Review: Full Moon

Full Moon by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Written in 1947, after Wodehouse's experience of being interned by the Nazis (he was living in France when it was taken over). And yet, it sparkles with all the joy of the interwar period in which it is implicitly set, like all classic Wodehouse. The only difference I can see is that the pre-war Wodehouse probably wouldn't have mentioned a character's brassiere.

Like every Blandings Castle novel, it features imposture, but in this case takes it to an extreme; Bill, the disapproved suitor of one of Lord Emsworth's nieces, comes to the castle three times under three different identities, only one of which has any form of disguise (an enormous false beard that makes him look like an Assyrian king), and all three identities talk to Lord Emsworth, but that woolen-headed peer has so poor a memory for faces that he doesn't twig that both of the artists he employs to paint his pig's portrait are actually the same person. His far more intelligent (and less moral) brother Galahad assures the young man that he can rely on Lord Emsworth's vagueness, and so it proves.

It looks for a while there as if Freddie Threepwood, Lord Emsworth's younger son, who is now a go-getting salesman for his American father-in-law's dog biscuit empire, is going to end up as the person who inevitably but reluctantly funds the deserving young couple of the moment, but this departure from the classic formula (in which the older generation, or the undeserving, do this kind of funding) is averted at the last minute through Gally's complicated manipulation of everyone in sight.

We get to meet some new members of the Threepwood clan, including the Wedges: Lady Hermione (Lord Emsworth's sister, who unfortunately looks like a cook), Colonel Egbert, and their daughter Veronica, whose outstanding qualities are a lack of intelligence and extraordinary beauty, plus a love of jewellery. It looks like Freddie's friend Tipton, a wealthy American, will be able to ignore the lack of intelligence for the sake of the beauty and supply the jewellery in bulk, but the course of true love runs very rough indeed for a while, not only for them but also for Freddie's other cousin Prue and her artist fiancé Bill.

The ups and downs and complications and farcical impostures, misunderstandings and assorted maneuverings, and the witty prose, scattered with a mixture of quotations from classic English literature and slang, are all well up to the classic Wodehouse standard. A strong entry in a delightful series.

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