Uncle Dynamite by P G Wodehouse

Uncle Fred #2

by P.G. Wodehouse

From boyhood his has been a gay and happy disposition, and in the autumn of his life he still retains the fresh, unspoiled mental outlook of a slightly inebriated undergraduate.A keen matchmaker and intrepid impersonator, Lord Ickenham is in his element when at large on a sweetness-and-light-spreading excursion. On this occasion the hapless objects of his benevolence are his love-lorn nephew, Reginald ( ' Pongo' ) Twistleton, and Pongo's former crony, Bill Oakshott. Invariably a mixed blessing, this time the gleam in Uncle Dynamite's eye heralds trouble of a major kind...

Genres: Humor, Fiction, Classics, Comedy, Audiobook, British Literature, Literature

Paperback

First published October 1, 1948

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uncle Fred is unstoppable.



His nephew, Reginald Pongo Twistleton, knows only too well how quickly things can go sideways when his dear uncle, the 5th Earl of Ickenham, shows up in town. In fact, he forbids him from coming to London and tells him there will be no funny business while he meets his latest fiancee's mother and father.
What-what?
To Lord Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, that sounded a lot like a cry for help from his dear relation!



Whether it's impersonating an explorer who just came from Brazil in order to finagle an invitation as a houseguest, stealing a bust from the aforementioned house, judging a Bonnie Babies competition, or helping the daughter of one of his best friends smuggle jewelry past American customs, Lord Ickenham is up for any adventure.
And just when you think there's no way he will be able to get out of the way of the impending doom he rightly deserves, he grins and slides out of trouble with a surplus of charm.



Along the way, he also manages to poke his nose into Pongo's love life, get him tossed on his ear by his fiancee, and set everything right for everyone involved by the end of the book.



Highly Recommended for fans of that Wodehouse humor.

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recipe for a Wodehouse Novel

1. Take one English country house.

2. Insert the following, stirring gently: (a) Eccentric or curmudgeonly peer (b) devoted/ overbearing wife/ sister (c) a couple of sundered hearts and (optional) (d) domestic help with their own affairs of the heart. Stir gently. Bring to boil and set to simmer on low humour.

3. Add situations for seasoning. Lovers' misunderstandings, pilferage in the night, midnight rambles through the shrubbery... (For the full list, maybe Jeeves can be consulted. Too long to provide here.)

4. Insert key ingredient while the mixture simmers: Bertie and Jeeves, Galahad Threepwood and Uncle Fred are the most commonly used ones. Bring to boil.

5. Garnish with grumpy village policemen and irate magistrates. Serve hot.

---

BTW, this novel has a village cop named Harold Potter - though he is never called Harry. It also has a Hermione!

[Melindam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author P.G. Wodehouse and narrator Jonathan Cecil are a match made in Audiobook Heaven!

OH...

MY...

BAA-LAMB!




I haven't giggled, sniggered, chortled, laughed and been cracked up so hard since.... well, since I finished Uncle Fred in the Springtime approx. 2 weeks ago and this was even better! I think it may even have surpassed The Code of the Woosters in my estimation. (Hmmm..... I need to re-read (re-listen) to it to pass final judgement on it.)

Bottom line is: Everyone needs an Uncle Fred in their lives "spreading sweetness and light".
...
...
Erm, on second thought, maybe not
...
OK, let me rephrase it a little.

Bottom-bottom line is: everyone needs to read about people having an Uncle Fred in their lives "spreading sweetness and light" and laugh madly at them like nobody's business.

[Lizz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t write reviews.

And I can’t seem to relax. It’s next to impossible to truly focus on anything. Yet Wodehouse still takes me away from myself or at least soothes a bit. This one is an absolute peach! The Uncle Fred stories are his best: terrific pacing, zany comedy and characterization galore. No matter how you’re feeling, Uncle Fred, he who spreads sweetness and light, is the perfect companion.

[Jason Koivu · Rating 4 out of 5]

It all begins innocently enough with a What, Ho! and then before you know it everyone's up to their necks in the soup!

Uncle Dynamite is Uncle Fred and each of us ought to have an Uncle Fred in their lives. He's the sort of energetic, well-intentioned chap to stir up the pot, sometimes when the pot doesn't necessarily need stirring.

