review written by Ro bennett
It's high summer when Molly Pargeter drags her amiably bickering family to a rented Tuscan villa for the holidays.
This is the advertisement which drew her to La Felicita: "Villa to let near small Tuscan town. Suit couple, early forties, with three children. The villa will appeal in particular to devotees of Italian painting...enthusiasts can take the trail to Sansepolcro and on, across the Mountains of the Moon, to see the sublime 'Flagellation' in the Ducal Palace at Urbino. Those making this journey should ensure that the stopcock is closed and all electrical appliances are switched off before departure. The pleasures of art tend to be diminished by returning to a complete absence of hot bath water."
Molly is sure that the house is the perfect setting for their three-week getaway, but soon she becomes fascinated by the lives of the absent owners - and things start to go horribly wrong …
Furthermore, Molly is saddled with her randy old tease of a father called Haverford Downs, who is absolutely outrageous, manipulating and embarrassing. He writes a controversial column in a New Statesman type of magazine. Meanwhile, after finding a flirtatious post card written to a client who is a divorcee, Molly suspects her dull lawyer husband of having an affair, so the atmosphere is somewhat tense. They have three daughters, Henrietta and Samantha the normal moaning and grumbling hard done by teenagers and Jaqueling the sweeter younger daughter who for some reason adores her grandfather.
This is a mixture of a comedy, adventure and suspenseful murder mystery which kept me guessing - I didn’t have a clue what was actually going on until the end of the book. The various threads of the story are skilfully woven together eventually.
I bought the book because my niece is married to a lovely man called John Mortimer and thought they would enjoy it. I didn’t realise that the author wrote the Rumpole books as well, or that Summer’s Lease was made into a popular BBC TV mini series in the 1980’s, starring Sir John Gielgud.
I loved the book because I love his tongue in cheek writing style which is reminiscent of PG Wodehouse in some ways. I enjoy clever, witty somewhat cynical humour which makes me laugh. The wide cast of characters are well depicted and they made me chuckle - the author was a very astute observer of human behaviour and personality traits and that is entertaining. The typical teenagers, the wide boy, the snobsI kept thinking, ‘I know someone just like that!’ A very enjoyable read.
Sir John Mortimer was a barrister, playwright and novelist
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query P G Wodehouse. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query P G Wodehouse. Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday, 8 May 2016
Thursday, 30 June 2011
PG Wodehouse - The Code of the Woosters
review by Ro Bennett on show 30th June
I absolutely loved this book. It’s ridiculous and slap stick but I found it very, very funny. It was a perfect book to take away on holiday. I read it on the station, at the airport, on the plane, the coach, the beach. It was easy to immerse myself in it and I kept sniggering out loud which was a bit embarrassing. As I read it I could visualise Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster and they fitted the characters perfectly.
The book has so many interesting and entertaining characters and an excellent intricate plot with countless twists and turns. Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia wants him to go to Totleigh Towers to pinch back an antique cow creamer from Sir Watkyn Bassett who appropriated it inappropriately from Bertie’s Uncle Tom. Unfortunately Sir Watkyn Bassett is the magistrate who once fined Bertie five guineas for copping a policeman's helmet on Boat Race night. Bertie had previously been sent by Aunt Dahlia to the antique shop where the cow creamer was for sale to cast doubts on its value to try to bring the price down. Whilst pretending to examine it, he trips over a cat and falls through the door still clutching the cow creamer just as Sir W and friend Roderick Spode arrive. Sir W recognises Bertie as a criminal who has come up before him in court and assumes he is trying to steal the cow creamer. So Bertie does a runner, narrowly avoiding arrest.
At the same time as Aunt Dahlia is urging Bertie to go to Totley Towers, he receives urgent telegrams from his old pal, Gussie Fink-Nottle, who Aunt Dahlia refers to as ‘Spink-Bottle’ to come there to to save his engagement to Madeleine Bassett, daughter of Sir Watkyn. So with a bit of blackmail from Aunt Dahlia and a strong desire to avoid having to marry Madeleine himself should her engagement to Gussie fail, he sets off with Jeeves and a good deal of trepidation.
When Bertie arrives, he is of course confronted by Sir W and the thug Spode who is a would be dictator and leader of the Black Shorts - a hilarious parody of Oswald Mosley and his Black Shirts.
To complicate matters further, there is the love interest of Stiffy Byng and Reverend Stinker Pinker and how that impinges on the search for a little brown leather notebook in which Gussie has written all sorts of derogatory observations about Sir W and Spode. Gussie doesn’t know where he has misplaced it and there is a race to find it before it falls into the hands of Sir W or Spode - with disastrous consequences.
It is of course up to Jeeves to disentangle and rectify all the repercussions which ensue...
It was an excellent read and I thoroughly recommend it. I bought it from i books and the only problem with that is that I have since had to purchase the paper back so that I can lend it to my friends and family!
review by Ro
I absolutely loved this book. It’s ridiculous and slap stick but I found it very, very funny. It was a perfect book to take away on holiday. I read it on the station, at the airport, on the plane, the coach, the beach. It was easy to immerse myself in it and I kept sniggering out loud which was a bit embarrassing. As I read it I could visualise Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster and they fitted the characters perfectly.
The book has so many interesting and entertaining characters and an excellent intricate plot with countless twists and turns. Bertie’s Aunt Dahlia wants him to go to Totleigh Towers to pinch back an antique cow creamer from Sir Watkyn Bassett who appropriated it inappropriately from Bertie’s Uncle Tom. Unfortunately Sir Watkyn Bassett is the magistrate who once fined Bertie five guineas for copping a policeman's helmet on Boat Race night. Bertie had previously been sent by Aunt Dahlia to the antique shop where the cow creamer was for sale to cast doubts on its value to try to bring the price down. Whilst pretending to examine it, he trips over a cat and falls through the door still clutching the cow creamer just as Sir W and friend Roderick Spode arrive. Sir W recognises Bertie as a criminal who has come up before him in court and assumes he is trying to steal the cow creamer. So Bertie does a runner, narrowly avoiding arrest.
At the same time as Aunt Dahlia is urging Bertie to go to Totley Towers, he receives urgent telegrams from his old pal, Gussie Fink-Nottle, who Aunt Dahlia refers to as ‘Spink-Bottle’ to come there to to save his engagement to Madeleine Bassett, daughter of Sir Watkyn. So with a bit of blackmail from Aunt Dahlia and a strong desire to avoid having to marry Madeleine himself should her engagement to Gussie fail, he sets off with Jeeves and a good deal of trepidation.
When Bertie arrives, he is of course confronted by Sir W and the thug Spode who is a would be dictator and leader of the Black Shorts - a hilarious parody of Oswald Mosley and his Black Shirts.
To complicate matters further, there is the love interest of Stiffy Byng and Reverend Stinker Pinker and how that impinges on the search for a little brown leather notebook in which Gussie has written all sorts of derogatory observations about Sir W and Spode. Gussie doesn’t know where he has misplaced it and there is a race to find it before it falls into the hands of Sir W or Spode - with disastrous consequences.
It is of course up to Jeeves to disentangle and rectify all the repercussions which ensue...
It was an excellent read and I thoroughly recommend it. I bought it from i books and the only problem with that is that I have since had to purchase the paper back so that I can lend it to my friends and family!
review by Ro
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
