Three Men in a Boat
The full title?
“THREE MEN IN A BOAT
(to say nothing of the dog).”
- by Jerome K. Jerome
The author’s name, it tickled a memory and I can’t place it. Title tickled a memory, and that I can place, from the same era, for starters, a Stephen Crane novella, if I recall, part of the first of the American Realism movement in literature. “The Open Boat,” that was his story. Part of that is quoted in my Pink Cake.
Think this one’s been mentioned before, “Three Men in a Boat,” but with no easy reference point? I just started over.
“But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.” Page 77.
To sum it up? And why waste three words when a small paragraph will rhythmically be better, to wit:
“That is the only way to get a kettle to boil up the river. If it sees that you are waiting for it and are anxious, it will never even sing. You have to go away and begin your meal, as if you were not going to have any tea at all. You must not even look round at it. Then you will soon hear it sputtering away, mad to be made into tea.” Page 163
Brilliant comedic voice?
The text does wander, and by no small amount, but that’s part of its inherent charm, part of the quirks of humor, and the droll British wit.
