Thank you so much for that observation! I listened to (part of) the audiobook, and it was an odd combination of dull & irritating, so (in the middle of the long bike ride, for which it was meant to be the entertainment) I turned it off. I feel exonerated now
Otoh, thrilled with the introduction to Willis. It took a little time to get the time-travel rhythm, but it’s pretty well done (as time-travel stories go!), and as a history buff I found the mix of things I knew & things I didn’t know fun. Thanks to the posters who have recommended other works of hers- they are now on my ‘hold’ list on Libby!
I liked the way Willis drew us into the story.
I felt Ned’s disorientation, could relate to his world being tilted, discombobulated. Like Alice through the Looking Glass, how odd things were.
Just like Covid time, our world now, totally turned inside out, upside down,
We read this book at the right time.
Those are slanted questions, aren’t they? The wording leads me to believe that the person who wrote them thought the answers should be, respectively, No, No, No and No.
Initially, I thought Ned was a bit bland, but he grew on me. I thought in the end, as he began to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, he really came into his own. He was definitely funny, with the style of humor shared by Jerome K. Jerome.
I have not finished Three Men in a Boat. Every night I look to see if it has changed, but there are still 185 pages in the book. I am now on 133. I will finish it, I will finish it, I will finish it.
Can we talk about that one really weird and not funny at all thing? @silverlady and anyone else who is still reading, consider this a Spoiler Alert and don’t read any further.
I hated the part about the body of the dead woman floating down the river. It seemed so out of place in an otherwise lighthearted story, and although Jerome didn’t use the event for humor (thank God), I feel like he did use it as an opportunity to wax poetic in a “Lady of Shalott” sort of way. I didn’t care for that at all, and I wondered if he just made up the whole thing – the details of the story were very Dickensian.
Ned - ahh, Ned. Yes, I like him. Is he a strong main character? Absolutely. The humor in the book revolves around him from his wry observations to his interactions with all around him, including canine and feline. Intelligent but not functioning as he should due to overmuch time travel and lack of preparation for where he landed - hence, his own comedic misadventures. Sort of a Bob Newhart main character (only stumbling on his own a bit more) yet the hub of this particular (mis)adventure. He doesn’t overshadow all the “funny” nor can he control it. It just seems to revolve around him. (Am I making any sense here?)
Yes, that is what I was talking about. I thought any modern day editor would have taken it out as it didn’t belong. I don’t know if it’s there because he was still thinking of it as a travelogue that had gotten away with him, or he wanted the contrast with the silly bits. I didn’t particularly like the bit with the dead woman, but there’s an earlier bit that I liked better and prepared me a bit for the change in tone.
At the end of Chapter Ten where our narrator can’t sleep.
He goes on to talk about how looking at the night sky erases the pain and sorrow of the world, or when it can’t, at least reminds of us God.
I’ve certainly seen a few night skies -especially in Vermont far from any cities that had much the same effect.
@ignatius super description Of Ned, as observer, Like Bob Newhart, relatable, and really so dang nice,
Thank you, @mary13 I was curious about Mathmom’s post and read the chapter summary Of the book to try to find out what scene she found disturbingl
Did the body float after they were drinking the River water .?
I liked that passage, too, and the more somber tone felt right. I guess I’d say that his reflection on the stars rang true and his reflection on the dead woman rang false – probably because he experienced the former and not the latter.
Imagine if any of us in real life had found a dead body floating in the water when we were on a pleasure trip. We wouldn’t come home relating hilarious anecdotes and then throw in that story as an aside. Rather, the trauma of such a discovery would have colored the whole trip. Also, unlike the drawing in the book, I don’t think a drowned body floats peacefully on its back, arm across the chest, laying “very lightly on the water” with a face “sweet and calm.” Yes, yes, I know that Jerome’s entire story requires suspension of disbelief and is not meant to be picked apart for accuracy, but still…I wish his editor had taken a stand on that particular section.
