Enjoyed this one so much!!!

Some fun, some tears, some poetry and some second hand embarrassment.

The first chapter made me burst out laughing so hard. If you are in the medical line and know similar people, you will know what I mean.

And I knew I won't recover from it unless I read the entire book!

The characters are so damn funny.
It's the monologues that's like no book that would come out would ever achieve.

The writing! It's the writing that made it so fun and fast paced to read.

I don't know what I have been doing all this time staring at the paperback for more than 3 years. We have been staring at each other a lot this entire time. And now I know why!

It's the story of three adult men who are tired, overworked and looking for some time off together.

The cheese (mis) adventure, the weather forecast monologue, the train platform dilemma, the new places (oh!), the bickering over their daily routines, the nerd kid story, the characters getting lost and directionless now and then, Harris' comic songs, the boat struggles, the tea and meal monologues, George overthinking all the time, the Henry VIIIth thing, the mustard necessity, the ghost story, dialogues between the cat and Montmorency, when Harris and the pie disappear, the potato peeling scene, the swan battle, the punting, a dead body (?), the big trout fishing story, that photographer, that clever boy and the end. Enjoy!

One of the characters is a hypochondriac. Overdiagnosing himself with all the information on diseases. (I don't want to know what would happen if he had internet access.)

Love the lyrical writing in between. Otherwise it's just the chaotic adult characters going bonkers and being dramatic for (literally) EVERYTHING.

The only way to enjoy this book is not to think too much while reading it. You will be able to enjoy it a lot more that way!

The book has some pretty serious parts which I would want you to take your time. Some parts are heavy and most parts are satirical. But well, take your time while reading this book. You will enjoy their adventure more.

God is Great !!!!

Miracles do happen!! I am born again believer.

This book was part of English classes as a reader and the teacher was particularly interested in making my life hard. In her classes my only memory was preparing to be sent out of class or shamed for my handwriting or similar… and of course raps on the knuckles with a ruler. To the extent I hated everything about English that year and barely managed a passing grade. This book was therefore a part of very bad memory. Thanks to everyone here on GR - over the last one year - I began to think maybe I am missing something. Oh boy !!! Did I …

This book a truly timeless and a rollicking ride - literally and otherwise. A travelogue of 3 friends who go down a river over a fortnight braving ‘life’ ( among many other things ). Each page is a description of the events that happen each day interspersed with multiple anecdotal stories and descriptions. The humour is amazing and I think even any one reads this later they would love it.

It’s a small book but each page needs to be savoured. Of course you need to do this voluntarily… and not treat this book like an ‘oldie’. Need I say anything other than HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

What a huge moron I was for not giving this book a chance. And now, I just can’t stop praising it. So here it goes…

‘Three Men in a Boat’ is an amusing account of three friends-Jerome(whom I’m in love with),Harris and George and of course their dog Montmorency; while on a little boating expedition. The three of them concur of being overworked and tired of the daily humdrum, are in a dire need of a vacation. After weighing options of a country trip and a sea voyage they settle down on a boat ride to a secluded and peaceful place. So, on a quiet Saturday they rent a boat from Kingston and while picking up George from his workplace they head out on a boating trip up to the River Thames. Right from hiring the boat to scheduling itinerary the story further propels into a comical sketch of various boating and camping mishaps. This is undoubtedly the wittiest and most entertaining book I have ever read. Jerome has a knack for creating even the utter sentimental pieces into this jubilation of jollity and intellect. Not a word passes by without giving a chortle or plastering a wide grin on the face. Every chapter brings with it a plethora of joyous moments and at times a series of wild laughter. The writing is sarcastic with a hint of sharp smartness to the core of my extreme liking.

The comic flavors can be tasted from the beginning, especially when the author introduces the three central characters:-
1. Jerome(the narrator):-Thinks of himself to be a ‘walking hospital’. Jerome a pharmalogical wreck has somehow concluded that he has been inflicted with all sorts of diseases that ever existed by reading various medical pamphlets and imagining their symptoms. What is even hilarious is the mere fact of Jerome being heartbroken for not contracting the Housemaid’s Knee and goes to an extent of calling his doctor a quack for not being able to give it to him.

2.George:- a banker and of whom Jerome says, “George goes to sleep at a bank from ten to four each day, except Saturdays, when they wake him up and put him outside at two”

3.Harris :- “You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris - no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never "weeps, he knows not why." If Harris's eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chops.”

In addition, episodes where the author recalls how his Aunt Podger used to take a week long refuge at her mother’s place when Uncle Podger donned the role of a handyman trying to fix “little” things in the house or how the making of Irish Stew from all the leftovers compelled Montmorency to add his bit by bringing a dead-water rat, brims with utmost hilarity.

Reading this book is such bliss that I am already onto its sequel –“Three Men on the Bummel”.

1889 English humour

In the church is a memorial to Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed £1 annually, to be divided at Easter, between two boys and two girls who “have never been undutiful to their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal, or to break windows.” Fancy giving up all that for five shillings a year! It is not worth it.

