so it is a shame that we don't get to see what PGW could have done with it but, as you so compellingly point out, there is so much to savour here, so let's not greedy

I am also enjoying the dark past of the magnficently monikered Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe (aka "Young Parsloe" as Gally calls him) and nemesis of Lord Emsworth.

The prawn incident, wearing a soup-tureen on his head and holding a stick of celery whilst claiming he was a sentry outside Buckingham Palace, trying to raise the price of a bottle of champagne by raffling his trousers at the bar etc. Who'd have thought it eh?

Nigeyb wrote: "The prawn incident, wearing a soup-tureen on his head and holding a stick of celery whilst claiming he was a sentry outside Buckingham Palace, trying to raise the price of a bottle of champagne by raffling his trousers at the bar"

I've just reached this exact scene! 👖 💷 😂

Nigeyb wrote: "Gally's description of Mint Juleps!"

And this one! 🍹

“In my young days a girl of your age would have been upstairs making an apple-pie bed for somebody instead of lolling on chairs reading books about Theosophy.”

As a product of boarding school in the 60s/70s I am an expert at making apple-pie beds. Would anyone else recognise one?