This book puts me in mind of the time my friends and I decided it would be a great idea to go to my mother's house in the Poconos during spring break.It was back in the late nineteen-hundreds, and we were a college cadre of Dungeons & Dragons players who had a great campaign going. "Spontaneous Combustion" we called ourselves, because of our habit of blowing things up at any opportunity. Not a weekend would go by that we didn't burn, destroy, incinerate or otherwise defile something in our imaginary world. But we were exhausted from the rigors of trying to balance our school life with our raping and pillaging. I say "raping" because it really belongs there with "pillaging," though to my knowledge there was no raping of anyone. Dismemberment, yes, and I believe my character managed to give a lot of people syphilis, but in a rather unconventional way.The plan was simple: we'd all go down to the house in the mountains for a few days, have marathon D&D sessions, and generally enjoy each others' company in quiet isolation from the world. The house was an idyllic place - all trees and silence and snow, with the occasional deer or wild turkey. It would be a truly beautiful and serene place for us to rest our wearied bodies and stretch our wild imaginations.So, much like Jerome K. Jerome and his companions, Harris, George and, of course, Montmorency, who decide in this book that the best tonic for their youthful ennui would be a boating trip up the Thames, we all headed to the mountains of Pennsylvania to soothe our troubled souls and to bond as friends and boon companions.Also like Jerome, Harris and George (to say nothing of Montmorency), we had no idea what we were really getting ourselves into.The three men (and the dog) of Jerome K. Jerome's story are like most travelers throughout time since the idea of traveling for leisure was invented: they have a Plan. The Plan, of course, is to have a good time with one's friends while avoiding anything resembling work. Unfortunately, the world will often have other plans. In the case of this book, those plans involved angry swans, annoying lovers, unusually busy inns, bad weather and general vehicular mishaps.Now that I think on it, though, the trouble they had with their boat - and there was trouble - wasn't quite as bad as the trouble I had with my car on our way to the role-playing retreat. Thanks to a strategically placed pothole, I managed to blow out both passenger side tires on my car. Not all at once, though. The rear one went flat right away, causing the small caravan to stop on the side of a New Scotland road while I panicked and my friend Jon fixed the tire. I would have done it myself, of course, but this was the first Misfortune to befall my beloved car - whose name, for reasons too complicated to go into here, was Phoenix - so it fell to Jon to do it. The rest of our crew were milling about patiently, except for Jim, who was lighting road flares so that anyone who happened to be driving down the sunlit, arrow-straight, bone-dry stretch of road might not kill us all.The second flat tire occurred in a small town, the name of which I have forgotten. Or blocked out. There had been a slow leak, and I was on my way out of the liquor store (we had to buy liquor, there was no question of that, though whose idea it was to buy the Jeroboam of red wine escapes me) and Jon says, "Don't get angry.""Why would I get angry, Jon?" I replied, doing a passable imitation of HAL from 2001.It turned out that the other passenger side tire had gone flat while we were shopping. This left us in a small town on the outskirts of Nowhere, at 8 PM on a Friday night in need of a tire. By some miracle, the AAA man we called knew someone who could sell us a tire so we could get on our way. The man, who turned out to bear a remarkable resemblance to Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein, was happy to sell it to us, though he wouldn't actually put it on the car. Possibly because he wanted to save us money by not charging us for the labor, or possibly because my car - adorned with a variety of bumper-stickers and interesting rear-view amulets - looked like it belonged to an angry gay druid. Whatever his reasons, we got a new tire on the car and were grateful for his help.In discussing any trip, of course, one must eventually come to the weather. For Jerome and his friends it was the rain that defied their best efforts to stay dry and forced them to find lodgings in towns were places to sleep were already scarce. For us, it was snow.Snow is common in the mountains through early spring, but we were prepared for that. Mom had called the plow service and assured us that the driveway would be clear when we got there. When we arrived (having first worked out the Problem of the Mismarked Map), we found that the driveway had not, in fact, been plowed and the snow came up to mid-thigh. We parked on the street, slogged through the snow and went to open the door. When the key wouldn't turn on the second lock, I pretty much gave up and just wandered around the snow saying, "She only gave me one key," over and over again until someone managed to get the door open. After about twelve hours of cataclysmic travel, we were There. We had arrived! Our objective was obtained and our journey was done! We could finally unwind and relax.One of the difficulties that we shared with Jerome and company was with food. They packed well enough, of course, with all kinds of comestibles, but like all people who are not used to preparing and procuring their own food, the comedy that resulted was plentiful. Beef without mustard, infinitely peelable potatoes, strange and unfathomable stews - any traveler who goes on a journey without having some kind of food misadventure has missed half the fun.For us, it was steak. Get a group of men together and their appetites will turn to meat. Oh sure, there might be a few green, hippie, godless Commie men out there who lean towards tofu, but they're really thinking of meat, no matter what they say.We had bought some steaks - the best our college-student budgets could handle. But how to cook them? For in every group of meat-loving men, everyone is a meat expert. It's a mark of True Masculinity, the ability to cook a steak, and the insinuation that one cannot cook a steak is tantamount to calling the man a queer sissy fairy-boy.What resulted from this battle of