The pumpkin

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The pumpkin , English original title The Custody of the Pumpkin , is a short story by the British-American writer PG Wodehouse from the Blandings Castle saga . The short story first appeared on November 29, 1924 in the US Saturday Evening Post and in the December issue of British magazine The Strand that year. The story with the confused Lord Emsworth as the protagonist was included in the wine house collection Herr auf Schloss Blandings in 1935 , although the narrative logic lies between A Lord in Need (first published in 1923) and Summer Castle Thunderstorm (first published in 1929).

action

Lord Emsworth stands on the corner tower of the west wing of Blandings Castle and enjoys the morning sun. He has bought a new toy - a telescope was delivered from London the day before. After Lord Emsworth has carefully looked at one of his cows through the telescope, his youngest son Freddie happens to come across his lens. Like his numerous aunts, Freddie is a constant downer in Lord Emsworth's quiet life:

“Unlike the male cod, who annually father three million five hundred thousand small cod and love them all equally, British aristocrats manage to look curiously at their younger sons. And Freddie Threepwood was one of those young sons who called for such a look. It seemed to the head of the family that he had fathered these offspring only to his constant annoyance. If he let him live alone in London, that worthlessness quickly piled up a mountain of debt, and when he brought him back to Blandings Castle, he would idle around the property, moping. Prince Hamlet must have been just as entertaining for his stepfather in Elsinore. "

Lord Emsworth lets the telescope rest on his son for a longer period of time due to the striking cheerfulness of his otherwise dejected son and he witnesses how he meets and kisses a young woman in the meadow below. Lord Emsworth has long wanted a nice and decent girl from a good family to free him from Freddie - but it is beyond his imagination that a girl who conforms to these ideas willingly meet her son in cow meadows.

Shortly afterwards, Lord Emsworth confronts his son and he confesses that the kissed Niagara "Aggie" is Donaldson. She is from the United States and spends some time on her European tour with Angus Mcallister, a distant cousin of her and also the chief gardener at Blandings Castle. Lord Emsworth had had a lot of unpleasant thoughts about his son's future, but it had never occurred to him that one day he might walk down the aisle at the side of a woman who was a relative of his chief gardener.

Shortly afterwards, Lord Emsworth confronts his head gardener and demands that he send the girl back. He refuses - Aggie pays him two pounds a week for accommodation. Lord Emsworth then gives his gardener a choice: Either he sends the girl away or he has to quit his job. McAllister, however, is a proud Scot, a man who has always remembered the Battle of Bannockburn and who is aware that he is a descendant of the land of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce . He quits the service.

As soon as McAllister has quit his job, Lord Emsworth realizes the decisive consequences this has for him - who would look after the pumpkin now?

“The importance of the pumpkin to Lord Emsworth may need some explanation. Every old noble family has a slight void here and there in the history of their fame, and Lord Emsworth's family was no exception. For generations his ancestors had done remarkable things. They had sent statesmen and warriors, governors and popular leaders into the world, but no matter how great the family success story sounded, the sad fact was that no Earl of Emsworth had ever won first prize for pumpkin growing at the Shrewsbury Agricultural Show. For roses, yes. Also for tulips. But not for pumpkins. Lord Emsworth suffered greatly from this. "

Robert Barker, the second gardener at Blandings Castle, is entrusted with the care of the pumpkin, with which Lord Emsworth aims to win first prize for pumpkin cultivation this year after his neighbor, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe won the competition three years in a row . After a week Lord Emsworth longs for Mcallister back - the pumpkin seems to be losing weight and Lord Emsworth cannot deny the terrible thought that it might even shrink. This thought haunts him into his dreams: in a nightmare he leads the English King George to his pumpkin, promises him the sight of his life and when they stand in front of the pumpkin, it has shrunk to the size of a pea.

