Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

In 1889, Jerome K. Jerome was tasked with writing 'The Story of the Thames,' its scenery and history, for Home Chimes magazine.  In a move worthy of his three protagonists, J., George, and Harris, Jerome inadvertently managed to turn what was meant to be a serious travel guide into one of the great comic novels in English literature.  This little tidbit about art imitating life (or vice versa) somehow manages to make the book even funnier.

Not that the critics found it funny.  While Three Men in a Boat is something of a British institution today,  its initial critical reception ranged somewhere between unimpressed and sneering.  In his autobiography My Life and Times (1926), Jerome K. Jerome reminisced: "One might have imagined … that the British Empire was in danger. … The Standard spoke of me as a menace to English letters; and The Morning Post as an example of the sad results to be expected from the over-education of the lower orders. … I think I may claim to have been, for the first twenty years of my career, the best abused author in England."  

Critical disdain notwithstanding, the book sold like hot eels off a Victorian street vendor.  No longer snubbed as lowbrow and common, Three Men in a Boat has remained perennially popular with everyone possessing a sense of humor and a capacity for delight. This is one of those books I've been meaning to get around to reading for a long time, and I only regret not reading it sooner.  It really is wonderful, and very, very funny.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) - to give the book its full title - rests on the simple premise of a two-week boating trip down the Thames.  Three friends, Jerome (called J.), George, and Harris, decide that they are suffering from overwork and determine that the best remedy is a holiday.  This discussion is preceded by J.'s hilarious and hypochondriac perusal of a medical encyclopedia, during which he concludes that he is suffering from every ailment listed, with the exception of housemaid's knee.  J., George, and Harris set off on a boating holiday down the Thames, accompanied by J.'s fox terrier Montmorency.

Three Men in a Boat illustration by 20th century artist Paul Rainer

What follows is a series of anecdotes describing the journey of our three eccentric protagonists (to say nothing of the dog).  There are many digressions about particular foibles of human nature and general life observations, such as the unreliability of barometers and the advantages of cheese as a travelling companion.  The chapter subtitles had me in stitches.  Here are a few: 

Cussedness of tooth-brushes.

Heathenish instincts of tow-lines.

Being towed by girls: exciting sensation.

Possible reason why we were not drowned.

I will never stop laughing at the incident of Harris and the swans, the visit to the graveyard, and the creation of that culinary horror referred to as "Irish stew," to which Montmorency attempted to contribute a dead water-rat, "whether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a genuine desire to assist, I cannot say."

Alongside the humor, one finds the ghost of the original travel guide to the Thames haunting the pages.  While some find that these passages detract from the novel, I feel they enhance it.  They imbue the novel with a sense of place, a love of nature, and an appreciation for history that act as a perfect counterbalance to eccentric comedy and mishap.  These elements make the novel a bit sentimental, but I don't see that as a bad thing.  I see a perfect blend of charm, hilarity, and camaraderie.  I think this book echoes through the decades, and may claim kinship with that Edwardian bucolic masterpiece The Wind in the Willows - as well as Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.