Three Men in a Boat: (To Say Nothing of the Dog)
During one of the snooty, nerd pit fights that is the Pajba! Comment Diversions, favorite books were brought up. When people bring up Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
One of the books fervently recommended by a Pajibblet was Three Men in a Boat. It was written in 1885 or round abouts (I do not care enough to be accurate on facts in this blog, so just deal. If you are truly curious, that’s why Al Gore invented Google) and is allegedly if not the great-grandpappy, then potentially one of his sainted brothers, either Hephestius or Eustace, of the British Comic Novel. That’s right. Tom Stoppard, Douglas Adams, the dude who wrote the Flashman
It’s a short novel about three dandies and their attempt to have a pleasant boat ride down the river Thames. As much as I tend to loathe the period pieces in cinema, I fucking love that shit in literature. Maybe it’s the English degree talking, or even the litres of grain alcohol funneled through my liver in the pursuit of said degree, but goddammit, I loves me some Dickens. I hated reading it in school, because it’s become so parsed and rote in the breakdown. But if you just accept that the man wrote for a penny a word, in little serial portions, and that it was popular fiction (essentially, he was the Nineteenth Century James Patterson), it’s time consuming but great stuff. I’m still trying to pour through The Old Curiousity Shop
This is a pleasant read, if old British literature is your thing. It’s got the wondeful dry wit and sarcasm that is prevalent in its followers. It’s a breezy read, and touches on a lot of history. And I pretty positive, I’m missing alot of jokes because I’m not well-versed in the history of the area. If I were more familiar with it, I think it would be gut-bustingly hilarious. I found myself tittering occasionally, sort of “Raw-ther funny, hm?” I love when an author can dance with his audience, so that you have to go back a few steps to realize you’ve been rooked.
You can easily see how influential this work has been. From chapter to chapter, it’s scope is broad. It’s hard to imagine anyone writing in Britian today who hasn’t been touched by this novel or at the very least one of it’s direct descendants. What was most fascinating was that it draws an outstanding parallel to Twain, and his witticisms. I am assuming the two were contemporaries, though I don’t know who would have read the other first, or if at all.
The only complaint I have is that there isn’t much to the novel, storywise. It’s pretty much the three jokers and their ill-mannered dog Montmorency (How badly do you now want to name a dog this? I fucking hate dogs, and I would call a dog Montmorency.) floating down the river. They plan the trip, take the trip and go home. It is firmly locked in the comedy of manners, so I feel that a lot of the practices and habits of the time are lost on modern readers unfamiliar with it. But again, these are both such minor faults, and perfectly understood when taking on a novel of this ilk.
I wouldn’t ever call this a beach read or even categorize it as such. But if you are looking for classic literature that won’t challenge you, just a pleasant little boat ride through a book (you see how I do the metaphors — you like, you like) this is where to get it.
The characters are funny, the narrator is wonderfully biased, and the dialogue and language are sharp and clever. It won’t change your life, it won’t make you better for reading it. It’ll pretty much breeze into your cultural library and pop its head out whenever you read anything remotely British from hereon. So it’s a harmless little elixir of a book that’ll make people think you’re cultured for knowing the title. And for $8, it’s worth it.
(At most retail bookstores this holiday season! Buy your copy now! Can I have my check?)
