"Pigs Have Wings" by P G Wodehouse

 Another Blandings book and once again there is an imposter at the castle, as well the two sets of young lovers who have managed to get themselves engaged to the wrong people, as well as a pig that needs protecting from kidnap, or another that needs kidnapping. 

As well as reusing characters and plot devices (all Blandings books include imposters and young lovers, most include the pig) PGW is not beyond reusing phrases. For example: "It was plain that she was in agreement with the poet that of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these 'It might have been'." (8.1). A very similar sentiment was first used by Psmith in Mike (“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,” said he, “the saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’"; C 33) and in Leave it to Psmith ("Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these. 'it might have been'."; 3.1). The quote is originally from a nineteenth-century American Abolitionist Quaker poet called John Greenleaf Whittier. Perhaps reusing your material is the only possible strategy if you are a prolific author.

But you don't read PGW for the predictable plot or the insight into character; you read him for the joy of the way he takes the language all the way to the fair.

Selected quotes:

PGW enjoyed taking the mickey out of authors in this book. One of the young lovers writes short stories: 

• "For an author Jerry Vail was rather nice-looking, most authors, as is widely known, resembling in appearance the more degraded types of fish, unless they look like birds, when they could pass as vultures and no questions asked." (4.3)
• "Jerry Vail is an author and you know as well as I do what authors are. Unbalanced. Unreliable. Fatheads, to a man." (9.1)

Other quotes:

• "A man with a fondness for the fleshpots and a weakness for wines and spirits who, after many lean years, suddenly inherits a great deal of money and an extensive cellar finds himself faced with temptations which it is hard to resist. Arrived in the land of milk and honey, his disposition is to square his elbows and let himself go till his eyes bubble." (2.1)
• "Silence fell, one of those deep, uneasy silences which occur when all good men realize that now is the time for them to come to the aid of the party but are unable to figure out just how to set about doing so." (2.5)
• "'Why is it?' inquired Penny - she seemed to be addressing a passing butterfly, 'that men always say that?'" (4.3)
• "He looked like the things you find in dust-bins, which are passed over with a disdainful jerk of the head by the discriminating alley cat." (6.2)
• "I've been thinking about that cold of yours, and I'll tell you the stuff to give it. You want to take a deep breath and hold it as long as you possibly can. This traps the germs in your interior, and not being able to get fresh air, they suffocate." (8.1)
• "It is a very intrepid young man who can see an English butler steadily and see him whole without feeling a worm-like humility and all Jerry's previous encounters with Beach ... had left him with the impression that his feet were too large, his ears too red and his social status something in between that of a Dead End kid and a badly dressed leper." (10.3) It is the addition of 'badly-dressed' to 'leper' that makes PGW so wonderful: he takes a metaphor and keeps adding.
• "He was experiencing the quiet satisfaction of the raconteur who sees that his story is going well. ... Just the right hushed silence, and the eyes protruding just the correct distance from their sockets." (11.2)

June 2022; 253 pages

Other P G Wodehouse books reviewed in this blog can be found here.

This review was written by the author of Motherdarling  and The Kids of God