Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog) ★★★★☆

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Title: Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog)
Author: Jerome Jerome
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages: 231
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

J, and his two friends George and Harris, along with J's dog Montmorency, all decide that they've been working too hard and they need a break. So they decide to go on a boating trip up the Thames.

What follows are the antics of 3 urban idiots, a dog who likes to fight and a travelogue. A very peculiar mix.

My Thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed parts of this. The parts I did not care for, or that bored me really, was where Jerome went into travelogue mode. Travel and I don't get along real well. Scenery bores me to tears and while I hate cities, I still want to pave the planet and get rid of all that nasty “nature” stuff. So books that are travelogues ♪in disguise♪ don't do it for me. At all. It is the reason I don't ever plan on re-reading Dickens' Pictures from Italy or his American Notes.

Thankfully, those bits were interspersed with the humorous bits. I read a short wiki article on Jerome K. Jerome and it would appear that he was the inspiration for such authors as P.G. Wodehouse. While not quite up to the Bertie Wooster level of helpless obliviousness, J and his companions are doing their best to achieve it. Part of it is that they are not independently wealthy and while they are pretty pathetic at their jobs (one of the friends works at a bank and pretty much sleeps all day there), at least they have jobs. They are the idle middle class as opposed to the idle rich. If you've ever read Wodehouse and like or dislike his brand of humor, then I can safely say you'll feel the same way about Jerome.

Probably not a book that I'll ever re-read but I am glad to have read it for the first time and to expand my knowledge base. I suspect I'll be flashing back to this book whenever I read something by Wodehouse in the future.

★★★★☆