[Wodehouse's last work, the posthumous] Sunset at Blandings, is actually only the preliminary typescript of the first 16 chapters (out of a planned 22), with the author's somewhat contradictory plans for ending and revising the work, plus notes and appendixes by Richard Usborne.
The material of the novel will be familiar to readers of previous episodes of the Blandings "saga" (altogether, 12 novels and 10 short stories). A young woman is shipped off to the security of Blandings to keep her from a poor suitor who arrives under an assumed name (elsewhere we are told that Blandings Castle has impostors the way other houses have mice); confusions, thefts, and discoveries ensue until finally love triumphs. Wodehouse has produced magic from this formula before, but not here. The writing lacks the sparkle and stylistic fullness of earlier volumes in which, according to Evelyn Waugh, are found "on average three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes to each page."
This is a free excerpt of 156 words. There are 820 words (approx.
3 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Wodehouse, (Sir) P(elham) G(renville) 1881–1974: Critical Essay by C. David Benson Access Pass.
