Obtain Cocktail Time Depicted By P.G. Wodehouse Available As Document

Wodehouse had a formula, When he gets the formula spot on his books are gold, He got it right in this one and the result was amusing, clever and joyful Could be made Into a good entertaining movie It all started when Uncle Fred pegged Beefy Bastable with a Brazil nut.
Beefy, a prominent barrister with political aspirations, writes a scathing novel about the youth of today after Uncle Fred tells him he can't, Once completed, Beefy realizes that a man in his position can't be responsible for such a thing and convinces his shiftless nephew, Cosmo Wisdom, to take credit for it.
Enter Oily Carlisle and his wife, who convince Cosmo that blackmail is the best course of action, Cosmo writes a letter that becomes the source of all sorts of trouble, Throw in the usual Wodehouse plot elements like impersonation, unrequited love, people short on money, and Uncle Fred weaving a tapestry of lies and you have a hilarious tale on your hands.


It never ceases to amaze me how Wodehouse manages to weave his tales together, You always know everything is going to work out in the end but getting there is never dull, The oneliners are fantastic and while Uncle Fred is a god among men, you are left feeling glad his wife doesn't let him go out in public very often.
Full of sweetness and light! Deliciously witty! This was my first encounter with Uncle Fred, I found it quite amusing but not a patch on Jeeves and Wooster, The everyouthful and impulsive Lord Ickenham, Uncle Fred to his friends, knocks the silk hat off the head of "overbearing dishpot" and barrister Sir Raymond "Beefy" Bastable with a Brazil nut.
This whim has unforeseen consequences Bastable, rather than saying "young blood" and letting it go at that, writes a novel called Cocktail Time savaging the irresponsible younger generation.
Because he's running for Parliament, he uses a pen name, of course, When the book unexpectedly becomes a best seller, he bribes his nephew to claim authorship, This turns into blackmail, and it's up to Uncle Fred to save Bastable from being outed as the author, bring together some sundered couples including the butler, Peasemarch, and leave everyone except Bastable a little happier and more financially secure.
I've said it before: Bertie and Jeeves make up Wodehouse's magic formula and is unparalleled, However, this Uncle Fred tale comes pretty close to that perfection, With the usual Wodehousian allusions, dry wit, and zigzag plot, this is a delightful read, Brilliantly paced bathos, a blend of erudition and frivolity in which the puffedup is punctured with perfect timing,

read twice Many people have recommended P, G. Wodehouse to me many times, and now I have finally read one of his books, I had no particular reason for choosing Cocktail Time as my first Wodehouse experience, I went to a used bookstore for the first time here in my new town, and at the back of the shop was a small bookcase full of very newlooking Wodehouse books.
With no idea where to begin, I looked to the proprietor for some advice, He was the very idea of a used bookstore proprietor: older, with a somewhat detached air that made it seem like he was always slightly surprised I was still aroundand, of course, he only accepted cash.
My plea fell on deaf ears, though, He rebuked me, “I never give recommendations,” and proceeded to give a semihelpful lecture on the different strands of Wodehouses oeuvre,

So I shrugged and took Cocktail Time and Carry On, Jeeves, At least in the case of the former, this decision proved fruitful, Wodehouse might not have jumped to the top of my list of favourite humorous authors, but I can definitely appreciate his sharp satire and keen enthusiasm for creating zany characters and silly situations.


Fred, Lord Ickenham, has a youth that belies his older appearance, Hes the kind of person who looks at a situation and then asks, “How can I possibly make this more interesting” Never content to leave things simply to develop on their own, Lord Ickenham always has to stir the pot a little more.
The plot gets going when Ickenhams influence causes his brotherinlaw, Raymond “Beefy” Bastable, to write a novelalso called Cocktail Time, Beefy has a beef with todays youth, because one of them knocked off his top hat with a catapulted Brazil nut, The real culprit, of course, is Ickenham, who at the time had no idea it would turn Beefy into the secret author of a bestseller.