culinary wills was a dinner that consisted, mainly, of shoe leather, with everyone holding grudges against everyone else for Not Doing It Right. This was about the same time I learned firsthand why one should never chug blackberry brandy.The myriad of problems that people have when traveling are, unfortunately, universal. Poor planning, bad luck, nasty locals, bad weather, pigheadedness and the unfortunate tendency of the world not to live up to our expectations of it - all of these conspire to make travel an endurance trial. What surprised me the most about this book was how similar Jerome K. Jerome's troubles had been to my own.As bad as things can be at the time, though, there comes a time, afterward, when you can look back and laugh. Safe at home, Jerome took his eventful, awful trip up the Thames and made it into an incredibly funny classic of English literature. The fact that the book is over a hundred years old doesn't take away at all from its comedy value because the humor comes from the universal nature of travelers and traveling. We all go on our journeys hoping for a relaxed, congenial time, but we tell stories about the mishaps, misadventures and difficulties. They are, paradoxically, the most fun part of the trip.So I laughed along with Jerome and his friends, remembering all the while the infighting, bad food, bad moods, burnt countertops, spiked spaghetti sauce and everything else that made that one Spring Break trip so terribly, terribly memorable.Although, all things being equal, I would have been just as happy if we'd had... y'know, a good time.
The ridiculously short review - Three hypochondriacs - JKJ, George and Harris - (and their dog, Montmorency) decide to go on a boating holiday on the Thames in order to recuperate from all the maladies in the world that, they firmly decide, have manifested in them. Hilarity ensues.The "slightly" longer review - This gem of a book is laugh-out loud from start to finish. JKJ reminds you of P.G Wodehouse a bit, in his style of writing (I know JKJ was before Wodehouse, but I read the latter's works first) though, somehow, I found JKJ's style more easy to read than Wodehouse's. It is simple, direct and the humour is just as relevant and witty even today.The book is generously peppered with witty anecdotes, hilarious observances and even the occasional sombre moments. JKJ, I felt, is at his best when he is recounting something that happened in the past, or explaining a hypothetical situation, rather than when he's recounting what's happening in the current trip or going all poetic while describing Mother Nature.Some of the parts that I nearly choked while laughing were - * When JKJ explains what putting up a tent in rainy weather entails. * The time Uncle Podger decided to hang a picture frame on the wall.* The time they used an oil-stove to cook food.* The time he decided to carry some cheese home for a friend.* The time Harris and he got lost in the maze at Hampton Courts.* When he explains, just how exactly, tow-lines are a health hazard.* The time he always ran into the same couple getting cosy, no matter where he went.* "Harris and the Swans, a remarkable story"I'll finish with a few quotes from the book - if that shouldn't make one read the book then I dont know what will!That's Harris all over - so ready to take the burden of everything himself, and put it on the backs of other people.Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.Montmorency's ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at.I do think that, of all the silly, irritating tomfoolishness by which we are plagued, this "weather-forecast" fraud is about the most aggravating. It "forecasts" precisely what happened yesterday or a the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is going to happen to-day. But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.The barometer is useless: it is as misleading as the newspaper forecast. There was one hanging up in a hotel at Oxford at which I was staying last spring, and, when I got there, it was pointing to "set fair." It was simply pouring with rain outside, and had been all day; and I couldn't quite make matters out. I tapped the barometer, and it jumped up and pointed to "very dry." tI tapped it again the next morning, and it went up still higher, and the rain came down faster than ever. On Wednesday I went and hit it again, and the pointer went round towards "set fair," "very dry," and "much heat," until it was stopped by the peg, and couldn't go any further. It tried its best, but the instrument was built so that it couldn't prophesy fine weather any harder than it did without breaking itself. It evidently wanted to go on, and prognosticate drought, and water famine, and sunstroke, and simooms, and such things, but the peg prevented it, and it had to be content with pointing to the mere commonplace "very dry."[On George's new hat] - George put it on, and asked us what we thought of it. Harris said that, as an object to hang over a flower-bed in early spring to frighten the birds away, he should respect it; but that, considered as an article of dress for any human being, it made him ill.I asked my cousin if she thought it could be a dream, and she replied that she was just about to ask me the same question; and then we both wondered if we were both asleep, and if so, who was the real one that was dreaming, and who was the one that was only a dream; it got quite interesting.People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained.We had knocked those three old gentlemen off their chairs into a general heap at the bottom of the boat, and they were now slowly and painfully sorting themselves out from each other, and picking fish off themselves; and as they worked, they cursed us - not with a common cursory curse, but with long, carefully-thought-out, comprehensive curses, that embraced the whole of our career, and went away into the distant future, and included all our relations, and covered everything connected with us - good, substantial curses.I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.We went into the parlour and sat down. There was an old fellow there, smoking a long clay pipe, and we naturally began chatting. He told us that it had been a fine day to-day, and we told him that it had been a fine day yesterday, and then we all told each other that we thought it would be a fine day to-morrow.
