Three Men in a Boat, and Three Men on the Bummel, by Jerome K Jerome
Latent Book Club Review #2406
This week we turn more whimsical than serious, as we unearth Jerome K Jerome’s slapstick classic, Three Men in a Boat, and its sequel, Three Men on the Bummel, which follows a hapless trio of heroes as they adventure down the river Thames in a boat, and through Germany on their bicycles.
We read somewhere that this book was intended as a legitimate guide to one’s boating holiday. And certainly, it smacks of that, as our largely unnamed and totally hapless protagonist ‘J.’ (Presumably Jerome himself) navigates himself, his two friends, George and Harris and the dog Montmorency up the river Thames on a ‘skiff’, a popular type of boat (and expedition) in the Victorian era.
These books are in a duo: Three Men In A Boat is the more famous of the two, and was published first, in about 1889. It was so popular, its sequel Three Men on the Bummel was published in 1900.
In Three Men in a Boat we start at Kingston, and end at Oxford. J describes what signs can be seen by the expectant tourist as they make their way up the Thames, in often alluring prose style.
The humour however, is the biggest triumph - and, in what we are sure is a controversial statement - disaster in the book. Yes, it feels fresh, despite its age. Yes, it deals with the commonplace blunders we all encounter in daily life. It’s just not that funny.
What tips the scales from compelling to comatose, is how hapless J is. In nearly every venture they set out on, there is something there to thwart them; a device which is repeated ad tedium.
What tips the scales from compelling to comatose, is how hapless J is. In nearly every venture they set out on, there is something there to thwart them; a device which is repeated ad tedium. Often it is natural elements, like the weather, or a misunderstanding. But nearly always, J anthropomorphises the cause—presumably for comic effect—attributing the latest blunder to some deliberately malevolent force of nature, and in doing so - for us at least, is where it the novel falls flat.
The longer this goes on, the more the reader comes to the realisation that J and his colleagues are just so useless that you border on frustration in sticking with them. Their inability to get anything done on time and with certainty is this the rhythm of this book’s drum, and boy, does it beat it.
The plot is simple enough. Three gentlemen of means decide they are tired, and overworked, and must have a rest. They decide to do so on a boating holiday up the Thames. The rest of the book is about that journey. No whodunnit, no resolution of character, no complicated narrative, just the scrapes they get into on the way.
En route, J regales you with tales of not only this sailing trip, but others he has been on. As he explains, it is customary to tell ‘stretchers’ (tall tales - incidentally, we love that phrase) when you embark on life upon the river. He romantiacally charts his excitement regarding the prospect of setting off:
‘Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to work. Time to drink in life's sunshine - time to listen to the Aeolian music that the wind of God draws from the human heart-strings around us.’
And as we go, J not only narrates his trip, interspersed with ‘stretchers’, but some local history too. These weave together, as J provides a chiefly fictional but nonetheless imaginative narrative of the forcing of King John to sign the Magna Carta in 1215.
We have already to this book being of interest for lovers of language, and that is undoubtedly correct. What’s more, it brims with excellent comic turns of phrase, including these great examples:
‘But there, everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses.’
and:
‘They sat down with the air of early Christian martyrs trying to make themselves comfortable up against the stake’
The boat expedition ends almost as abruptly as it begins, when the inept trio abandon the skiff near Oxford, in inclement weather, and sneak back to London by train in time for dinner in their favourite French restaurant. Their incompetence, for allegedly experienced oarsmen, is staggering.
One repeated device, is how J outlines his wants, ironically describing them perfectly as an antidote to the failings of others, but then is indignant when he gets his own way - as precisely the failings he describes are ascribed to himself. This, indeed, is how Three Men on the Bummel starts: J explains that he would be glad to have a rest from his wife (but she should be sad to be rid of him), but is affronted when she describes (obliquely, naturally) how, as a matter of fact, glad she would be of a break from him.
The Bummel (is a word of German origin, whose meaning we only discover at the end of the book) is more or less what the boat is - a journey that takes whose sole object is to return to the place one started. Of course, these are not infertile grounds for a story, but the Bummel does not deliver quite as much as the boat did.
This time the trio are bicycling through Germany, but the themes and frustrations are largely the same as the boat.
We cannot be alone in noticing, particularly with the Bummel, to the comparison with Robert M Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. As any rider is well aware, the bike is a contemplative place, after all. However the inept J does not achieve the level of introspection that Pirsig’s Chautauqua revealed.
J can be a tad insulting towards his audience. He assumes little knowledge on their part, but still manages to speak to them with a tone of condescension, as though explaining things about the world to the lower orders. And perhaps that is entirley congruent with his character.
It is anthropologically and historically interesting to hear, from our 125-ish year vantage, the perspective of the British holidaymaker in Germany pre-WWI. The origins of totalitarianism, as Arendt would put it, were there, caricatured by J with a disturbing preternaturalism, which we understand was a popular trope of the day.
Overall, the books were good, the second not so much as the first, but the unlikability of J and the constant, grating, failings of the cast that fell short of their comic marks, made it difficult to love. This classic is certainly lauded, but, cultural attachment aside, one wonders whether it truly stacks up today, particularly when far, far better alternatives (Hello, Wodehouse) are readily available.
One to read, one to enjoy - just perhaps not one to love. J would no doubt describe us as a force of nature railing, deliberately - against him. Perhaps we are.
Before you go…
Familiarise yourself with our Latent Book Club finds:
Azar Nafisi’s brave Reading Lolita in Tehran
Ann Tyler’s cosily familial Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
Jane Austen’s incomparable Pride and Prejudice
Iris Murdoch’s triangular The Bell
Henry James’ Gothic Horror Classic, The Turn of The Screw
John Updike’s tale of selfishness, dissolution and frustration, Rabbit, Run
Joseph Heller’s masterwork novel Catch-22
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‘Perhaps we are’ - love it. Haha