Events continue to spiral out of control as more of Ickenhams social circle becomes involvedand thats just how he likes it, The action culminates in Dovetail Hammer with a tense auction for a fake walnut cabinet, an incriminating letter, and Ickenhams hand in matchmaking several couples.
Its all masterfully executed in such a way that I never felt like I need to look behind the curtain and spoil my disbelief, The happy ending is almost assured by the novels light tone, but I enjoyed watching Wodehouse pull all the threads neatly into place,

And the characters themselves are wonderfully uncomplicatedthere are villains and rogues and schemers and senile old men, Theyre all types, allowing Wodehouse to explore the variations within British society and particularly within the wealthy and welltodo, But as circumstances shift, the characters have to change tooCosimo goes from wanting to reveal the real author to wanting to keep the charade of his authorship alive after Cocktail Time lands a multihundredthousanddollar movie deal.
Several times, Ickenhams own schemes go awry, and he is forced to improvise swiftly and skilfully,

Wodehouses style is twofold, First, he is a master of what I would call whimisical description, He always knows the perfect thing to sayoften a simile or, if no such simple beast is available, he springs for a metaphorto elevate any description from mundane to amusing.
And then there are paragraphs like this, which opens Chapter:

OLd Howard Saxby was seated at his desk in his room at the Edgar Saxby literary agency when Cosmo arrived there.
He was knitting a sock, He knitted a good deal, he would tell you if you asked him, to keep himself from smoking, adding that he also smoked a good deal to keep himself from knitting.

The paragraph goes on to invoke comparisons to Stilton cheese and ghostly ectoplasm, Wodehouses vocabulary and diction are both dazzling, aided by the relative simplicity of the plot, which allows one to sink into the story and just enjoy the writing.


Wodehouses second element of style is the snappy dialogue he writes for his characters, It reads like a comedy sketch, with short sentences and plenty of interruption as one character plays off anothers words, The omniscient narrator reveals what everyone is thinking, contributing even further to the sense of irony that practically saturates this thin volume,

I dont have much else to say about Wodehouse or Cocktail Time, It was a nice novel to spend a couple of days reading, and now I have a firmer idea of what Wodehouse has to offer.
Ill read the next one sometime in the next few months, and well see how the relationship goes from thereI dont like to take things too fast, after all.
Beefy certainly waited a long time, and it worked out all right for him,

sitelink Uncle Freddy really is fantastic! Spreading goodness and life wherever he goes! I dont write reviews,

Yes, Im still stuck in a Wodehousian well, You dont have to send a SOS, Ill muddle through, giggling all the while, Cocktail Time was very cute and Uncle Fred is in my top three favourite Wodehouse characters, The other two arent a surprise to anyone, though my fourth and fifth are Lord Emsworth and either The Empress of Blandings or Montague Bodkin.
I enjoyed this story, and may have enjoyed it even more if I had read it before Uncle Dynamite, That one was hard to followup, I feel slightly wistful that Ive read all the Uncle Fred and Jeeves stories, but I dont feel sad because Wodehouse is infinitely rereadable, Another PGW winner

sitelinkP, G. Wodehouse is the funniest writer of the past century, Wodehouse defies superlatives and is, for my money, the best comedic writer to ever put pen to paper,

Despite being a confirmed Wodehousian this is only the second Uncle Fred novel I have read, According to Wikipedia the Uncle Fred stories comprise one short story and four novels, two of which are set at Blandings Castle:

"Uncle Fred Flits By"included in the collection Young Men in Spats,
Uncle Fred in the Springtimea Blandings story
Uncle Dynamite
Cocktail Time
Service with a Smilea Blandings story

So, back to 'sitelinkCocktail Time', I can confirm that I smiled, I chuckled, and I laughed.
Not quite as much as the very best books by sitelinkP, G. Wodehouse, but a still a more than satisfactory return,

Of course it is not all about humour, the other pleasure of sitelinkP, G. Wodehouse is the delightful writing, and the playfulness that runs through his work and appears on each and every page, His books are the best possible escape from the real world a retreat into a predictable, amusing, cheerful place where the lovelorn ultimately find solace

and the pompous have their pomposity pricked.


I already eagerly await my next foray into the wonderful world of Wodehouse,

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