Monty Bodkin

Who they are

Monty Bodkin is an amiable young man with money who nevertheless needs employment because Gertrude Butterwick makes it a condition of marriage. He first appears in Heavy Weather in 1933, amid the Blandings household’s larger commotion. The job problem gives Wodehouse a comic lever: Monty is not driven by poverty, but by the wish to satisfy a person whose approval matters to him. A well-intentioned attempt to appear useful can lead him toward exactly the sort of complicated assignment that exposes his unsuitability for ordinary work.

He subsequently moves into a different setting in The Luck of the Bodkins, whose shipboard and Hollywood company makes him feel less like a Blandings visitor and more like the centre of his own sequence. Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin returns to his romantic and employment predicament much later. The American title The Plot That Thickened identifies an edition of that novel, not a separate fourth Monty adventure. The book pages are careful about those regional and chronological distinctions.

Personality and relationships

Gertrude’s standard for a prospective husband creates the recurring emotional pressure. Monty may have enough money to live without a post, but that fact does not answer what she asks of him. Ivor Llewellyn and the film-world company complicate the job hunt in The Luck of the Bodkins. His good nature is genuine, but it does not automatically confer useful professional skills. Wodehouse can make the practical obstacle absurd while allowing the wish to marry to remain a serious motivation within the comedy.

The Blandings connection in Heavy Weather is a crossing of reading routes. Galahad’s memoir, the Empress and the castle family have their own stakes, and Monty’s presence does not turn the whole book into a preliminary chapter of the later Hollywood plot. A reader who starts with The Luck of the Bodkins can understand Monty’s predicament; a completist may enjoy seeing the character in the wider cast first. These are two legitimate routes through the same original book records.

Best books and memorable moments

For a concise Monty route, read Heavy Weather, The Luck of the Bodkins and Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin in publication order. The first is an ensemble Blandings novel, the next gives him a stronger central part, and the last revisits the man after many other Wodehouse books had appeared. If the Blandings world is unfamiliar, Something Fresh or Summer Lightning can introduce its household first, but neither is a required Monty installment. The linked guides give edition notes and buy/listen options only where verified.

A named screen portrayal of Monty is left uncredited here until a production and cast record are checked. It would be easy to confuse an actor in a general Blandings adaptation with a performer of every character in a specific novel. The books give a surer trail: an affable man repeatedly discovering how much effort it can take to prove that one is willing to work.

On screen

No screen performer is assigned to Monty Bodkin without a verified production and role credit. Cast and production record. Compare Wodehouse screen, stage and radio versions.