^ Hmmm, I don’t agree that his prose for that section feels “convincing and authentic.” I think the literary analysis above is trying to back into a deeper, more intentional meaning than ever existed. I’m sure others feel differently, though, as this book has proved to be so beloved from start to finish.
The dead woman passage is interesting from a historical, cultural, perspective – so judgmental, but that’ s not Jerome’s fault; it’s just a sign of the times: “Thus had she sinned in all things—sinned in living and in dying. God help her!” At least he had the decency to chide her acquaintances for “the chill wall of their respectability.”
I know I’ve got our June selection on the brain thanks to Connie Willis’ references, but the story of the dead woman and the way in which her pleading for help went unheeded reminded me so much of the backstory of Miss Brent in *And Then There Were None/i
Ok, so I was typing my contribution to the discussion about the woman when it finally dawned on me what was bothering me about @silverlady’s post mentioning page numbers 133, 185. My book didn’t even have a round 100.
I have 2 copies of TMiaB and I had randomly pulled one out. Turns out I had read an abridged edition of the book, meant to be read by fifth-graders in HongKong. ?♀️
How the book got into my hands, I don’t really know. But, it has been cut short badly leaving abrupt and jarring transitions that I didn’t remember in the original. So I spent the rest of the morning rereading it on my Kindle. I do understand how some of the references in his anecdotes can make for heavy going as some of you have said.
Some of those rarely heard of things brought back some memories for me — my dad had an old Gladstone bag that his grandfather used that we would take on our some trips. I think it finally disintegrated or something. We also had something called a Holdall, which had space for a light bedding (sleeping bag style) and a compartment to pack overnight belongings. You would roll it up, strap it and then it would look like a duffel bag. I think we used it for camping type trips.
Rounders — We used rush through our lunch recess at school so we could play a game or an innings. I think for many of us it was the highlight of our school day. All of us hated the PE classes because we had a PE teacher who was fond of rapping knuckles with a ruler if we got something wrong.
One trivial question that intrigues me — if you have a dog with a name as cumbersome as Montmorency, what do you call him? Seems like mouthful when you’re trying to give him commands. Monty? Dog?
I knew someone in college who had a dog named Chalmondesley. I’ve always wondered…
About TMiaB and the weird passage, I found the dead dog and woman sections disconcerting to read in the middle of mostly lighthearted anecdotes as well but I think that Jerome was trying to provide a counterpoint to his lightheartedness.
He likens life to a boat ride on the river of life in the beginning of the book and this was a way he used to color the picture of life as not always blithely sailing down river but struggling against the flow at times and at others being stuck in the muddy banks.
To me he is most effective with humor. I find his descriptive prose is sometimes too flowery although there are some lines that are lovely. The scene with the dead woman just seemed stitched in and not fitting quite right with the rest of the writing. I wonder if he too had a meddling editor like Louisa M. Alcott did.
^ That’s right, the dog is pure fiction: . “'Montmorency I evolved out of my inner consciousness,’ admitted Jerome. ‘Dog friends that I came to know later have told me it was true to life’.”
@AnAsmom, the British pronunciation of “Cholmondeley” is “Chumley” – an easy name for calling your dog.
My friend had an ‘s’ in the name so he pronounced it as ‘Chalmsley’. Still sounds hard to me.
? He is a big fan of all things British so the name appealed to him and I guess the dog learned to live with it. He and I shared desk space in the studio so we would talk about random things (I think TMiaB may have been one of them, lol) while we pulled all-nighters but I never actually met the dog.
Okay. I am throwing in the towel. I keep thinking I’m going to to finish up and join in, but it’s not happening. I am putting myself into the book club dog house. I started withThree Men in a Boat quite a while ago. It seems like a book that would be best to read without too many breaks. I was reading it with a lot of gaps and every time I picked it up I felt a little lost. With all the different short stories that are told by the narrator, it was hard for me to keep track of exactly what was going on. I know I didn’t try hard enough. I assume when I sit down and read it in larger segments, I will enjoy it more.
