A Pelican At Blandings - P.G. Wodehouse

Things are stirring up at Blandings castle again, disrupting the peace in the life of Clarance Threepwood, or Lord Emsworth.
The first ominous signs are when his formidable sister Constance, shows up. As if that wasn’t enough, she has invited a Duke Dunstable, a loud and rude mustached walrus who loves throwing his weight around. And to add to that company, Dunstable brings his niece, Linda Gilpin, along. He also invites Wilbur Trout, a habitually marriage-and-divorce addict who is pining for his last wife. Of course Duke’s intentions are not to give Trout the necessary distance and healing touch of a new place and new air, but to make money out of his misery. He plans to sell a painting of a woman, referred to as the reclining nude, which reminds Trout of his last wife and something that he’d pay anything for to possess. And in the spirit of treating Blandings Castle as his own home he invites a John Halliday around who is supposed to observe Lord Emsworth and suggest psychiatric treatment to cure the whims of nightly prowls in pig sties that Lord Emsworth was so prone to. Lastly there is a Vanessa Polk, daughter of the American millionaire J.B. Polk who Connie invites along hoping she could marry old Duke of Dunstable. That’s quite a few characters. Oh wait, there is one more, a friend of Clarence’s son, Freddie Threepwood, This is not mentioning some other peripheral characters, who while not important will still make you laugh, doing their good deed for the day.
Ok, so let’s take an imposter count.
Freddie’s friend, is not really is friend but an American crook come to make merry in foreign lands. Vanessa Polk is not J.B. Polk’s daughter but his secretary and has the same last name by mere coincidence. John Halliday is not a psychiatrist but a barrister and a sleeping partner at an art gallery from where the Duke has bought the reclining nude to sell to Trout.
And now let’s list down the tangles.
John Halliday is actually the heart broken lover of Linda Gilpin, Duke’s niece, who has turned him down because of professional reasons. And when they do make up, they realize that Linda is a court of ward of the Duke, effectively giving the Duke the veto power to decide who she married. Vanessa Polk is an ex-flame of Wilbur Trout, and is being wooed by the Duke. And she plans on stealing the reclining nude from the Duke for Trout while their romance rises from the dead and sways its merry head. The crook who is enjoying the English weather is in danger because John Halliday knows his identity and could bust him. And John Halliday’s art gallery has accidentally sold the fake painting of the reclining nude putting the reputation of the art gallery in a grave danger. So he is after the painting as well, wanting to replace the fake with the original.
That is all too much to handle for Clarence alone ofcourse. So he calls in for reinforcements, or back up if you prefer US Police lingo. Enter Galahad. And sit back and enjoy as he weaves his magic to lead to the eventual happy ending.

Galahad at Blandings - P.G. Wodehouse

I had heard so much about Galahad Threepwood and Lord Emsworth! Finally I got around to reading about their exploits at the famed Blandings Castle.

Blandings somehow reminded me of the Udaipur palace, except that Udaipur palace is actually only a tourist spot. Blandings is a castle-cum-home to the wealthy royalty who don’t really work for a living. Anyways, I digress. Galahad and Lord Emsworth are quite the brother-in-arms, the smarter one looking out for the loonier one. And at the scenic, apparently blissful locale of the Blandings a scheme is on the way to rob Lord Emsworth of his happiness. And between the baleful sister and the successful execution of her fiendish plans lies the gallant Galhad; the protector of hapless brothers!

Ofcourse the plot is not as simple as that. To start with, there is the wealthy American Tipton Plimsoll who wants to marry Galahad’s niece, the naïve (read dumb) but good looking girl of yore who is easily molded the way her mother wants. And that can have scary implications when the mother happens to be Hermione, the vilest of Galahad’s and Lord Emsworth’s sisters. The sister, while being fickle like a confused rabbit about the worthiness of young Tipton, goes about meddling in Lord Emsworth’s life. What with hiring him a nagging secretary, she plans to get her brother married off to some other equally atrocious woman. And the secretary, Sandy, once in budding love with Sam Bagshott who turned out to the son of an old friend of Gally in this small world was hardly in the pink of the spirit since her break up with Sam. Oh, and I totally forgot about Willfred Allsop, nephew of Aunt Hermione, is in love with the caretaker of the award winning pig at the Blandings Castle (I didn’t know pigs could win awards for fatness. Wodehouse even manages to teach culture through his books!) And there are as many misunderstandings as there are love stories. And Galahad, as he comes to the aid of his brother in need is also a soul who can not stand a heart pained by the loss of its love. So he makes a personal agenda of seeing through all the couples to their happy endings. Cupid personified for you!

The character of Lord Emsworth and the villainy of his sister provide a very good platform for a lot of chuckles. The story begins at a drunken revelry in America and ends in Blandings Castle just outside of London. Totally disassociated things like romantic tangles, the hand of the law and the obese pig all come together in this delightfully funny novel in which a multi-layered plot eventually unravels to the happy ending.