Title: Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)
Author: Jerome K. Jerome (English, 1859-1927)
Originally published: 1889
Page count: 145
Dates read: 9/22/19-9/24/19
Back to the Classics category: Classic Comedy
Read my other book reviews for the challenge HERE.
Description on back of book:
A masterpiece of British humor since its first publication in 1889. The funny boating trip of three men - Jerome and his two friends Harris and George and their dog Montmorency - along the River Thames in Oxford, crossing absurdities and traditions of late 19th century England.
Review:
I WAS going to read this as my second book for the Classic Comedy category of the Back to the Classics reading challenge, but it just was not interesting to me. I read a quarter of the book, which was five chapters, and then decided to stop. I have so many books I want to read - I just don't have time to spend on books I don't enjoy.
To be fair, there were some funny things in the first two chapters - but I quickly got bored with the humor. There didn't seem to be much of a plot and I didn't like the characters. It would follow the story for a page or two and then go off on some supposedly funny anecdotal tangent that has little to do with the actual story (and was usually about three or four pages long). I just wasn't a fan of the writing and I just didn't want to waste my time. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood.
But...Why didn't you finish the book?!
To be fair, there were some funny things in the first two chapters - but I quickly got bored with the humor. There didn't seem to be much of a plot and I didn't like the characters. It would follow the story for a page or two and then go off on some supposedly funny anecdotal tangent that has little to do with the actual story (and was usually about three or four pages long). I just wasn't a fan of the writing and I just didn't want to waste my time. Maybe I was just in the wrong mood.
But...Why didn't you finish the book?!
Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Jerome K Jerome have the last words. These are the first two sentences of the book:
"There were four of us -George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were - bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course."
"There were four of us -George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were - bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course."
I didn't make it through this one either. I just didn't find it as funny as I thought I would, and I found myself not wanting to pick it up...so I quit. Maybe someday I'll try it again. But not this year.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I read a review that made me want to read the book and I was really excited for it... but it just isn't my type of humor I guess.
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