Rating: 
Summary: Timeless Humor
Review: This has to be one of the funniest books ever written beginning with the opening chapter where the narrator reads a medical book and decides he has every disease in the book. From there, he and his two best friends decide to get away from it all with a boat trip up the Thames River -- and that's the book. It's full of one hilarious episode after another with little side tidbits on the historical places they pass on the Thames. Those few who have found the book dull need to understand that the story is written at the pace of a boat trip and not a television sitcom. It's any vacation where everything goes hilariously wrong and if for once the tent doesn't fall down in a pouring rain or the boat manages to not run into another boat, the narrator remembers another trip and tells the story of carrying an incredibly smelly cheese home--Warning don't read that chapter in public. People will wonder why you're rolling on the ground laughing hysterically. There's also a dog who's idea of being helpful is bringing a dead rat to add to the stew. The only weakness of the book is that I'd like to have seen much more of the dog. On the serious side, Three Men in a Boat proves that humor based on human nature is timeless. Also on the serious side, if you want a good look at how people lived in 1890, this book actually gives a vivid picture, including the nostalgia that the narrator feels for "the good old days". He finds life in 1890 too fast paced and with too many inventions coming on too fast. It makes you wonder at what point people will look back to 2001 as "the good old days".
Rating:
Summary: My annual Spring tonic--wit at its best!
Review: I was given a copy of this book about 12 years ago. It has turned out to be one the best gifts I've ever received. Jerome's witty ramblings are the funniest I've ever read. Mark Twain, who I also love to read, comes close to Jerome's style but, in my opinion, is a poor second. Jerome finds humor in the commonplace and the every day occurrences which all of us, even a good 100 years later, can identify with. Starting with his self-diagnosis of every ailment, excepting house-maid's knee, to his singular insights into his friends, self, and surroundings; I never tire of rereading this book. It becomes clear quickly that the dog, Montmorency, is the only one with any sense. Three Men and a Boat always cheers me after a cold, bleak winter. It's the best Spring tonic--I highly recommend an annual dose. I shop now for gifts to give to friends so they can share my enjoyment in this wonderfully humorous and offbeat book. Read, enjoy, and laugh often.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Find--Read It!
Review: I entered into THREE MEN IN A BOAT with the understanding that it was a laugh riot. At first I thought, yes it is witty in the extreme, but in places it is a tad Victorian cute, the forerunner of today's sitcoms and stand-up comics. The more I got into it, though, the more I appreciated it on many levels. Verdict: It is fresh stuff 115 years later, it is very funny, and it deserves classic, not backlist, status.THREE MEN IN A BOAT is classified as fiction but not for the usual reasons. Had it been written after 1995, say, it would have probably been called creative nonfiction. What Jerome did was to synthesize many occasions shared with his real life pals into a "travelogue" of a boating trip taken up the Thames, from Kingston into the Reading area. This premise offers up countless occasions for mishaps, which Jerome milks for all they are worth. In those moments in which something is not happening, he tells related stories, or performs a stand-up comic riff. As he and his mates pass landmarks along the river, he offers up historical information, colored of course with his views. Apparently, England lays claim to Elizabeth I being everywhere much as the eastern United States claims Washington slept in every town. It is ironic to read his sighs over modern life: if he only knew that urban sprawl had only begun and weather forecasting has not improved that much in a hundred years. In a positively clairvoyant moment, he presages the Antiques Roadshow mania of "2000 and odd" while speculating if the lowly implements and souvenirs of daily life would become the treasures of the future. The insights into Victorian preoccupations are priceless.
Rating:
Summary: Truly hilarious!