To explain the plot I would need to twist your brain about six ways to Sunday and attach it to a Slinky, so it must suffice to say that hijinks abound in a heisty capery sort of way with a bit of the "who's who, now?" and a whole lot of "but, but I!!!"s. There's Bonnie Babies to be avoided at all cost and love is in the air...stifled air that's headed in the wrong direction. With a well-stocked set of grey matter quick on its feet, Uncle Fred's got a solution for everything. That said, solutions often involve deceit and disguise. But of course it's all a matter of perspective, and if you'd only view it from the correct one you'd see how it's all on the up-and-up and makes perfect sense!

For this volume of comedic mayhem, Wodehouse has employed his standard script and populated it with a few familiar faces. It's not inventive genius in the literary line that you read Wodehouse for, but rather to gurgle up a good laugh or two as you follow the daffy mishaps of his parade of pranksters and paradigms of English aristocracy circa the early-ish 20th century. Besides the impossible ridiculousness of it all, Uncle Dynamite is also plentifully stocked with some of the more absurd names the author's ever produced: Frederick Altamont Cornwalis Twistleton, aka Lord Ickenham; Reginald "Pongo" Twistleton; Major Brabazon-Plank; Sir Aylmer "Mugsy" Bostock.

And with that said, I'm going to end my review rather abruptly, because why? Because here comes the last period.

[Dan Schwent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good old Uncle Fred. He's an interesting contrast to Jeeves. Where Jeeves uses deduction and reasoning to get Bertie out of jams, Uncle Fred weaves tapestry upon tapestry of lies. I'm amazed how much mileage (and how many laughs) Wodehouse manages to wring out of the same basic plot time after time.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think maybe Uncle Fred is my favourite character, (I usually feel that about the latest PGW book I've just read).

"He never minds how much trouble he takes if he feels he's spreading sweetness and light."

" No. There have been complaints about it on all sides, and I still maintain that he ought to be in a padded cell with the board of lunacy commissioners sitting on his head".

[Jason Koivu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham, aka Uncle Fred, is a swell chap!

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly one of the funniest books I have ever read, or maybe, I was just in the right mood for this. The genius of Wodehouse never fails to amaze me. My husband suggested I read this as he laughed so hard while listening as he drove around town. I was surprised to find myself laughing out loud too. I will say it is hard to keep up with all the characters changing names almost Shakespearean.

[Kavita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing is more relaxing or fun than a P.G. Wodehouse book! This one features Lord Ickenham (or Uncle Fred), a happy-go-lucky earl and general blot on the landscape. In his process of spreading sweetness and light, he spreads havoc all around. But in typical Wodehouseque fashion, everything comes right at the end with wedding bells ringing in the distance.

This book has one of my favourite secondary characters in the Wodehouse universe, though he doesn't appear often: Major Brabazon-Plank, an explorer from South America. This has been so wonderfully satirised that I always find it humorous. Other fun characters that I enjoyed were Sir Aylmer (Mugsy) Bostock, the chief villain of the piece; Elsie Bean, a housemaid with ambition; and her beau, Harold Potter, the local policeman.

As always, it's hard to describe the plot. But it starts with a couple of busts, and Uncle Fred's nephew, Pongo, finds himself unwillingly in the thick of trouble. He finds love, as do a few others. Poor Bostock is left dazed at the end, but it's really all for the best. And we are happy to know that Major Brabazon-Plank's backside is still plump and pear-shaped!

[Chrystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The old formula of imposters in country houses never gets old. Throw in the oft-repeated threat of the bonny baby contest and you have a winner.

I listened to the audiobook read by the incomparable Jonathan Cecil. Every time he said "bonny babies" I would collapse in gales of laughter.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has always been a sheer delight to find my way back to yet another Wodehouse novel. In the world of comedy (esp. comedy of manners), Wodehouse's voice is simply singular, so he can't even be adequately compared to other comic novelists. It's like he invented a whole other language. Though it has similarities, it's not English, it's Wodehouselish. 

It's a special treat - as I have just discovered again - to see how P.G. expanded his talent in a series adjacent to his mainstay: the potent Wooster / Jeeves books. 

'Uncle Dynamite' is the second entry in the Uncle Fred series. 

How best to describe Uncle Fred? In a way, he's sort of a male Auntie Mame, though that's not quite right, but it's not far wrong considering Fred's effusiveness, eccentricity and the way he dominates everything around him. Like Mame, Fred is wildly madcap. 

