P. G. Wodehouse’s Uncle Dynamite: The Title Says It All

I’m a huge fan of P. G. Wodehouse. He is one of the funniest authors in the history of literature, while at the same time maintaining an extraordinarily high quality of writing. Very few writers can turn a phrase as cleverly or more beautifully than Wodehouse.

The uncle in Uncle Dynamite is Lord Frederick Ickenham who has been featured in several Wodehouse tales along with his nephew, Pongo Twistleton. Traveling on a train to visit Pongo, Lord Ickenham meets Bill Oakshott and engages him in conversation. Bill is returning from South America where he went to try to forget the love of his life, Hermione Bostock, the daughter of an annoying uncle of Bill’s who has moved in and made himself at home in Bill’s manor. The modest Bill confides in Fred how much he dislikes his uncle, but refrains from disclosing his affection for Hermione. Which is a good thing, since Fred casually mentions that his nephew Pongo has recently gotten engaged to a young woman named Hermione Bostock!

Uncle Fred would like Pongo to rekindle his engagement to a protégée of his, the young sculptor Sally Painter, but Pongo is dead set on Hermione, despite her preventing him from drinking any alcohol and disapproving of Uncle Fred. And so the stage is set for another complicated farce in which Uncle Fred will work his magic to ensure all the young lovers are paired up properly.

Of course, there is lots of hilarious wordplay throughout. Right off the bat in Chapter 1, Uncle Fred explains that he is enjoying some freedom, because his wife has left England to attend a relative’s wedding:

‘Yes, my dear wife, I am glad to say, continues in the pink. I’ve just been seeing her off on the boat at Southampton. She is taking a trip to the West Indies.’
‘Jamaica?’
‘No, she went of her own free will.’

Wodehouse, P. G.. Uncle Dynamite (p. 8). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Uncle Fred has a penchant for posing as someone he’s not, which invariably leads to lots of hilarious encounters with people who actually know him. Pongo has learned not to trust him to behave himself, and has left him at Ickenham to spend the weekend at Oakshott, where Hermione, her parents, and Bill live. Through a series of event too complicated to explain here, Uncle Fred shows up, pretending to be Bill’s friend from his Brazilian adventures, Major Brabazon-Plank. The fly in the ointment is the fact that practically everyone at Oakshott either knows Uncle Fred or the real Major Brabazon-Plank, including the hapless village policeman, Officer Potter. Bill’s Uncle Aylmer Bostock is convinced Pongo is an imposter trying to steal his priceless “African curios”, when poor Pongo is practically the only person who is who he says he is.

Uncle Fred brazenly and breezily adjusts his story and his identity depending on circumstances to the point of absurdity. And that’s the point of reading a Wodehouse novel: the plot depends on utterly absurd coincidences and setbacks that could be overcome if someone actually came clean and told the truth, but it wouldn’t be such nearly so much fun. As always with Wodehouse, there are laugh-out-loud scenes and incomparably witty prose.

When Officer Potter remembers Uncle Fred from a previous time when he collared him at the dog races, Frederick Ickenham remains unflappable:

‘Brabazon-Plank, eh? You call yourself Brabazon-Plank, do you? Ho! You look to me more like George Robinson of 14 Nasturtium Road, East Dulwich.’

Lord Ickenham stared. He removed the cigar from his mouth and stared again. ‘Don’t tell me you’re the cop who pinched me that day at the dog races!’

‘Yus, I am.’

A bubbling cry like that of some strong swimmer in his agony proceeded from Pongo’s lips. He glared wildly at the helmeted figure of doom. Lord Ickenham, in sharp contradistinction, merely beamed, like one of a pair of lovers who have met at journey’s end.

‘Well, I’ll be dashed,’ he said cordially. ‘What a really remarkable thing. Fancy running into you again like this. I’d never have known you. You’ve grown a moustache since then, or something. My dear fellow, this is delightful. What are you doing in these parts?’

Wodehouse, P. G.. Uncle Dynamite (pp. 125-126). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Eventually, the real Major Brabazon-Plank shows up, as well as Sally’s brother, Otis, who is a nascent book publisher. He is eager to publish Hermione’s next book, so her father will call off the lawsuit he threatened. Like I said, it’s complicated. However, Uncle Fred comes out on top, “spreading sweetness and light”, and everyone ends up engaged to the one he or she truly loves, including Officer Potter.

Here is a small sampling of the understated but hysterical humor Wodehouse employs liberally throughout:

[Pongo] beamed on the girl, and having released his tongue, which had got entangled with his uvula, spoke in a genial and welcoming voice.
‘What ho, Bean.’
‘What ho, sir.’
‘It’s you, is it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You gave me a start.’
‘You gave me a start, sir.’
‘Making two starts in all,’ said Pongo, who had taken mathematics at school.

