What could be more relaxing than a refreshing holiday on the river with your two best friends and faithful canine companion, Montmorency? However, as J. discovers, there is more to life on the waves than meets the eye—including navigational challenges, culinary disasters, and heroic battles with swans, kettles, and tins of pineapple. Jerome K. Jerome’s delightful novel has kept readers smiling for years and his prose has found a perfect partner in Vic Reeves’s glorious and witty illustrations.
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"Wonderfully fresh and funny, and among examples of Victorian humor I would place it high in the pantheon, right up there with The Importance of Being Earnest and The Diary of a Nobody . . . triumphantly stands the test of time, with its comic flights of exaggeration, its occasional archness, and its entirely innocent hint of the camp." —Daily Telegraph
"I fell out of bed laughing at Three Men in a Boat." —Guardian
About the Author
Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) is the author of Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow and the sequel to Three Men in a Boat, Three Men on the Bummel. Vic Reeves is an English comedian, best known for his double act with Bob Mortimer.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Charming classic -- but Reeves' drawings are dreadful,
This review is from: Three Men in a Boat (Vintage Classics) (Hardcover)
I wouldn't say a word against this novel, which has deservedly never gone out of print; but these new illustrations -- a stylistic hodgepodge of modern and period, finished and sketchy -- give amateurishness a bad name. Granted, I'm a bit of a Jerome K. Jerome devotee, with half a shelf of his books, including various editions of "Three Men in a Boat" and its sequels. (Aside from "Three Men," by the way, I'd especially recommend the Christmas-ghost-story spoofs of "Told After Supper," as well as -- if you can find a copy -- the 1935 film version of "The Passing of the Third Floor Back.") When it comes to illustrating a Victorian classic like "Three Men," you'd naturally want your illustrations to convey some of the novel's old-fashioned charm, and ideally its humor. But the illustrations unaccountably chosen for this recent edition are instead crude, cartoonish, often printed "vertically" (i.e., forcing you to turn the book sideways), and even sort of heavy and overlarge -- a case of not only off-putting illustration but ugly design. What was Vintage thinking of?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
To say nothing of the dog,
This review is from: Three Men in a Boat (Vintage Classics) (Hardcover)
Imagine Bertie Wooster and two of his idiot friends out on a boat... with no Jeeves.
That about describes "Three Men in a Boat : To Say Nothing of the Dog," Jerome K. Jerome's enchanting comic novel about three young men (to say nothing of the dog) who discover the "joys" of roughing it. It's a light frothy little novel with plenty of wry humor and absurd situations, though Jerome injects some solemn, bittersweet moments into the mix. The three men are George, Harris and the narrator, who are all massive hypochiandriacs -- they find that they have symptoms of every disease in existance (except housemaid's knee, for some reason). To prop up their obviously-failing health, they decide to take a cruise down the Thames in a rented boat, camping and enjoying nature's bounty. Along with Monty -- an angelic-looking terrier with a mile-wide devilish streak -- the three friends set off down the river. But they find that not everything is as easy as they expected. They get lost in hedge mazes, end up going downstream without a paddle (literally), wrangle with tents, encounter monstrous cats and vicious swans, have picnics, navigate river locks, offend German professors, and generally get into every kind of trouble they possibly can. Even though it was published more than a century ago, "Three Men in a Boat" remains as freshly humorous as when it was first published. While editor/playwright/author Jerome K. Jerome wrote a lot of other books, this book remains his most famous. And once you've read it, you'll see why. Jerome's real talent is in finding humor in everyday things, like trying to erect a tent in the woods, getting seasick, or questioning whether it's safe to drink river water. Written in Jerome's dry, goofy prose, these little occurrances become immensely funny. One of the funniest parts of the book is when the boys listen to a fishermen telling of his prowess, only to accidently knock down his record-breaking stuffed fish.... and discover it's made out of plaster. Oops. But Jerome takes a break from the humor near the end, when the boys find a drowned woman floating in the river. And here he becomes solemn and quietly compassionate: "She had sinned - some of us do now and then - and her family and friends, naturally shocked and indignant, had closed their doors against her." But back on the funny stuff. The capstone on all this humor is the "three men." These guys are basically pampered Victorian aristocrats, who have a romantic yearning for the great outdoors -- so you can imagine how much fun they have with even the basics of outdoor life and all its problems. You'll be laughing at them and with them, as they struggle through the basics of boating and camping, and discover more problems as the story winds on. Funny, wacky and creepily true to life, "Three Men in a Boat" is an enduring comic classic in the vein of PG Wodehouse. Not to mention the dog... or all the problems that await unwitting campers.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A comic classic!,
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This review is from: Three Men in a Boat (Vintage Classics) (Hardcover)
If you have not read this book -- shame on you. Of course the best version to get is the one illustrated by Vic Reeves, but all of them offer you Jerome's infectiously amusing adventures that makes anyone reading it long to idle along the Thames in similar fashion. Or, considering the things that go wrong, read it safely at home -- or in a pub, better yet.
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