Book Review - Three Men In A Boat and Three Men On A Bummel

[redfiona99]

Many, many moons ago, the Three Men In A Boat chapter about the cheese was in an anthology of funny books for kids. Thus encouraged, I listened to an audio version with Hugh Laurie, but I was most distressed to find that it had been abridged.

I was at home for fencing, and looking for something to read. Cue me at 1 am, having to bite my lip and cover my face with a pillow to stop me waking the house up because I was laughing so hard (it was the bit about Uncle Podger).

So I went to buy Three Men In A Boat and I got the Oxford World Classics version that also included Three Men On A Bummel.



There is a reason this is a classic. It's not just that it's hilarious, although it is. It's the way that you know people like George, Harris and J, and everyone's had disasters just like theirs.

The other interesting thing is that you don't feel like you're reading something set more than a hundred years ago. It's just the occasional mention of things like steam launches that make you remember it.

The thing that got me was the bit where J describes sailing as being the closest humans can get to flying and I was suddenly frantic about the idea that he never got to fly. So I raced to the intro and checked that Jerome K Jerome lived long enough to see passenger flights so I can at least hope he went on one.

This is awesome.




I can see why Jerome didn't write a lot of the more descriptive passages that were found in Three Men In A Boat in this, it left more room for commentary on the people they meet on their journey and getting permission to go on it in the first place, but I did miss them a bit. Mostly I would have liked to have known what Dresden looked like, because I could follow their journey round Berlin and Prague, but Dresden's changed so much that I didn't have a hope.

I also loved the bits about the German language and the teaching of foreign languages in England.

And, on a personal note, I can vouch for the fact that if you're out with a bunch of Germans they will do their damnedest to see you home.




Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome
The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
To Say Nothing of the Dog; or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last by Connie Willis
Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by P. G. Wodehouse
Uncle Fred in the Springtime by P. G. Wodehouse
Impossible Things by Connie Willis
Something Fresh by P. G. Wodehouse
The Mating Season by P. G. Wodehouse
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Bellwether by Connie Willis


Lots of Wodehouse and Connie Willis.



My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult (expected 21.7, found 0)
Cell by Stephen King (expected 14.2, found 0)
Diary by Chuck Palahniuk (expected 14.2, found 0)
The Dark Tower by Stephen King (expected 14, found 0)
Song Of Susannah by Stephen King (expected 13.2, found 0)
The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer (expected 11.9, found 0)
The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve (expected 11.8, found 0)
Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs (expected 11.2, found 0)
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant (expected 11, found 0)
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (expected 11, found 0)

Comments

[nwhyte]

I'm glad they have reinstated the unsuggestions engine.

My Sister's Keeper is not a funny book. At least not for the right reasons. I can see how anyone who actually liked it might not get on with JKJ.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

My Sister's Keeper sounds, from the plot outline on wiki, like the most horrific kind of glurge. I ended up looking up the plot when I kept getting it as an unsuggestion. I think it may well be proof that the algorithm works.

[nwhyte]

I actually read it because of the UnSuggester. Bad move. Those algorithms know what they're doing!

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

I think I share your problem with point 6. The thing I find interesting is that apparently the film changed it to something more reasonable, and the author objected. Which makes me think I will need to avoid the author's other books as well.