Wodehouse, P. G.. Uncle Dynamite (p. 136). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

‘I want to tell you about Pongo.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s worried to death, the poor pet. My heart aches for him. He was in here not long ago, and he just sat in a chair and groaned.’
‘You’re sure he wasn’t singing?’

Wodehouse, P. G.. Uncle Dynamite (p. 207). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

‘It happened just after breakfast. My aunt was waiting for me to bring the car round, and Uncle Aylmer made some unpleasant cracks about the hat she was wearing. So she went up to her room to get another, and as she reached the door she heard someone moving about inside. When she went in, there was nobody to be seen, and then suddenly there came a sneeze from the wardrobe, and there was Pongo, crouching on the floor.’
‘She was sure?’
‘Sure?’
‘It wasn’t a shoe or a bit of fluff?’
‘No, it was Pongo.

Wodehouse, P. G.. Uncle Dynamite (pp. 211-212). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Wodehouse wrote several novels featuring Uncle Fred, Lord Ickenham, and you can pick them up and read them in any order. If only we could all live in a world where we each had an Uncle Fred who could step in and fix all of our financial and romantic troubles!

Ivanhoe: Great Fun and Adventure

I read Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe when I was in high school back in the 1970s. Was it required reading? Nope, I just picked it up in my local bookstore because the cover looked interesting and it was $0.95. With a 5% sales tax, it cost me a dollar even, which was a bargain. I soon got caught up in Scott’s fast-paced tale of a valiant and honorable knight who was treated wrongly. I’ve been rereading literary classics that I first read when I was much younger to see how much more meaning I get from them now, and I decided to dive into Ivanhoe.

The Paperback version I bought fifty years ago.

Scott published it in 1820, and it was a big hit. It is set in the late 1100s, in Britain, after the Normans had established their conquest of it. There remain a few Saxon nobles, but almost all power resides in the Norman landowners. Richard the Lionhearted is king, but he hasn’t been seen for years, since he left for a Crusade, and it’s rumored he is being held prisoner in Europe. His brother, John, sits on the throne, and he is doing everything he can to consolidate his power.

The novel begins with an introduction to Gurth the swineherd and Jamba the fool.  While relaxing outdoors, they meet the epicurean Pryor of Aymer and his companion, the Knight Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert who are traveling to an upcoming jousting tournament. The weather is threatening, and they ask Jamba if there is shelter nearby. He tells them Cedric the Saxon’s castle is near, but he gives them incorrect directions. They manage to find it as the storm breaks.

Cedric is a very proud Saxon who despises the Norman conquerors of Britain. He refuses to speak Norman French, and he maintains his estate despite pressure and conflict from his Norman neighbors. He is the guardian of the beautiful Rowena, a Saxon princess, and the father of Wilfred of Ivanhoe, whom he has banished because he fell in love with Rowena.

As everyone gathers for supper during the storm, a pilgrim shows up and is welcomed. Also, a poor, elderly Jewish man, Isaac of York, knocks on the door and begs for shelter. When Isaac enters, Scott makes clear how prejudiced 12th century Britain was towards Jews. No one will allow Isaac to sit at the table, until the pilgrim invites him to join him at his seat by the fire.

During the dinner conversation, de Bois-Guilbert admires Rowena to the point of rudeness. He is very arrogant, and he denigrates Richard the Lion-Hearted, who is a prisoner in Hungary after going on a Crusade. The pilgrim speaks up on behalf of Richard, telling everyone he was in Palestine and witnessed his valor, as well as Ivanhoe’s. It’s clear there is immediate and deep dislike between the pilgrim and de Bois-Guilbert.

Early the next morning, the pilgrim awakens Isaac to warn him to leave immediately, or else de Bois-Guilbert will track him down and kill him. He accompanies Isaac to safety with his relatives in the town of Ashby, which is hosting the tournament. In gratitude, Isaac writes him a note that will enable him to get a horse and armor, because he sees that he is no ordinary pilgrim, but rather a man trained in the art of war.

We soon find out that Isaac is not a poverty-stricken mendicant, but rather a very well-off usurer. He has a beautiful daughter, Rebecca, and when they show up at the tournament, everyone notices how attractive she is, including Prince John, the younger brother of the absent King Richard.

John is duplicitous, impetuous, and temperamental. He has gathered about himself a cabal of fawning supporters to whom he doles out favors that aren’t his to give, since he isn’t the rightful sovereign. As he presides over the tournament, an unknown knight appears who refuses to give his name, except to call himself “The Disinherited Knight”. This knight displays the highest virtues of chivalry, and captures the hearts of the crowd. He chooses to joust against de Bois-Guilbert and triumphs over him, to de Bois-Guilbert’s shame and disgust.

