Book Group - Three Men In A Boat discussion thread

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McGoohan Dec 2015 11:33am, 30 Dec 2015 20,585 posts	0 McGoohan To say nothing of the dog... This thread is for discussing Jerome K Jerome's classic comic tale. Stick your opinion down here VVV
mulbs Dec 2015 12:03pm, 30 Dec 2015 11,575 posts	0 mulbs butcher, baker, candlestick maker?
alpenrose Dec 2015 12:04pm, 30 Dec 2015 14,705 posts	0 alpenrose I loved this book but haven't read it for decades.
ChrisHB Dec 2015 9:08pm, 30 Dec 2015 12,126 posts	0 ChrisHB it should accompany our future TBCs.
McGoohan Dec 2015 10:34pm, 30 Dec 2015 20,599 posts	0 McGoohan Absolutely!
The Scribbler Jan 2016 2:06pm, 10 Jan 2016 3,585 posts	0 The Scribbler How are the book group getting on with this? I was really surprised at how modern it felt, apart from a few references to money, food and clothing, the language is really very fresh. And so very funny. I actually started reading it on my kindle when I was away on a trip. I'd just upturned my backpack looking for something, so I laughed out loud at the section about packing, repacking and unpacking again in search of the thing they needed. I don't really think of myself as a funny writer, but mimicking its style gave me an amusing approach to a piece of copy about banking services!
McGoohan Jan 2016 3:33pm, 10 Jan 2016 20,823 posts	0 McGoohan Only a short way in yet but already loving it. Made me genuinely lol on the train.
LindsD Jan 2016 5:51pm, 10 Jan 2016 8,261 posts	0 LindsD I've read it twice, but not recently. I remember liking it. It's quite whimsical, isn't it?
McGoohan Jan 2016 11:22pm, 12 Jan 2016 20,854 posts	0 McGoohan Three Men In A Boat I’ve been meaning to read this for years so I was very glad of the excuse. It’s quite a tricky book to classify. In Foyles, it’s loaded up with the Fiction, but it could go under Non-Fic, Biography, Travel… I really enjoyed it with a few minor reservations. The humour shines through. Perhaps because of the year it was written, a lot of the humour is U or PG certificate. There’s certainly nothing 18-rated. Except bizarrely a section about the stinkiness of cheeses when one is described as being reminiscent of a dead baby. I was on a train, and laughed out loud at that and nearly dropped the book. It is however a style you have to get into. You don’t have to expect much in the way of ‘story’ because you’ll be disappointed. Digressive and discursive, like Laurence Sterne’s writing. As the book went on I did get a little irritated by it – mainly because it’s in these parts that JKJ remembers he intended this as a travel book and he throws in an absolutely straight paragraph about who is buried in what churchyard and the splendid portico you can see there. In one odd section, he refers to the four of them having a good stay at the Bull in Streatley. And I thought: I’ve been there myself on more than one occasion. As such times it’s like a guide to the Thames Path and intriguing to see how much is still relevant. If it had gone on much longer, 3MIAB might have outstayed its welcome but as it was, it was near perfect.
Columba Feb 2016 7:46pm, 7 Feb 2016 9,120 posts	0 Columba I have read it before, but probably about 55 years ago, and had forgotten most of it except for J's discovering he has everything in the medical dictionary except housemaid's knee; and Montmorency's brush with the tom cat; and the attempts to open a tin without a tin-opener, which had me ROFLing as a teenager. As well as the "straight" paragraphs about historical events and people associated with the places they pass through, he has beauties-of-nature descriptive passages, and a few moralising passages, and I wondered whether he really wanted to include those or only did so because he felt they were essential for his audience. I also appreciated the juxtaposition of two chapters, in one of which there is (among other things) a tirade about steam-launches and how noisy they are and how arrogant are the people in charge of them, and how amusing it is for a boat being rowed/towed to get in their way; while in the next chapter, after they've been given a tow by a steam launch, there is a tirade about the infuriating behaviour of people in boats being towed along the canal.