Review: Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog was recommended to me as a fan of Lord Peter Wimsey, mysteries, and clever, witty writing; I read the reviews and decided that, in fact, I should read Jerome K. Jerome's classic first, which I did. Not only was it a perfect introduction to the Willis book (which I am now in the middle of), but it was a hoot and a half on its own. I admit that I expected it to be a tedious antique but a required introduction to the book I wanted to read, and now I'm delighted to say I was so wrong! I am also a rower, and I was equally delighted to find 1889 tales of oarsmanship to be eminently translatable to 2003. Like its scion, the book is clever and witty in quieter moments, and downright hilarious the rest of the time. An Anglophile's dream, it is as delightful as a lazy summer picnic in Oxford. It is only partly the story of three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog); it abounds with tangents and at times bizarrely associated stories of the type of "that reminds me of..." Those wind up being the funniest bits; I found myself laughing out loud on a number of occasions. Don't let the publication date put you off---- this book is fresh as spring blooms and as funny as P.G. Wodehouse or Basil Fawlty. And if I ever get a male dog, his name will definitely be Montmorency.
Rating:
Summary: Harry Hill's "favourite book"
Review: Per an interview by John Koski in the "Books" section of the Sunday Daily Mail April 2004, Harry Hill's reply to the question, "What's your favourite book?" was:
"'Three Men in a Boat' by Jerome K Jerome. Although written at the turn of the 20th century, it has a very contemporary tone. It still makes me laugh out loud."
Rating:
Summary: A true classic
Review: The single funniest thing to come out of England before the BBC.
Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious
Review: What a gem of a book... and no wonder these two volumes are still around more than 110 years after originally being published. The humor holds up surprisingly well. It was a rare page in which I didn't laugh out loud. I have no doubt that P.G Wodehouse was greatly influenced by Jerome's style. There is action within the two volumes, but the thrust of the action provides little more than an opportunity to move on to the next humorous incident or related story. J. and his two friends, George and Harris, are three bumbling stooges who do everything possible to avoid having to earn an honest living, so they travel. In the first book, Three Men in a Boat, they are single and care-free, but by the time the second book, Three Men on a Bummel, was published, two of the three characters, J. and Harris, are family men. Although the second book is funny, I would agree with earlier reviewers that it's not quite the laugh-out-loud humor of the previous volume, but that's understandable, since our heroes are older and slightly more respectable. Still in all, following their adventures is great fun and makes for a wonderful summer read. I can't help but wonder if today's favorite travel humorist (humor travelist?), Bill Bryson, wasn't also influenced by the wonderful musings of Jerome.
Rating: 
Summary: Three Incompetent Men in a Boat
Review: Parts of this book read like Sarah Orne Jewett. Parts read like Thoreau's "Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers." Those parts contrasted oddly with the humorous parts, which drew forth an occasional chuckle and told of the adventures of three ill-prepared men on holiday traveling up the Thames because they thought a week on the water in a boat would be a pleasant excursion. The trip was not an idyllic one, though it had its moments. The misadventures suffered by our three incompetents are what give the book its chuckles. I like Jewett, Thoreau, and an occasional chuckle, and this book gave me a couple of entertaining evenings. The subtitle of this book is "To Say Nothing of the Dog." I don't know why the dog was dragged into the story. He added nothing, and I found the parts about the dog annoying. At least, the dog parts were few.
Rating:
Summary: Be adventurous - and out of breath - read this one aloud!
Review: At risk of repeating many of the other reviews here, this book is fabulous! Very funny take on Victoran England from the time. I found it after reading Connie Willis' TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG and probably couldn't pick which one of the pair I liked better. My personal advice here is that if you want to risk never being able to get through a full paragraph without stopping to double over with laughter is to READ THIS BOOK ALOUD! My husband and I tend to read aloud books that we are both interested in reading and that we're pretty confident of the quality of and this one definitely made the cut. It's a much better (and funnier) way to spend a few evenings than watching sitcoms on TV.
Rating:
Summary: Transatlantic humor
Review: I won't say that _Three Men in a Boat_ isn't funny. It is. But the humor isn't singular and quintessentially English, as it's often described. In fact, it's a lot like Mark Twain's, just not as funny. If you enjoy the combination of whimsy and satire mixed with travel, you'd do even better to read _Roughing It_, _The Innocents Abroad_, or _A Tramp Abroad_.
|