The next day is the general battle, where two teams of fifty knights vie for supremacy. It’s a bloody contest, as Scott explains, tongue firmly in cheek:

Thus ended the memorable field of Ashby-de-la-Zouche, one of the most gallantly contested tournaments of that age; for although only four knights, including one who was smothered by the heat of his armour, had died upon the field, yet upwards of thirty were desperately wounded, four or five of whom never recovered. Several more were disabled for life; and those who escaped best carried the marks of the conflict to the grave with them. Hence it is always mentioned in the old records, as the Gentle and Joyous Passage of Arms of Ashby.

Walter Scott. Ivanhoe: A Romance (Kindle Locations 2799-2804). Standard Ebooks. Kindle Edition.

The Disinherited Knight’s team prevails, with some aid from a mysterious black knight. Prince John is furious that his team of knights have lost, but he is forced to award the laurels to the Disinherited Knight. When Rowena, who had been chosen by John as the Queen of the Tournament, comes down to place the victor’s laurels on the knight’s head, he takes off his helmet, and it’s Wilfred of Ivanhoe! He collapses due to a serious wound in his side he sustained.

So begins a rollicking adventure that has everything: dastardly villains, beautiful maidens, virtuous heroes, secret identities, lots of swordplay, humorous side-stories. Ivanhoe is even responsible for the version of Robin Hood and his Merry Band that we all know and love. It’s a really fun read that has a pitched battle to take the bad guy’s castle, unrequited love, and lots of action.

It also contains several scenes that illustrate the vicious and virulent antisemitism of medieval Europe. The moneylender Isaac and his extraordinarily beautiful daughter Rebecca are forced to hide their authentic lives, because they are members of the “accursed race”. Rebecca is a gifted healer who takes it upon herself to help Wilfred recover from the wound he sustained in the tournament. When he regains consciousness while in her care, he is first stunned by her beauty, but quickly recovers himself:

But Ivanhoe was too good a Catholic to retain the same class of feelings towards a Jewess. This Rebecca had foreseen, and for this very purpose she had hastened to mention her father’s name and lineage; yet— for the fair and wise daughter of Isaac was not without a touch of female weakness— she could not but sigh internally when the glance of respectful admiration, not altogether unmixed with tenderness, with which Ivanhoe had hitherto regarded his unknown benefactress, was exchanged at once for a manner cold, composed, and collected, and fraught with no deeper feeling than that which expressed a grateful sense of courtesy received from an unexpected quarter, and from one of an inferior race. It was not that Ivanhoe’s former carriage expressed more than that general devotional homage which youth always pays to beauty; yet it was mortifying that one word should operate as a spell to remove poor Rebecca, who could not be supposed altogether ignorant of her title to such homage, into a degraded class, to whom it could not be honourably rendered.

Walter Scott. Ivanhoe: A Romance (Kindle Locations 5584-5592). Standard Ebooks. Kindle Edition.

Scott does a fine job decrying the unreasoning prejudice and hatred Christians had towards Jews. I wonder how his sympathetic portrayal of Isaac and Rebecca was received when Ivanhoe was published.

As I reflect on the novel, it strikes me how little Ivanhoe is featured in it. Except for the tournament and the climactic scene involving the trial of Rebecca for sorcery, he is pretty much out of the picture. Most of the novel’s drama is concerned with Rebecca and Bois-Guilbert’s obsession with her. He ultimately ends up a tragic figure, willing to throw away his reputation, his position with the Templars, and his pride in the vain hope of winning her heart. A more appropriate title might be Rebecca.

Is Ivanhoe a classic? Yes, of course. Is it great literature? Here’s my hot take: no, it’s not. It’s a very entertaining read, but it doesn’t compare to anything Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, or George Eliot wrote. Sir Walter Scott was one of the most popular writers of his time, with many “bestsellers”. I would liken him to Stephen King – a much-loved author who sells boatloads of books, but will probably be barely remembered a hundred years from now (assuming people will still be reading a hundred years from now). When Scott was writing his Waverly novels, of which Ivanhoe was a part, the novel was a relatively new literary form. It took Jane Austen to point the way to its true potential, even though Pride and Prejudice was contemporaneous with Scott’s work. 

You can download an excellently formatted ebook of Ivanhoe here.

Addendum: After I finished reading Ivanhoe, I looked it up in my handy Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. In its entry for Ivanhoe, it mentioned that William Makepeace Thackeray wrote a novella, Rebecca and Rowena, that continued the tale of Ivanhoe. I checked it out, and it is very funny.

