What do You think about Bachelors Anonymous (1988)?
At 92, author still surprises, pulls switcheroos, pops happy endings. For near a century, valet Jeeves smartly kept Wooster single. Antics still inspire silly slapstick 2014 TV Blandings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWkcz8... (Some videos "not available in your country") . Warm honeymoon first-love feelings are like spring to winter. Joe, lawyer on two-week vacation to put on his play, cauliflower ear and flat nose from boxing, is more than pretty fribble. Three times the charm, he bumps into pretty Sally "on the previous night he had fallen in love at what virtually amounted to first sight, and this naturally disturbed his mind and affected his steering" p 48. Equally smitten, Sally will inherit fortune £25K in two years if no smoking. PI Daphne Dolby will be watching onside, paid by Anti-Tobacco League who want the boodle. Years ago, Sally declined Sir Jaklyn Warner, whose "rent collector was prepared to accept the charm of manner and glibness of speech as a substitute for cash" p 79. Now Jak is engaged to Daphne, but proposes again to Sally, pretending not to know about inheritance. Daphne has open eyes to greedy fiancé.(view spoiler)[Daphne coerces Jak to registry office with bruiser operative looking forward to witness role. "Jaklyn did not spoil his treat" p 139. Daphne leaves her cigarette case behind, returns to catch Sally mid-puff. Ivor, happy to be kept single, pays Joe £25K for play to make Hollywood film."As a child of eight" mistletoe kiss banks "forty years passion .. like water in a dam" p 168. Trout transported by Cupid. Motherly widow Amelia Bingham "comfortable .. she radiated an atmosphere of coziness" p 162, recognizes American says "mailman instead of postman" p 164. Trout apologizes for Plan B, dosing Joe with Mickey Finn knockout drops to miss his date with Sally. Amelia will be a Trout; Sally will be a Pickering. (hide spoiler)]
—An Odd1
Love quadrangle (or more) amuses in silly Wodehouse farce!PGW's books rarely fail to amuse and entertain, and certainly "Bachelors" is no exception. Big-time Hollywood producer Ivor Llewellyn, a five-time divorcee (due to a compulsion to propose over dinner) is off to London where his California divorce lawyer, Ephraim Trout, fears he might fall to the wiles of yet another woman. Trout belongs to "B.A.", patterned after AA, which helps men prevent getting married off. He suggests Llewellyn look up a lawyer while in England to help fill the gap. Sure enough, Llewellyn hires Joe Pickering, a young attorney and fledgling playwright, who has just been smitten by a fledgling reporter, Sally Fitch. Meanwhile, Trout decides to come to London himself in case the "big gun" is needed, and, while interfering in the budding Fitch/Pickering romance, falls for a "comfortable" neighbor lady, Amelia Bingham. Llewellyn spends the whole time avoiding being trapped by Vera Dalrymple, star of Pickering's now closed first play. There's a few more players in this comical farce, but you get the drift... And will they all live happily ever after ?!?! As with his Bertie and Jeeves books, Wodehouse's storyline is little more than an excuse to parade his silly characters and their antics, revealing all too common human foibles at which we can share a low-cost laugh or two. His short novels tend to fly by, with rarely a serious thought or puzzling intrigue to slow us down, just sheer frivolity for a couple of hours. Reading with a smile all the while - this is a good thing, right?
—Jerry
Wodehouse first introduced us to movie mogul Ikey Llewellyn in ‘The Luck of the Bodkins’ smuggling some jewels for his wife Grayce and again in ‘Pears, Girls and Monty Bodkin’. In both these he is a bit player supporting the hapless Monty Bodkin but here he moves up to be the second name on the bill, top billing going to Joe Pickering. Ikey has recently being divorced by fifth wife Grayce and is concerned that due to his inability to talk of other matters that he will shortly be proposing again and due to his animal magnetism whoever his dinner date is will, of course, accept. His lawyer, Ephraim Trout, despite being grateful to the fees Ikey’s divorces pull in suggests he join ‘Bachelors Anonymous’. As Trout explained ‘It was Alcoholics Anonymous that gave the founding fathers the idea, our methods are frankly borrowed from theirs. When one of us feel the urge to take a woman out to dinner becoming to strong for him, he seeks out the other members of the circle and tells them of his craving, and they reason with him’. Difficulties arise when Ikey travels to England as their is no chapter of Bachelors Anonymous their so Trout suggests a level headed solicitor, Joe Pickering, to deputise for them. When Trout discovers that Joe is engaged and very much a fan of the opposite sex even to the point of donning morning coat and spongebag trousers he travels to England to take charge.So Wodehouse has his work cut out to bring a universally happy ending with all the bachelors suitably paired off, can even Trout discover love?Not the greatest Wodehouse novel but still manages to bring some joy to a couple of rainy hours.
—Ian Wood