He's also a bit like Katherine Hepburn's Susan in 'Bringing Up Baby': he's effortlessly intrepid in the zaniest of ways, with the goal of getting what he wants, also with a marked intelligence that surpasses Mame's. 

But even that is not quite... it. What sets Fred apart from these comparisons is his intense sincerity. He quite genuinely wants the best for everyone around him - even some that he doesn't particularly feel a real fondness for. It's almost like he's not happy unless (almost) everyone around him is happy. He's sort of God-like... if God were primarily whimsical and much preferred to focus on well-meaning humans who were just doing their best to make sense of things. 

I should interject that, though I have put Fred next to a couple of women, there's nothing feminine or effeminate about him. Is it as they say?: "Just British."? It does seem to be a whole different gender, whatever it is.

With 'UD', and in generally typical fashion, Wodehouse displays an endlessly engaging Rubik's Cube of events, with Fred doing his best to see that all situations and characters end up complimentary, 'having the same color'. 

The dialogue sparkles, the pages fly, the heart soars! This is lovely stuff - and a Wodehouse standout (as so many are).

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing is calculated to raise one's spirits faster than a large snifter of P.G. Wodehouse with its English country houses full of lovelorn young men, old crocodiles with moustaches, determined (but willowy) young women, and the usual suspects. The difference in Uncle Dynamite is the presence of an unstoppable force of nature: one Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, fifth Earl of Ickenham.

Uncle Dynamite is full to bursting with the usual stratagems and counter-stratagems, all tending to getting the right young men attached to the right young women. In the process, we are regaled with the author's splendiferous prose, as when Lord Ickenham has told Hermione Bostock why she should not be engaged to Reginald "Pongo" Twistleton:

In speaking of the dislike which high-principled girls have for vipers, we omitted to mention that it becomes still more pronounced when they discover that they use lipstick. That the erstwhile idol of hers should have feet of clay was bad, but that in addition to those feet of clay he should have, at the other end, a mouth that needed touching up from time to time was the pay-off. People still speak of the great market crash of 1929, asking you with a shudder if you remember the way U.S. Steel and Montgomery Ward hit the chutes during the month of October: but in that celebrate devaluation of once gilt-edged shares there was nothing comparable to the swift and dizzy descent at this moment of Twistleton Preferred.

I do not recall at this ntime exactly how many Wodehouses I have read to cheer me up, but I am sure the number approaches two score. And I'm nowhere near done with the man.

[Susan in NC · Rating 5 out of 5]

My introduction to Uncle Fred, Lord Ickenham, who lives to spread “sweetness and light” wherever he goes.

As with most Wodehouse plots, there are young lovers, stubborn, grumpy old aristocrats, clever servants, and no-nonsense constables; trying to explain beyond that would be impossible. If you need a smile (I laughed out loud a few times!), you could do much worse than make Uncle Fred’s acquaintance yourself. I love Wodehouse, he never fails to lift my spirits; Stephen Fry called his writing “sunlit perfection”, and I agree wholeheartedly!

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lord Freddy Ickenham, nephew Pongo. Clever farce-romance, nice. 3.7 stars? Cool title.

[Alex Sarll]

"As a matter of fact, I never feel comfortable going to stay at a house under my own name. It doesn't seem sporting." There's a case to be made that Frederick Altamont Cornwallis, 5th Earl of Ickenham, AKA Uncle Fred, is the most Wodehouse of Wodehouse characters. Where others generally need a sufficient prod from Plum's plotting to get them assuming false identities and planning daring nocturnal heists, Uncle Fred looks on a life without such shenanigans as at best half-lived, and at the slightest provocation will deem it critical to his mission of spreading sweetness and light (regardless of the complaints thus garnered) to, say, impersonate one former schoolfriend in order to stay with another former school...well, contemporary, in order to purloin a bust that's only there in the first place on account of an earlier brilliant scheme. The last Wodehouse I read was Doctor Sally which, perhaps through having a slightly different plot to his usual, wasn't quite the stuff – a little straightforward, a bit thin on mistaken identities and farcical encounters. This (which does have another Sally, and indeed another Bill – Wodehouse did like certain names) more than makes up for it, piling up layer on layer of daft complications as various unsuitable engagements are realigned to the benefit of all concerned and the stertorous Sir Aylmer Bostock taken down a peg. A delight.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never thought I could love a Wodehouse character as much as I love Jeeves and Wooster, but Uncle Fred is rivaling them. He’s a brilliant character and an absolute riot.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best PG Wodehouse books I've read/listened to. I like Uncle Fred even better than Jeeves and Wooster.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tell you what, the Ickenham Method would have worked on me!

