Tuesday, February 20, 2007

No Nudes are good Nudes

Funnily enough, a lot of people gave me and my book cover a look when I was reading it. I don't want to know what they were thinking, although I am aware of where their thoughts were centred. The title of the book rested on literally just one part of the story, but it had various meaning within. It was another comical masterpiece by P.G.Wodehouse.
Set in Blandings castle, Wodehouse list of characters start from the pig, Empress; her owner, Lord Clarence Threepwood, Earl of Emsworth; Emsworth's brother, Gallahad Threepwood (Gally); Emsworth's sister, Lady Constance Schoonmaker (Connie); Gally's godson, John Halliday (Johnny); Johnny's lover, Linda Gilpin (often referred to by Gally as popsy); Linda's uncle, Alaric, Duke of Dunstable; guest of Connie's, Vanessa Polk; guest of Dunstable, Wilbur Trout (Willie); Blandings castle butler, Sebastian Beach; a vistor, Howard Chesney and the taxi driver, Robinson.
Other characters that are referred to, but never actually are present in the story are Connie's husband, Jame Schoonmaker; Clarence's son, Freddie; Freddie's sister - in - law, Penelope Donaldson; a famous American psychologist, Sir Roderick Glossop and an American millionaire, J.R.Polk.
With classically interwoven stories within one book, Wodehouse is able to relate the story well, but with selective amnesia (as in my case), the entire story unfolds by listing the characters in the book. To the story..
Empress is a prized possession to Clarence who is always up-to-date with reading pig books and takes all precautions and measures necessary to keep Empress a prized pig that would win at the pig show everytime. With him, lives his butler, Beach and Howard, who lives in Blandings due to a recommendation from Freddie.
He dreads his sister or any other intrusion at the peaceful Blandings castle. And as he fears, Connie decides to come by with a guest of hers, Vanessa Polk.
Clarence contacts Gally to come when Connie arrives. Gally is, in the meantime, hearing about Johnny's engagement. He decides to go to Blandings. He is not comfortable with his sister either, but is able to deal with her.
With Connie's invitation, Duke Dunstable and his niece are also at the Blandings castle. Linda is not interested in talking with Gally, who then contacts Johnny to find out that the engagement was broken off because he cross-examined her brutally during one of his cases and she decides to break of the engagement. Gally suggests bringing Johnny into the castle somehow, so that they could make up with each other.
Duke Dunstable, surprisingly brings a portrait of a nude woman with him. Gally questions him about the sudden interest of art and Dunstable tells him the story that Willie was on the lookout to buy this portrait, that reminded him of his ex-wife, with whom he was still in love with. So Dunstable was planning to extract an exorbitant amount from Willie.
Connie tries to bring Dunstable and Vanessa together, considering she is a rich woman and he is a bachelor. He tries to and Vanessa just gets bugged.
Dunstable invites Willie to Blandings castle so that he can entice him into buying the portrait. After Willie's arrival, it seems that Vanessa shared a brief romantic history with him and wants to help him out on that account. She uses the help from Howard and comes up with a plan. But that plan never gets carried out.
Clarence seems to behave weirdly because he has weird dreams about his pig and this worries Connie. Gally sees this opportunity to bring in Johnny as the junior shrink of Glossop.
With Johnny arrival, an incident makes love bloom again between him and his ex-fiancee. But he also discovers a glitch in their marriage. Connie discovers the truth about him and sends him out of the house.
Gally finds out the truth about Vanessa Polk through Beach. He also finds out about something embarrassing about Dunstable, which helps with his godson's marriage.
Willie discovers something about himself, that saves him all the money.
So with all the hassles and confusion, all ends well and capitally. An awesome story with loads of humour.

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