Review: Uncle Dynamite

Uncle Dynamite by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite references to the atom bomb and Eric Johnston (president of the MPAA at the time of original publication, 1948), this is clearly set in Wodehouse's eternal interwar period for all practical purposes, and the characters have not noticeably aged from their pre-war appearances. In fact, it remixes so much of his classic material that any Wodehouse fan will recognize most of the elements immediately. There's an uncle, to start with (Uncle Fred/Lord Ickenham), one of Plum's genial, eccentric old buffers who ought not to be let out without a keeper; an ill-tempered retired British civil servant; a determined, managing young woman, daughter of the civil servant, to whom a hopeless poop (Lord Ickenham's nephew Pongo Twistleton) is engaged; a bright young thing, to whom the hopeless poop ought to be engaged; a large Man of Action type, to whom the managing young woman ought to be engaged; a ponderously interfering policeman; a country house; a Maguffin which ought, by all principles of natural justice but against the actual letter of the law, to be stolen from said country house; and a complicated plan to do so that involves people impersonating other people and sneaking about at night, and that is foiled by one of the many coincidences which abound in the plot (most of them aimed at getting the cast together in one place).

Is this a criticism? No, it's not, because as Wodehouse fans we love these elements, and will read them over and over in fresh combinations, all the while distracted by the sparkling of the language.

One element that I don't remember seeing before is the sympathetic treatment of a middle-aged woman, the wife of the grumpy retired civil servant and mother of the managing young woman. She looks like a horse, but that's not her fault, and she personally regrets it; she makes up in good-heartedness for the failings of her spouse, which she puts up with out of devotion to him. There's also a housemaid who has a lot more personality than most of the female servants in Wodehouse, who usually have few and basic lines and act like frightened poultry when they're not simply furniture. This one rises to the level of a character, and a determined, intelligent and effective character at that, despite her Cockney origins, gender, and occupation, which don't normally get such positive treatment in the master's earlier work. He appears to have been quietly progressing in some ways; perhaps his experience of being interned during World War II played a role.

The other shift I noticed from his pre-war work is that, for Plum, this has its risqué moments. There are several references to Lord Ickenham's grandfather's collection of nude statues of Venus, and a young woman gets her dress accidentally torn off while escaping a policeman. The actual relationships are just as pure as always, though.

Though Wodehouse had been involved in controversy because of his wartime (non-political) broadcast from Germany while interned there, and had suffered some loss of popularity as a result, he still had plenty of dedicated fans, and perhaps he didn't want to risk alienating those he had left by too much of a departure from his classic style. In any case, his classic style is what this is in, and if you enjoy Wodehouse it will be pleasantly familiar.

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