Wodehouse-ian Revels

Uncle Fred in the Springtime by P.G. Wodehouse
(AudioGO, 2012)
Format: audio download via Audiobook Jukebox (narrated by Jonathan Cecil) - 7.5 hours 

From Goodreads: "Pongo Twistleton is in a state of financial embarrassment and it's not for the first time. Uncle Fred, meanwhile, has been asked by Lord Emsworth of Blandings to foil a plot to relieve him of the Empress, his much-adored prize pig."

As far as I can tell, there is no good reason not to include a Wodehouse or three in everyone's annual reading list. (Don't look at those links up there with my books from last year. I didn't read any in 2012. My bad. I did spend a good few months in middle school checking out every Wodehouse in the public library I passed on the way home, then calling my grandmother from the lobby pay phone to ask for a ride since I had too many check-outs to walk the mile home in my preferred manner: reading as I went.) 

So, I went into this expecting the usual froth of joy and sharp observation masked by understatement. And you know what? I got it in spades. Poor Pongo is putty in Wodehouse's hands - not one thing is resolved before a newer, worse obstacle appears to cause him more agony. And Uncle Fred is at his best here, managing to manipulate everyone while having as much fun as possible and staying (mostly) out of trouble. There are aristocrats and impostors and scary aunts and fancy-dress parties and more romantic entanglements than you can shake a stick at. Plus, a prize-winning pig starring in the role of bone of contention. 

Cecil narrates with just the right touch of coolness that Wodehouse seems to demand, treating Pongo's worries with slight disdain and Fred's antics with straightforward acceptance. His voices are quite well done, and the whole narration races by. 

Right Ho, AudioGo!

Another review on a title courtesy of Audiobook Jukebox.
Publisher: AudioGo, Pub. Date: September 13, 2011, Length: 4 hours, 48 minutes

I went through a gorgeously long P.G. Wodehouse phase in middle school - checked out every title in my local library. (Same branch I visit constantly now. Have I mentioned that I love my librarians? They are the nicest.) Periodically over the past couple of years, I've listened to some of the BBC full cast audio versions of Bertie and Jeeves tales, but haven't run across any of the titles as narrated by Ian Carmichael, until Jeeves in the Offing. (I've had the pleasure of Carmichael's narration on several Dorothy L Sayers novels, and he just screams Lord Peter to me - his voice is always in my head when I read Sayers in print.)

Carmichael is just as deft with Bertie Wooster - joyful, energetic, a tad daft, full of plummy rolling 'Rrrr's and glib onomatopoeia fun. Jeeves, Kipper Herring, Aunt Dahlia, Bobbie Wickham, and all the tertiary characters are equally well-rendered. It's all such a perfect complement to a classic Wodehousian farce - fake engagements, familial obligations, butlers who aren't butlers, a dachshund, and the infamous silver cow creamer all interact at cross-purposes. Unless the purpose is to get Bertie into deeper and deeper water, all while Jeeves is away on vacation. In that case, all the stars align perfectly.

Bertie finds he is unable to resist Aunt Dahlia's command that he keep her goddaughter from an unwise match. Although this involves falling off chairs, encountering his reviled old headmaster, falling in lakes, and encountering his erstwhile girlfriend, he gamely applies all the Wooster intellect to the proposition. If you're at all familiar with the Wooster intellect, you'll be happy to know that he eventually interrupts poor Jeeves's shrimping trip so that greater minds can prevail and save the day. It's an unchanging tale, but Wodehouse constantly managed to retell it with sharp dialogue and an unflagging commitment to the absurd, which makes those long Jeeves and Wooster phases so gorgeous whenever they come along.