Thackeray begins with describing how incredibly boring and irritating marriage to the oh-so-pious but insanely jealous Rowena is. She can’t resist snarkily referring to Rebecca in Ivanhoe’s presence. He finally decides to join his old friend King Richard – who is portrayed as a greedy, money-hungry despot – in France as he besieges a castle to get the riches within. To Ivanhoe’s surprise, Rowena quickly agrees to his plan, and as he is leaving their estate, he sees his old rival Athelstane riding towards it.

Thackeray spoofs the superhuman exploits of Wilfred of Ivanhoe by describing how he is often killed but brought back to life by an elixir Jamba carries with him. Ivanhoe travels to Spain in the hope of finding his true love, Rebecca. He slaughters thousands of Moors as the Iberian peninsula is liberated from them, and he eventually finds Rebecca. Rowena has conveniently died while being imprisoned by King John, and Rebecca has conveniently converted to Christianity. It’s a pretty accurate parody of Scott’s style and I found it quite entertaining.

Andrew Klavan’s After That, The Dark: The Best Cameron Winter Book Yet

After That, The Dark is the fifth novel in Andrew Klavan’s Cameron Winter series, and it is the best one so far. Cameron Winter is a very interesting character who has shown more and more depth to his personality as the series has progressed. He is a former “black ops” agent who is still intensely loyal to his former commander, the Recruiter. However, the Recruiter has had to go underground, due to political pressure that has been fomented by the ultra-wealthy tech mogul, Thaddeus Blatt. For the first time, there are cracks in Winter’s unquestioning trust in the one person who gave his life meaning.

Winter is currently employed as a professor of English Romantic poetry at a small college outside of Washington, D.C., but he manages to get embroiled in various murders that seem open and shut cases until he starts asking uncomfortable questions. In After That, The Dark, the murder in question is brought up by Gwendolyn Lord, a therapist he met in the third book, The House of Love and Death. He was immediately attracted to her, but it took him quite a while to screw up the courage to ask her out. While they are on their first date, she mentions an “impossible murder” that her friend in Tulsa, OK told her about. 

Owen McKay was a loving and devoted husband who suddenly snapped and went crazy, killing his wife and year-old son. When he is arrested, he is put in a holding cell and before the jail psychiatrist can evaluate him, he is found dead, shot through the heart. No one is on video as having visited him in the cell. 

Winter’s curiosity is piqued, and he decides to fly out to Tulsa and investigate. Everyone he talks to who were involved in the case have been terrorized into silence, and he can’t get anywhere with them. Finally, the doctor who performed the autopsy agrees to meet Cameron, and he tells him that he found some kind of device with wires embedded in McKay’s brain. However, the final report has scrubbed all of his notes about it. 

When Winter returns, a very creepy tattooed man is waiting for him in his apartment and nearly kills him. He is obviously getting close to something big. Then, he reads about another murder that happened in Connecticut that has eerie similarities to murders McKay committed. When he goes up there to investigate, it’s clear the murders are connected. 

And so, Cameron Winter finds himself neck-deep in a conspiracy involving the highest levels of the federal government, an unscrupulous tech company, and an amoral venture capitalist. He’s also under constant threat from the mysterious Tat Man.

To leaven the darkness, Klavan develops the relationship between Gwendolyn and Cameron. She is a devout Christian, and he is, at best, an agnostic. And yet, he has respect for her faith, and a small gift she gives him ends up saving his life. They fall in love with each other while feeling as if they were destined to do so from the beginning of time. 

I also enjoyed Klavan’s lampooning of faculty politics. Lori Lesser is the woke administrator who has it in for Winter, because he insists on teaching only classic poetry and not including subpar literature produced by minority authors. Besides, how many people of color have written English Romantic poetry? There is a very funny scene where Cameron and Lori are meeting with the dean in his office, and Cameron has trouble focusing on Lori’s jargon-laden arguments:

What was she saying? Winter sometimes wondered as the meeting dragged on. But too late: He had lost track of it and was too distracted to catch up. It had something to do with racialism and historic injustices and the systemic metaphorical violence of favoring the poetry of John Keats over whatever blithering doggerel had been scrawled by lesser and justly forgotten versifiers of some oppressed minority or other. So he assumed, anyway, because Lori was always talking about such things, and because some of her catchphrases seemed to leap out at him as if made momentarily visible in the office air.

Klavan, Andrew. After That, the Dark (Cameron Winter Mysteries Book 5) (p. 238). Penzler Publishers. Kindle Edition.

After That, The Dark is a turning point in Winter’s development. His long-time therapist (who has a bit of a crush on him, despite being much older) realizes that his crisis is behind him, and he is becoming comfortable in his own skin. Comfortable enough to risk being vulnerable with Gwendolyn. His relationship with the Recruiter has also matured, to the point where Winter no longer carries out his directives unquestioningly. It will be fascinating to see how an fully integrated and confident Cameron Winter handles his next case!