Scan barcode
A review by ericwelch
Uncle Dynamite by P.G. Wodehouse
5.0
This title, delightfully read by Jonathan Cecil, will have you in stitches. There are few writers alive today who can match Wodehouse in his artful use of the language. Every line has some delightful pun or play on words, at least to my mental retina. Describing one of the Wodehouse plots is always dangerous, but here goes.
Bill Oakshot, returning from a sojourn in Brazil, meets Lord Ickenham (Uncle Freddy) on the train home, where he hopes to announce his love for Hermione. Unfortunately, Lord Ickenham inadvertently reveals that Hermione is engaged to Pongo (Reginald Twistleton), an old friend. Distraught, Bill fails to disembark at his destination, where he is embarrassed to see that Hermione’s father, Lord Bostock, has a substantial welcoming committee (mostly local boy scouts) to provide a formal welcome home. Pongo, in the meantime, trying to ingratiate himself with Lord Bostock, manages to break one of the lord’s African curios. He seeks Uncle Freddy’s assistance and they conspire -- Freddy is delighted, always looking for an excuse to run to London for some nefarious activities while his wife is away in the West Indies. “Jamaica?” asks Pongo. “No, she went of her own accord,” is Freddy’s reply. Anyway, in London they borrow a bust to replace the broken one -- Lord Bostock being nearsighted anyway -- from Sally, an American acquaintance who is miffed at Pongo because he refused to help her smuggle diamonds into the United States for her friend Alice. Of course, they pick the wrong bust, the one having the diamonds secreted in the plaster head, and now must retrieve it from Lord Elmer’s. In the meantime, Harold Potter, the local constable, has the hots for Lord Bostock’s maid, Emily Bean. He catches Sally and the others trying to sneak into Lord Bostock’s house, where they have actually been invited under an assumed name. It all has to do with the “bonnie baby” contest -- you have to be there. In any case, Potter thinks the two men are impostors because he recognizes them from his scrapbook of arrests when he was in London and arrested them at the dog track, where they had the presence of mind to avoid embarrassing repercussions by identifying themselves under aliases. He also says he must know Major Plank (the new name Uncle Freddy has assumed) because he went to school with him, but thinking quickly - - Freddy is enjoying all this immensely -- Freddy reveals the constable must be thinking of Berstrom Plank the major; he is Berstrom Plank the miner. It can be very confusing — all these major and miners. Bill, in the meantime, is mad at Pongo because he saw Pongo kissing Emily late in the evening, and as the unrequited lover of Hermione wants to make sure Pongo remains honorable. It’s all a mistake, of course, because Pongo is really beginning to fall in love with Sally, especially after it’s revealed that Hermione likes to arise at six in the morning (during the summer) and no later than seven in the winter. Good heavens!
Bill Oakshot, returning from a sojourn in Brazil, meets Lord Ickenham (Uncle Freddy) on the train home, where he hopes to announce his love for Hermione. Unfortunately, Lord Ickenham inadvertently reveals that Hermione is engaged to Pongo (Reginald Twistleton), an old friend. Distraught, Bill fails to disembark at his destination, where he is embarrassed to see that Hermione’s father, Lord Bostock, has a substantial welcoming committee (mostly local boy scouts) to provide a formal welcome home. Pongo, in the meantime, trying to ingratiate himself with Lord Bostock, manages to break one of the lord’s African curios. He seeks Uncle Freddy’s assistance and they conspire -- Freddy is delighted, always looking for an excuse to run to London for some nefarious activities while his wife is away in the West Indies. “Jamaica?” asks Pongo. “No, she went of her own accord,” is Freddy’s reply. Anyway, in London they borrow a bust to replace the broken one -- Lord Bostock being nearsighted anyway -- from Sally, an American acquaintance who is miffed at Pongo because he refused to help her smuggle diamonds into the United States for her friend Alice. Of course, they pick the wrong bust, the one having the diamonds secreted in the plaster head, and now must retrieve it from Lord Elmer’s. In the meantime, Harold Potter, the local constable, has the hots for Lord Bostock’s maid, Emily Bean. He catches Sally and the others trying to sneak into Lord Bostock’s house, where they have actually been invited under an assumed name. It all has to do with the “bonnie baby” contest -- you have to be there. In any case, Potter thinks the two men are impostors because he recognizes them from his scrapbook of arrests when he was in London and arrested them at the dog track, where they had the presence of mind to avoid embarrassing repercussions by identifying themselves under aliases. He also says he must know Major Plank (the new name Uncle Freddy has assumed) because he went to school with him, but thinking quickly - - Freddy is enjoying all this immensely -- Freddy reveals the constable must be thinking of Berstrom Plank the major; he is Berstrom Plank the miner. It can be very confusing — all these major and miners. Bill, in the meantime, is mad at Pongo because he saw Pongo kissing Emily late in the evening, and as the unrequited lover of Hermione wants to make sure Pongo remains honorable. It’s all a mistake, of course, because Pongo is really beginning to fall in love with Sally, especially after it’s revealed that Hermione likes to arise at six in the morning (during the summer) and no later than seven in the winter. Good heavens!