Butler Beach is able to secure the new London address of Angus McAllister for Lord Emsworth. The telegraphic request to return to Blandings Castle immediately, however, is answered by the proud Mcallister with a sharp I don't think about it . Inevitably, Lord Emsworth goes to London, which he hates with its dirt and noise, to find a new head gardener there. However, none of the agencies can provide Lord Emsworth with a man who comes close to the qualities of an Angus Mcallister. After three days of unsuccessful interviewing potential candidates, Lord Emsworth learns that his son is about to run away with Aggie Donaldson. Lord Emsworth seeks consolation in Kensington Gardens , where he falls into such trance-like ecstasy in front of a tulip bed that he plucks two tulips. Neither the park attendant nor a rushed policeman are willing to accept the bad old man with his shabby tweed clothes and battered hat as Lord Emsworth. A crowd of people forms, enjoying the argument between Lord Emsworth, the parking attendant and the policeman - at that moment McAllister happens to pass by, for whom Kensington Gardens is no less a place of refuge than for his former employer. He confirms that the shabbily dressed man is Lord Emsworth. Accompanied by Angus Mcallister, the man introduces himself to Lord Emsworth as Donaldson, father of the young woman Freddie just ran away with. Unlike Lord Emsworth, Donaldson is happy for the young couple. Lord Emsworth's concern that he will have to feed Freddie's wife to another destitute person can also be eliminated by Donaldson. Donaldson is a successful dog biscuit manufacturer in the United States and plans to employ Freddie in his company. Lord Emsworth cannot imagine any activity in such a dog biscuit company apart from the role of a food taster for Freddie, but he is relieved that this means that Freddie will in the future live three thousand miles away from Blandings Castle. In his happy exuberance, Lord Emsworth manages to get McAllister to return. Reconciled by doubling his salary, he will take care of the pumpkin again.

Shortly afterwards, Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe congratulates Lord Emsworth on winning the first prize for pumpkin cultivation, while Lord Emsworth stands lost in thought in front of the large box in which the pumpkin lies.

watch TV

The short story was adapted for television twice by the BBC . The pumpkin was seen for the first time as part of a wodehouse series in 1967 as the second of a total of six half-hour episodes. Ralph Richardson played Butler Beach in this episode, Lord Emsworth and Stanley Holloway .

The second television adaptation is from 2014 when the BBC aired a Blandines series. In this, Timothy Spall played Lord Emsworth, Robert Bathurst was seen in the role of Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe and Time Vine played Butler Beach.

Trivia

  • Lord Emsworth's passion for pumpkins, with which he seeks success at the Shrewsbury Agricultural Show, is soon replaced by a passion for Berkshire pigs . The Empress von Blandings , who is looked after by a changing team of swinekeepers and who are no less spirited than the Scottish chief gardener Mcallister, becomes the favorite pig. Lord Emsworth's opponent remains Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, who also discovered this passion for himself. Together with his younger brother, the Honorable Galahad Threepwood, Lord Emsworth suspects many sinister machinations in novels like Summer Castle Thunderstorm and Pig or Not Pig , while Lady Constance is always trying to establish a friendly and friendly relationship with Sir Gregory.
  • In the following stories, Freddie Threepwood develops into a valuable marketing expert for dog biscuits and tries to make dog biscuits popular in Great Britain in the novel Full Moon about Blandings Castle .

expenditure

  • Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (1935)
    • Herr auf Schloss Blandings, Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-442-03418-3 . Translation by Annemarie Arnold-Kubina.

literature

  • Frances Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography . London 1982, ISBN 0-297-78105-7 .
  • Richard Usborne: Plum Sauce. A PG Wodehouse Companion. Overlook, Woodstock / NY 2003, ISBN 1-58567-441-9 .

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ PG Wodehouse: The pumpkin in Lord at Blandings Castle, p. 8. Translated by Annemarie Arnold-Kubina.
  2. ↑ PG Wodehouse: The Custody of the Pumpkin in The World of Blandings (anthology), p. 270.
  3. ↑ PG Wodehouse: The pumpkin in Lord at Blandings Castle, p. 12. Translated by Annemarie Arnold-Kubina.
  4. ↑ PG Wodehouse: The Custody of the Pumpkin in The World of Blandings (anthology), p. 272.
  5. ↑ PG Wodehouse: The Custody of the Pumpkin in The World of Blandings (anthology), p. 284.