Book Review: Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing Of The Dog)

Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing Of The Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome- This book took me a surprisingly long time to read, considering the fact that it's only 135 pages long. The thing is, pretty much every line deserved my full attention, either for the funny (and shockingly modern) anecdotes or the deautiful descriptions of the Thames.

The premise of the book is pretty simple: three men (the narrator, J., and his friends George and Harris) decide to take a vacation boating down the Thames. Oh yeah, and they also take J.'s dog, Montmorency. That's it. That's the plot.

The real fun is in the writing and the anecdotes. Jerome reminds me a lot of Wodehouse in that they both use language to make even the most everyday situations amusing. I mentioned before that the situations were shockingly modern. For instance, the book begins with the reason for the boat trip. Basically, J. and his friends are hypochondriacs, checking various medical books and pharmacutical ads to find out what horrible diseases they have:

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therin dealt with at its most virulent form.

I mean, people do the exact same thing today with online sites like WebMD, and this was published over 100 years ago!

There are so many more instances, like the incomprehensible (to J.) tendency of tourists to flock to the nearest graveyard to read interesting epitaphs, or the 34/26/23 pound trout on display at a public house that no less than four people claim to have caught. (Of course, the fish turns out to be paper mache.)

It's a pleasure just to read the chapter descriptions at the beginning:

Mrs. P arouses us.---George, the sluggard.---The "weather forecast" swindle.---Our luggage.---Depravity of the small boy.---The people gather round us.---We drive off in great style, and arrive at Waterloo.---Innocence of South Western officials concerning such worldly things as trains.---We are afloat, afloat in an open boat.

Does that not intrigue you??

Grade: A

As a sidenote, I've heard that there is an audiobook of Three Men... read by a certain Hugh Laurie. I haven't heard it myself, but I imagine it's pretty awesome.