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lisamck's review
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
bruceolivernewsome's review
4.0
I hate to rate Wodehouse lower than 5 stars given that he is so much more fun and in command of the English language than most, and I still love the Blandings series, I just found this one not quite up to his standard. I love the premise around the show pig known as Empress and the paranoid competition with a neighboring show pig. However, it became a prop to other events, and the story became like too many props hanging precariously on the overall vehicle. The downside with Wodehouse is that the stories can be so farcical that they become careless. Heavy Weather has the particular disadvantage of relying on too many unexplained motivations. Why is one woman in love with two men? Why are they not more inquisitive? Why are so many otherwise good people suddenly motivated to steal and blackmail? The joy in the book is in the absurdities and eccentricities, but in this case they did stretch the suspension of disbelief to breaking point, on too many occasions. Still, I am saying this on re-reading. The first reading was lovely.
meeners's review
3.0
in which we encounter the return of ronnie fish and his one true love, the chorus girl sue brown; lord emsworth and his one true love, the empress of blandings (a pig who "could have passed in dim light for a captive balloon, fully inflated and about to make its trial trip"); the dastardly pilbeam; and, of course, the hon. galahad threepwood's Reminiscences and the story of the prawns:
We left Beach, it will be remembered, chuckling softly. And for a few minutes soft chuckles had contented him. But in a book of the nature of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood's Reminiscences the student is sure sooner or later to come upon some high spot, some supreme expression of the writer's art which demands a more emphatic tribute. What Beach was reading now was the story of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe and the prawns.
'HA . . . HOR . . . HOO!' he roared.
Pilbeam stood spellbound. His had not been a wide experience of butlers, and he could not recall ever before having heard a butler laugh - let alone laugh in this extraordinary fashion, casting dignity to the winds and apparently without a thought for his high blood-pressure and the stability of his waistcoat buttons.
as per the course, wodehouse manages to juggle roughly five thousand different plot strands into a nicely satisfactory ending where those deserving of love are rewarded it, those deserving of comeuppance are given it, and the rest are returned full-circle into the blithe status quo. wheels within wheels!
We left Beach, it will be remembered, chuckling softly. And for a few minutes soft chuckles had contented him. But in a book of the nature of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood's Reminiscences the student is sure sooner or later to come upon some high spot, some supreme expression of the writer's art which demands a more emphatic tribute. What Beach was reading now was the story of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe and the prawns.
'HA . . . HOR . . . HOO!' he roared.
Pilbeam stood spellbound. His had not been a wide experience of butlers, and he could not recall ever before having heard a butler laugh - let alone laugh in this extraordinary fashion, casting dignity to the winds and apparently without a thought for his high blood-pressure and the stability of his waistcoat buttons.
as per the course, wodehouse manages to juggle roughly five thousand different plot strands into a nicely satisfactory ending where those deserving of love are rewarded it, those deserving of comeuppance are given it, and the rest are returned full-circle into the blithe status quo. wheels within wheels!
raehink's review
5.0
A Blandings escapade...Hunt the Reminiscences and Steal the Pig...in which Pilbeam gets drunk and Lord Tilbury is rolled in the Empress's sty. Mothers and aunts are the enemy.
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