Three men disappoint

Some books you should not read again, and for me Jerome K Jerome's Three Men In A Boat was one of them, though sadly I didn’t realise that before I read it a week or so ago.  Three Men in a Boat and the less well known Three Men on the Bummel have iconic status in humorous English literature, and I remember enjoying reading them when I was quite young – perhaps in the my last years at school.  I found them amusing then, and while I didn’t really remember much of them, thought that I was bound to find renewed delight in another look. 

Sadly not, for the laughter of yesteryear is, if not ashes, certainly dry fruit.  The style is odd – repetitive and picaresque in a rather annoying way, and the plot is non-existent.  The three men are rather undifferentiated, they are young and heedless, the sayings of any of them could  be transposed into the mouth of one of the others, and their relationships are trivial and irrelevant.  The book is not even really much about the three men and their journey, as the interruptions  - stories told by one of them, discursions of the most banal and romantic kind into English history, and reminiscences of earlier adventures – outweigh the main narrative and become, frankly tedious.  It was utterly of its time – but socially and in literary terms, it is now well out of fashion.

And yet, and yet, there is something there.  He writes with a whimsy and a sense of humour which is sometimes delicate and sometimes slapstick, somewhat reminiscent of Wodehouse, though without PG’s sprightliness or his comic genius.  His jokes are oft repeated, in different forms – “I love work, I can stand and look at it all day long”; turning back on one member of the party the criticism he has suffered himself; and portraying a single event in two diametric ways – as for example, when he anathematises steamers for not giving way to sculls and explains that he often sculls across their paths to infuriate them – and then, in a steamer, saying that running them down would be justifiable and even praiseworthy.  Some episodes, such as the fight between Montmorency (he’s the dog that accompanies them on their travels) and the kettle, are quite marvellous – the kettle hisses and snorts at him, but before it ever starts getting aggressive, some human takes it away – until Montmorency gets impatient and charges in just before it boils, with predictable results!

All very droll, but funnier in a short sketch of a few hundred words than in an extended novel.  Indeed, that’s what this book is, several dozen amusing stories stitched very loosely together into a single whole.  Perhaps the right way to read it is have it by the bedside, and just read a few pages at random every now and then.  But I did not do that, and for me, a hero has been shown to have feet of clay.

Comments

[glo]

When I first saw these two books appear on the left column I planned to read them in order to be able to give you my opinion about them but you are definitely too quick for me to follow you! Anyway, as I own them I'll read them and tell you later about them.

I read recently three PG Wodehouse's novels - all three quite different one from the other - and I confess that I sometimes had to laugh out loudly alone. I am glad he has written so many books (nearly 90) so I have many left to read!

BBC Radio 4 UK has now a programm about his novel 'Psmith in the City' which is one of the books I read. To listen to it, just go on the Listen Again Page, the programm is just named like the novel, it might work... although it doesn't on my machine...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml
But I guess Mr Bagshaw has already read this book as it is about... gentlemen who enjoy cricket and one scene at the end of the book is even located at Lord's. The books begins with long developments about cricket issues - but don't ask me if Wodehouse is right or wrong.

I found this programm as I was looking for the broadcast The Essay that I enjoyed listening last year but doesn't exist anymore...
I noticed that they have rather broadcasts about physics and science this year and we all know why.

To Dark Puss
Rabelais's best humour is rather saucy and dirty but I am not sure this is what British people prefer, not to mention that it would be so difficult to translate or explain it.
But saying "Well it didn't leave me rolling helpless on the floor" sounds so lovely and cat-ish because cats are picky are demanding indeed.
And I am sure about that as I am now rereading some Colette in preparation for my forthcoming reading of Paul Gallico's Jennie. I haven't read those dialogs between cats and dogs since my childhood and I want to do the work properly and be able to compare both authors. Stay tuned!

[Peter the flautist]

An interesting comment. I read (tried to read) this book about thirty years ago and wondered what the fuss was about. Humour is in most guises rather of its time I think. When I was working on my PhD thesis (for which I built a machine with the acronym CHIMAERA) I tracked down a number of literary quotations concerning this beast. There is a "joke" due to Rabelais (and pace Glo this may be badly translated) which essentially says "Can a Chimaera buzzing in the void swallow second intentions?". Well it didn't leave me rolling helpless on the floor.

Dark Puss