[Sibi Rajendran · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Constable Potter reporting the matter of someone pushing him into the duck pond.)
'I was assaulted by the duck pond, sir.'
'By the duck pond?' he(Sir Aylmer Bostock) echoed, his eyes widening.
'Yes, sir.'
'How the devil can you be assaulted by a duck pond?'
Constable Potter saw where the misunderstanding had arisen. The English language is full of these pitfalls.

A highly complicated plot, like as if it might have been a well cooked spaghetti. Uncle Fred as usual lives upto the "pure dynamite" description of his by the thoughtful Crumpet. The tale goes into that state of impending doom, when he jumps into action and saves the day spreading "happiness and light" in the halls of Ashenden Manor.

[Illiterate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe it was the social theorist, Mick Foufoo, who said Uncle Fred embodies a biopower governing the life, bodies, and sexuality of people and populations.

[Eric_W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This title, delightfully read by Jonathan Cecil, will have you in stitches. There are few writers alive today who can match Wodehouse in his artful use of the language. Every line has some delightful pun or play on words, at least to my mental retina. Describing one of the Wodehouse plots is always dangerous, but here goes.

Bill Oakshot, returning from a sojourn in Brazil, meets Lord Ickenham (Uncle Freddy) on the train home, where he hopes to announce his love for Hermione. Unfortunately, Lord Ickenham inadvertently reveals that Hermione is engaged to Pongo (Reginald Twistleton), an old friend. Distraught, Bill fails to disembark at his destination, where he is embarrassed to see that Hermione’s father, Lord Bostock, has a substantial welcoming committee (mostly local boy scouts) to provide a formal welcome home. Pongo, in the meantime, trying to ingratiate himself with Lord Bostock, manages to break one of the lord’s African curios. He seeks Uncle Freddy’s assistance and they conspire -- Freddy is delighted, always looking for an excuse to run to London for some nefarious activities while his wife is away in the West Indies. “Jamaica?” asks Pongo. “No, she went of her own accord,” is Freddy’s reply. Anyway, in London they borrow a bust to replace the broken one -- Lord Bostock being nearsighted anyway -- from Sally, an American acquaintance who is miffed at Pongo because he refused to help her smuggle diamonds into the United States for her friend Alice. Of course, they pick the wrong bust, the one having the diamonds secreted in the plaster head, and now must retrieve it from Lord Elmer’s. In the meantime, Harold Potter, the local constable, has the hots for Lord Bostock’s maid, Emily Bean. He catches Sally and the others trying to sneak into Lord Bostock’s house, where they have actually been invited under an assumed name. It all has to do with the “bonnie baby” contest -- you have to be there. In any case, Potter thinks the two men are impostors because he recognizes them from his scrapbook of arrests when he was in London and arrested them at the dog track, where they had the presence of mind to avoid embarrassing repercussions by identifying themselves under aliases. He also says he must know Major Plank (the new name Uncle Freddy has assumed) because he went to school with him, but thinking quickly - - Freddy is enjoying all this immensely -- Freddy reveals the constable must be thinking of Berstrom Plank the major; he is Berstrom Plank the miner. It can be very confusing — all these major and miners. Bill, in the meantime, is mad at Pongo because he saw Pongo kissing Emily late in the evening, and as the unrequited lover of Hermione wants to make sure Pongo remains honorable. It’s all a mistake, of course, because Pongo is really beginning to fall in love with Sally, especially after it’s revealed that Hermione likes to arise at six in the morning (during the summer) and no later than seven in the winter. Good heavens!

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

From boyhood up his hadbeen a gay and happy disposition, and in the evening of his life he still retained, together with a juvenile waistline, the bright enthusiasm and the fresh, unspoiled mental outlook of a slightly inebriated undergraduate.

I absolutely adored watching darling Uncle Fred continue to spread sweetness and light by (among other things) impersonating an explorer, helping to smuggle some jewels, assisting in some breaking and entering, and dragging his poor nephew into yet another crazy scheme - all in the name of helping the course of true love.

