I would give this 4.5 stars if I could. This "Uncle Fred" story was nearly as good as the best of the Wooster & Jeeves books, but not quite. There were some elements that made this a notch above many of Wodehouse's other non-Jeeves stories. There were some very funny running literary jokes throughout, such as the repeated reference to various things happening in a manner resembling the US Marines arriving just in the nick of time to rescue someone from a sticky situation and the repeated referral to Roget (of Thesaurus fame) to further flesh-out the fullness, richness, completeness, and varied aspects of someone's feelings or the significance, import, implication, meaning, or impact of a particularly key plot point. It is also fun to see some of the characters from the Jeeves & Wooster as well as the Blandings stories from another angle (such as Pongo Twistleton and Sir Rodderick Glossop). To me the story didn't quite seem even in its quality all the way through, but the many times when it reached its height, it was all the way up. I love laughing out loud when I read, and I certainly did in this book. I give five stars to any book that can do that!“Except that her ears did not stick up and that she went about on two legs instead of four, Phoebe Wisdom was extraordinarily like a white rabbit, a resemblance which was heightened at the moment by the white dressing jacket she was wearing and the fact that much weeping had made her nose and eyes pink...”“It was at this moment that the door opened again and Mrs. Phoebe Wisdom pottered in, looking so like a white rabbit that the first impulse of any lover of animals would have been to offer her a lettuce ...”“Phoebe was still fluttering. The way the tip of her nose wiggled showed how greatly the story had affected her...”
What do You think about Cocktail Time (1958)?
One is at a loss for words to describe the joy which is reading Wodehouse, and so am I.
—babutunk
Another typically excellent book from the master, laughs aplenty from start to finish.
—23imprinted
The first of Wodehouse's Uncle Fred novels. Several laugh out loud moments.
—lalalalala
