Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome
First published in 1889.
Well, no one could accuse the title of this book of being misleading.
The plot of Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) is that three men - George, Harris and "J" (our narrator) - along with J's dog Montmorency, go on a boating holiday up the River Thames.
That's it.
No extra plot. Just a boating holiday. And then it ends and they go home.
But Jerome dresses this plot up with tangent after tangent, humorous anecdotes picking apart the contemporary society he was living in. Almost any single thing that happens to the three friends causes the narrator to be reminded of a story which must then be commented on in detail. Some of these drag on a bit long, but a number are so ridiculous that they had me giggling out loud from the absurdity of it all.
Make no mistake, this is a funny book, although at other times it is just 'dumb' and at other times it morphs into a more straightforward travelogue, describing the surrounding areas, pubs and other attractions in a factual manner.
I don't really know what to make of it over all.
The most memorable story for me at present is a tangent where the narrator begins describing how fishermen need a good imagination in order to be successful, as part of their role is knowing how to stretch the truth of their fishing prowess. This segues into an episode where J and George enter a riverside inn that has a large trout mounted on the wall. Over the course of several pages the pair encounter four individuals each claiming to have caught the fish themselves, outlining the method they used as well as the bait. Eventually, after each storyteller has left, it is revealed that the trout was made of plaster of Paris.
A truly unique book and a bit of silly entertainment.
Completed 1 March 2023.
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