These books are hilarious, smart, witty, and you are guaranteed to be entertained from beginning to end!

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reissue from the Wodehouse canon, this one was new to me, not featuring the familiar denizens of the realm of Wodehouse (say, Jeeves and Bertie, or the Empress of Blandings) but Uncle Fred, the titled, middle-aged rapscallion who needs a keeper whenever his wife is away and he slips the leash. Poor Pongo, his long-suffering nephew, is usually Uncle Fred’s companion on these escapades, which typically involve narrowly escaping arrest. This one has a silly, breezy plot involving, to name but a few of its elements, an irascible landholder,, a smashed bust, Uncle Fred impersonating a South American explorer, and not one, but two young couples being set aright on the path of true love. Nuff said.

[Shiloah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious, entertaining, delightful. I can’t get enough Wodehouse!

[Asha Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the Jeeves series better.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There are critics to whom it will seem one of those trained coincidences which are so inartistic that on this troubled night no fewer than six of the residents of Ashenden Manor should have been seized independently of each other with the idea of going to the drawing-room in order to establish contact with the decanter placed there earlier in the evening by Jane, the parlourmaid, while others will see in the thing that inevitability which was such a feature of the best Greek tragedy. Aeschylus once said to Euripides 'You can't beat inevitability,' and Euripides said that he had often thought so, too." (190)

I was looking for a bit of cheer, so I figured I'd read another Wodehouse. I thought that I had already read Uncle Dynamite, an Uncle Fred novel; but it turned out that I hadn't, even though I owned a copy. Long story short: I devoured it in a day or two. Sure, some of the plot is rather unlikely, so that you'll occasionally have to suspend some of the old disbelief—but Uncle Dynamite is Wodehouse at his wittiest and funniest. I came out of the experience refreshed, which was exactly what was needed.

[Noah Harrold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humorous per usual. Recommend for good witty English laughs.

[Manuel Alfonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

ENGLISH: This is the first time I've read this book, although I have read before (several times) the first book in this series (Uncle Fred in the Springtime) and a short story starring Uncle Fred and his nephew Pongo Twistleton.

A few hilarious quotes from this book:

"For your information, Uncle Fred, wild horses wouldn't make me break my engagement." "Most unlikely they´ll ever try."

"...the only way to settle it was to drive to your place and get a photograph of [Pongo]." Lord Ickenham shook his head. "A fruitless quest. A man like myself, refined, sensitive, with a love for the rare and the beautiful, does not surround himself with photographs of Pongo."

"What else has happened, my ill-starred youth?..." "I saw Pongo kiss the housemaid" he said in a low throaty voice. Lord Ickenham was perplexed. "But why shouldn't he?"

"But why did you tell that girl you were me?" "One has to say something to keep the conversation going."

ESPAÑOL: Es la primera vez que leo este libro, aunque he leído antes (varias veces) el primer libro de esta serie (Uncle Fred in the Springtime) y un cuento corto protagonizado por el tío Fred y su sobrino, Pongo Twistleton.

Veamos algunas citas descacharrantes de este libro:

"Para tu información, tío Fred, ni los caballos salvajes serían capaces de hacerme romper mi compromiso." "Es muy poco probable que lo intenten."

"...la única forma de resolverlo era irse a tu casa y obtener una fotografía de [Pongo]". Lord Ickenham negó con la cabeza. "Una búsqueda infructuosa. Un hombre como yo, refinado, sensible, amante de lo raro y de lo bello, no se rodea de fotografías de Pongo".

"¿Qué más ha pasado, joven de mala estrella?"... "Vi a Pongo besando a la criada" dijo con voz baja y ronca. Lord Ickenham se sorprendió. "Pero ¿por qué no habría de hacerlo?"

"Pero, ¿por qué le dijiste a esa chica que tú eras yo?" "Hay que decir algo para mantener la conversación."

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gloriously fun romp featuring the inimitable sexagenarian Uncle Fred, devoted to resolving his many nieces' and nephews' romantic complications, whether they want him to or not. Uncle Fred is never without a cunning plan or a clever turn of phrase, and Wodehouse has supplied him with a hilarious plot and a whole gallery of amusing supporting characters. What a fantastic way to finish off the year.