Title: Full Moon
Genre: Humorous Fiction
Author: P. G. Wodehouse
Full Moon is the seventh book in the Blandings series. Originally published in 1947 it was re-issued in 2008, and its timeless, so don’t worry.
It is about the intertwining, matchmaking, thwarting and scheming surrounding two eminently marriageable debutantes and their socially ambitious mothers, and its all set against the glorious backdrop of Blandings Castle. On the one hand you have the delectably beautiful but incredibly thick Lady Veronica Wedge, whom her parents, lady Hermione Wedge and colonel Wedge, are desperate to get married off to American millionaires son, Tipton Plimsoll, heir to Tipton Stores. And on the other hand you’ve got Prudence Garland, daughter of Lady Dora Garland, and, although a tad less beautiful than Veronica, she is still quite alluring enough in her own way to justify her ardent admirer, Bill Lister, or “Blister” to his friends, in addressing her as “Dream Rabbit”. Problem is that Blister is a common publican of the lower orders so Lady Dora will go to great lengths to stop him wedding the dream rabbit
So Wodehouse sets us up for a classic English farce involving fake beards, kidnappings, pigs in bedrooms, even pigs having their portraits painted, and all the while, in the background, absent-mindedly pottering around, is Wodehouse’s great comic creation, Clarence the Earl of Emsworth. To describe him as vague and forgetful – except when it comes to the subject of his prize pig “The Empress” – would be to make an understatement of epic proportions. Here is Lady Hermione trying to tell him of the engagement of his niece Lady Veronica Wedge to the millionaires son Plimsoll Tipton:
“They are engaged, Clarence.”
“Eh?”
“They are engaged.”
“Ah,” said Lord Emsworth, becoming interested in a plate of cucumber sandwiches. “Sandwiches, eh? Sandwiches, sandwiches. Sandwiches,” he added, taking one.
“They are engaged,” said Lady Hermione, raising her voice.
“Who?”
“Veronica and dear Tipton.”
“Who is dear Tipton?”
‘“Dear Tipton,”’ explained Gally (Lord Emsworth’s brother), “is Hermione’s nickname for young Plimsoll.”
“Plimsoll? Plimsoll? Plimsoll? Oh, Plimsoll? I remember him,” said Lord Emsworth, pleased at his quick intelligence. “You mean the young man with those extraordinary spectacles. What about him?”
“I am trying to tell you,” said Lady Hermione patiently, “that he and Veronica are engaged.”
“God bless my soul,” said Lord Emsworth, a look of startled concern coming into his face. “I didn’t know these sandwiches were cucumber. I thought they were potted meat. I would never have eaten one if I had known they were cucumber.”
“Oh, Clarence!”
Priceless. Recommended unconditionally.
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