"BLANDINGS CASTLE"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22166, 20 July 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

"BLANDINGS CASTLE"

ANOTHER WODEHOUSE NOVEL Thoro are so few writers who possess genuine ability to entertain their readers, and still fewer who can keep on producing humorous stories without some depreciation in quality, that a hook from one of the more fortunate, like Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, is always sure to create interest among a large section of the reading public. The humorous tenor of his stories is on the whole fairly consistently maintained, and in spite of occasional lapses into the ridiculous, they achieve their purpose. In his latest book, " Blandings Castle," Mr. Wodehouse reintroduces that eminently respectable English family of which Lord Emsworth is the head. There is more nonsense, with his lordship's younger son, the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, featuring largely as a purveyor of dog biscuits, and always in tlio background hovers the ominous shadow of Lad.v Constance Keeble, Lord Emsworth's domineering sister. That " pig of pigs and paragon of pig breeders," tlio Empress of Blandings is again the source of much anxiety to his lordship, and there are also some amusing interludes between the latter and McAllister, the dour Scotch head-gardener. Delightfully humorous and perhaps tho host chapter in this first section of (ho book, is (hat entitled " Lord Emsworth and the Girl Friend." Here, the absent-minded old earl makes friends with a, London slum child and is unexpectedly fired into a man of iron, before whom even the redoubtable Lady Constance quails. The second half of the book is divided into two sections, the first of which, a Bobbie Wickham story, is somewhat disappointing after the brilliant opening chapters. A collection of dissertations by the celebrated Mr. Mulliner of The Angler's Rest on his relatives in Hollywood completes the book. In these stories Mr. Wodehouse pokes fun at the American film colony with its hosts of directors, technicians, and scenario writers, but this portion is far less satisfying than that dealing with the inmates of Blandings Castle. With them Mr. Wodehouse. is at his best. ■' Blandings Castle," by P. G. Wodehouse. (Herbert Jenkiriß.)