One of the reasons reading P.G. Wodehouse is such a jolly good time is his casual manner of strewing brilliant metaphors around carelessly every paragraph or two. Here is one that made my afternoon brighter:
“Something of the gallant fire which was animating him seemed to pass out of Sir Aylmer Bostock. He blinked, like some knight of King Arthur’s court, who, galloping to perform a deed of derring-do, has had the misfortune to collide with a tree.”
This one is from Uncle Dynamite, one of the hilarious Uncle Fred (Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, fifth Earl of Ickenham) and Pongo books that for some reason I have never read before. It’s a dilly. Uncle Fred is one of our family’s favorite Wodehouse characters, known for spreading sweetness and light as well as for stepping high, wide, and handsome.
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Nothing can brighten up an afternoon like Wodehouse! I don’t know much about Uncle Fred…I’ll have to look for those stories.
I have some favorite Wodehouse quotes, including a great metaphor involving Chesterton, at my bloghere.
I enjoy Wodehouse very much. I think his books are among the few that have caused me to laugh out loud!
We also enjoy Wodehouse, having been encouraged to read him through your husband’s writings. I picked up my first book somewhat skeptically at a library booksale. I figured that for fifty cents I couldn’t go wrong. After I started reading I had a light bulb moment. Now I realized why all the Credenda people write the way they do! 🙂 We will keep our eyes open for Uncle Fred.
Uncle Fred! The third of my favourite Literary Uncles, after Gandalf and Peter Pienaar. Really, what more can one say?
I discovered Wodehouse through Credenda and have never looked back. My 3 oldest children have read the twenty or so books of his which we own. We trade quips of his when we notice someone getting irritated as we work together. It never fails to help us step back and laugh at ourselves.
We love Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Leave it to Psmith, the Jeeves canon, the Blandings Castle series and the Mulliner Stories. We are always on the lookout to add another tome to our collection.
We have decided that the mixture might be to rich if Uncle Fred AND Galahad were at Blandings Castle at the same time. Does anyone know if that ever occurs in his books?