What do You think about Three Men In A Boat (1994)?
We had what we thought was a delightful tenant once. She was older, she drove a minivan, and she recycled. She liked organic things and wanted us to call her Nana. And we did, because we thought it was sweet and a nice thing to do for a tenant who was paying over a few hundred dollars to live in our guest house. But Nana had no sense of humor. None. At. All. And we didn't know this because it didn't show up on her criminal background check or on her credit score range information. We didn't know it until sweet Nana told us that she wouldn't allow any pest control to spray the guest house, that she would take care of it with orange oil and other friendly ways to get rid of insects, like saying "shoo!" and "Get along now, little creature." And we let Nana do this. We smiled at it. And the day that she came to me looking suspicious with a can of insect spray and told me that she had sprayed because she had seen a black widow somewhere and that she just had to pull out the big guns because she was old and had been bitten once before I just smiled and waggled my finger towards her and winked, saying "You heathen, you!" But Nana didn't like that. She had no humor. She thought I was really calling her a heathen, a pagan, a cannibal that ran around spraying chemicals at all God's creatures willy nilly, devil may care. And so Nana had to go. Jerome K. Jerome could write loads about Nana. And, if he wasn't dead, I would have read them. But, as it is, I read his three men in a boat and had almost as much fun. But this book is not for the Nanas of the world. This book is for anyone who likes humor. Really, anyone can like it. You can even eat organic and read it. It's delightful, and not hard on the eyes. If you have to leave Jerome for a bit, you can still come back and read and laugh some more; he's really forgiving. Being British and boating up the Thames isn't even what I would normally consider laughter inducing, but I think Jerome K. Jerome can pull it off because he had lots of practice working with humor (I imagine many a schoolboy teased him about his name and perhaps that explains his mastery).
—Jen
This book is a strange mix. Part of it is of a particular kind of obvious humour. Sort of like watching a very pompous-looking person talking loudly into their cell-phone and paying no attention to where they are going and therefore fails to notice the banana skin everyone else has been avoiding. Bamm, down she goes, and hahaha, its just so funny, you have to laugh. There are also amusing incidents with the fox terrier Montmorency, whose chief pleasures in life seem to be fighting and hanging out with packs of street dogs. One gets the impression that JKJ wouldn't at all mind being reincarnated as an immoral, street-fighting, anarchic dog in the care of very liberal and approving owners. The book is full of side-stories, none of them particularly interesting and some of them absolutely dire. Near the end was a highly-romanticised account of a woman with an illegitimate baby committing suicide by drowning. How the waters lovingly embraced her and gave her peace. That's what's wrong with this book. Highly amusing incidents intermixed with purple prose, a travelogue of some of England's most boring towns, and whatever struck the author as (I want to say interesting, but I don't believe it really) something that would fill in the narrative and be 'educational'. A good editor could cut this to a really wonderful funny book only about a third-long. In this case the abridged version would be a hell of a lot better than the original and I would have given it more than 3-stars.So humour - 5 starsTravelogue and lyrical pieces - 1 starMontmorency - 3 stars Av. 3 stars.
—Petra X
Laurel, I loved your review too! It really was a wonderfully funny little novel, and one that I shall delight in passing around. I hope you are doing well, my friend, and that you are well into your next novel! Please do stay in touch! Cheers! Chris
—Laurel Hicks
