{"id":18334,"date":"2023-06-13T20:39:37","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T00:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18334"},"modified":"2023-06-13T20:39:37","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T00:39:37","slug":"heavy-weather-by-p-g-wodehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=18334","title":{"rendered":"‘Heavy Weather,’ by P. G. Wodehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sunshine pierced the haze that enveloped London. It came down Fleet Street, turned to the right, stopped at the premises of the Mammoth Publishing Company, and, entering through an upper window, beamed pleasantly upon Lord Tilbury, founder and proprietor of that vast factory of popular literature\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering what a pleasant rarity sunshine in London is, one might have expected the man behind the Mammoth to beam back. Instead, he merely pressed the buzzer. His secretary appeared. He pointed silently. The secretary drew the shade, and the sunshine, having called without an appointment, was excluded.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As you may recall,<\/strong> I\u2019ve been following the adventures of P. G. Wodehouse\u2019s character Monty Bodkin through the two novels in which he stars. I was then reminded that he actually shows up for the first time (as far as I\u2019m aware) in the novel Heavy Weather<\/a><\/em>, so I went back to that one. And it turns out HW<\/em> is in fact a sequel to an earlier novel, Summer Lightning<\/em>. So now I\u2019ll have to read that one too (regretfully leaving Monty behind), caught like T.H. White\u2019s Merlin in a reverse chronology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is one of Wodehouse\u2019s more complex tales, so find a comfortable chair and pour yourself a cup of tea if you like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monty Bodkin, you\u2019ll recall, tall, handsome, and rich, is in love with Gertrude Butterwick (who does not appear physically in this book; her character is still gestating). But she won\u2019t agree to be married until she gets her father\u2019s blessing. And her father has decreed that Monty won\u2019t be given Gertrude\u2019s hand unless he shows the enterprise to hold down a paying job for a full year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s wangled a position at Lord Tilbury\u2019s Mammoth Publishing, as assistant editor of Tiny Tots<\/em> Magazine. In that capacity he commits the kind of blunder only a member of the Drones Club could make, and gets cashiered. However, he learns from a friend that Clarence (Threepwood), Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle in Shropshire, needs a secretary. Monty is an old family friend, so he calls Lord Emsworth\u2019s imperious sister Constance, who is happy to hire him on her brother\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the other main plot picks up from the previous novel \u2013 Ronnie Fish, Lord Emsworth\u2019s nephew, wants to marry Sue Brown, a charming chorus girl. Lady Constance firmly opposed the match, but agreed to it in return for a concession from her other brother, Galahad Threepwood. Gally, who was a notorious rake and London clubman in the 1890s, has written his memoirs, which contain enough old skeletons belonging to eminent English families to wreck numerous political careers and destroy the Threepwood family socially. Gally has agreed to withdraw publication of the memoirs (which were contracted to Lord Tilbury\u2019s Mammoth Publishing) in return for Constance agreeing to the match and allowing her wooly-headed brother Clarence to release Ronnie\u2019s trust fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clarence, however, is barely aware of all this drama. His concern is with his suspicions that their neighbor, a fellow-pig fancier, is planning to poison the Empress of Blandings, his own beloved prize sow. When Lord Tilbury, who is not a man to let a certain bestseller slip through his fingers, arrives at Blandings Castle to pressure Uncle Galahad, and Lord Emsworth mistakes him for a pig poisoner, complications ensue. Which are not decreased by the arrival of Ronnie Fish\u2019s mother Julia, who doesn\u2019t care a fig about Gally\u2019s scandals, but definitely does not want her son marrying some chorus girl. And, oh yes, Lord Emsworth thinks Monty Bodkin is a pig poisoner too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Heavy Weather<\/em> offers that sets it apart from most of Wodehouse\u2019s peak work is a small strain of pathos. Pathos doesn\u2019t happen much in this fictional world; the reader doesn\u2019t want it. Tragedy might be mentioned in passing, but it\u2019s not dwelt on. However, here for once we do have a tragic subplot. There\u2019s a reason Uncle Galahad is so strongly in favor of Ronnie\u2019s and Sue\u2019s wedding. Once, in his youth, he was in love with Sue Brown\u2019s mother, but the family quelched their hopes and packed Gally off to South Africa. In Heavy Weather<\/em> we get a rare glimpse into the regrets of an old man\u2019s heart. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s overdone \u2013 I identified strongly and was moved. But I don\u2019t recall a similar theme in any of Wodehouse\u2019s other mature stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an extra treat, I embed below a dramatic production of Heavy Weather <\/em>done for the BBC in 1995. It features no less than the great Peter O\u2019Toole as Lord Emsworth. I wasn\u2019t entirely happy with it \u2013 I thought O\u2019Toole (doing what seems like an imitation of Dame Edith Evans) insufficiently sympathetic here. And Richard Johnson, who was a fine actor, overdid the mugging, I thought, in the role of Lord Tilbury. In my opinion it\u2019s almost always wrong to mug with Wodehouse \u2013 his humor depends on more subtle effects. (Though, come to think of it, Hugh Laurie mugged quite a lot as Bertie Wooster and I didn\u2019t mind that.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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