Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


"Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head, and turns our little tear-stained face up to hers, and smiles, and, though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone."

I had first read Jerome K. Jerome's classic Three Men in a Boat (1889) in the mid-1960s when, as I seem to remember, it was a recommended book in my Advanced English class in my Warsaw high school. During the intervening 50-plus years I have managed to forget what a fun and delightful read it is. I have just been re-reading the novel on the San Diego trolley during my daily commute and again my fellow passengers tended to move away from me as I was giggling and LOL'ing.

Since most everybody knows what the book is about detailed synopsis is not needed. The narrator, known only as J., and his two friends, George and Harris, accompanied by Montmorency, a fierce fox-terrier, set out on a two-week boating trip up the Thames, from Kingston to Oxford and back. The account of this trip is interspersed with interesting asides about the history of the Thames region.

Many passages from the novel now belong to the canon of world literary humor. The story about Uncle Podger attempting to hang a picture on the wall, the tale of Harris guiding a group of people through the maze at Hampton Court, or the piece about weather forecasts are unconditionally hilarious: I do not believe anyone can read them with straight face. The humor is subtle, tactful yet it targets some of deepest human foibles and weaknesses. The readers who are acquainted with the unforgettable British TV show Fawlty Towers will recognize the type of humor.

Yet there is no shortage of delightfully silly humor either as in the passage about a dog floating down the Thames:

"It was one of the quietest and peacefullest dogs I have ever seen. [...] It was floating dreamily on its back, with its four legs stuck up straight into the air. It was what I should call a full-bodied dog, with a well-developed chest.

As I was falling asleep last night I suddenly remembered the dog's "well-developed chest" and could not stop laughing and I had to turn the light on and re-read the passage a few times to tame the severe case of giggles. In a stroke of literary genius the author juxtaposes the extremely funny bits with exaggeratedly lyrical passages about the river, moon, and nature in general. The poetry of prose produces a hilarious effect as well.

And finally the most spectacular feature of the book: its timelessness. I am a somewhat ancient person and the book was published a few years before my grandmother was born, almost 130 years ago. Yet it does not feel dated at all. With cosmetic changes in text here and there the novel would be indistinguishable from something written and published in 2018. I find this truly amazing and am so happy that I decided for a re-read over half a century later.

Four stars.



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