It is rumoured in the town that once, many years ago, a boy appeared who really never had done these things...and thus won the crown of glory. He was exhibited for three weeks afterwards in the Town Hall, under a glass case.

This famous short comic novel is full of the kind of riffing that modern stand-ups do – say, for instance, the famous Rhod Gilbert routine about his luggage at the airport, rather dry, wry and prone to ridiculous deadpan exaggeration, based almost entirely on the observation that in this life everyone irritates everyone else and friends irritate each other the most.

So, three men and a dog bumble around on the River Thames for a fortnight. There’s no story. Quite often the book becomes an actual travel guide :

Round Clifton Hampden, itself a wonderfully pretty village, old-fashioned, peaceful, and dainty with flowers, the river scenery is rich and beautiful. If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you cannot do better than put up at the “Barley Mow.” It is, without exception, I should say, the quaintest, most old-world inn up the river. It stands on the right of the bridge, quite away from the village. Its low-pitched gables and thatched roof and latticed windows give it quite a story-book appearance

and by the way, the Barley Mow still exists, 130 years later



So far no real surprises, but then, it seems, a switch flicks in the mind of JKJ and he totally forgets he’s writing a funny book and starts coming out with this kind of stuff:

The river—with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding gold the grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths, chasing shadows o’er the shallows, flinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the weirs’ white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening every tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled in the rushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on many a far sail, making soft the air with glory—is a golden fairy stream.

And you are going wait, what’s going on, is this a parody? And then he switches back into the whimsical and jovial as if nothing has happened.

The oddest of these bits is when the three jolly chums are suddenly confronted by a dead body floating downriver, that of a woman suicide, they immediately decide:

She had wandered about the woods by the river’s brink all day, and then, when evening fell and the grey twilight spread its dusky robe upon the waters, she stretched her arms out to the silent river that had known her sorrow and her joy. And the old river had taken her into its gentle arms, and had laid her weary head upon its bosom, and had hushed away the pain….
Goring on the left bank and Streatley on the right are both or either charming places to stay at for a few days. The reaches down to Pangbourne woo one for a sunny sail or for a moonlight row, and the country round about is full of beauty. We had intended to push on to Wallingford that day, but the sweet smiling face of the river here lured us to linger for a while; and so we left our boat at the bridge, and went up into Streatley, and lunched at the “Bull,” much to Montmorency’s satisfaction.

Such a crashing of tonal gears - it's the strangest thing I’ve read in a book for a long time. No idea what JKJ thought he was doing. In the middle of the gentle humour it seems, well, really strange.

But otherwise, whimsical, gentle and loveable.

Embora acredite piamente na máxima "não voltes a um lugar onde foste feliz", a realidade é que dou por mim, demasiadas vezes, a querer revisitar lugares, eventos e livros que me trouxeram felicidade e, claro, a coisa corre sempre mal!
Três Homens Num Barco foi uma das primeiras compras que fiz numa feira do livro (de bairro) e representou, à data, uma transição entre a leitura que se herda - de casa de avós e pais - e a leitura que se adquire por moto próprio. Ora, este ano, por excesso de trabalho e falta de vontade, tenho andado meio que perdida na minha biblioteca - comprando sempre novos livros, mas perdendo a vontade de os ler quase no momento em que passam da porta da entrada; e neste bonito contexto, volta e meia repesco os livros que me acompanharam em momentos especiais na esperança de insuflar novo vigor a esta fase tão nefasta. No entanto, acho que ainda nenhuma tentativa de releitura funcionou como eu esperava: algumas fizeram-me perceber o quanto amadureci enquanto leitora, outras mostraram-me o quão mal determinados títulos envelheceram; outras ainda fizeram com que repensasse a minha visão do mundo literário... Enfim.
Jerome K. Jerome é um daqueles nomes que normalmente sei de cabeça quando me pedem uma sugestão cómica. E isso não mudou! Aliás, este livro abre com grande impacto, só a leitura do primeiro capítulo dá dores de barriga:

"Cheguei à febre tifóide - li os sintomas, descobri que sofria de febre tifóide, já devia sofrer há meses sem o saber - perguntei a mim próprio de que mais sofreria; cheguei à Dança de São Vito - descobri, como já previa, que também padecia desta doença comecei a interessar-me pelo meu caso e, determinado a passar-me ao crivo dos pés à cabeça, pus-me a ler tudo por ordem alfabética: li tudo o que havia sobre angina, soube que sofria daquela maleita e que a fase aguda começaria mais ou menos dali a quinze dias. Fiquei aliviado ao saber que sofria apenas de uma forma atenuada da Doença de Bright e que, no que a essa matéria diz respeito, podia viver por muitos anos. Cólera tinha, e com complicações graves; difteria era algo com que já devia ter nascido. Conscienciosamente percorri as vinte e seis letras e, conforme pude concluir, a única doença de que eu não padecia era a artrose da lavadeira."

E o livro segue por aí fora com um conjunto de peripécias protagonizadas por este personagem e outros que tais (outros dois, na verdade, já para não falar do cão). São três amigos - todos hipocondríacos, preguiçosos e citadinos - que decidem partir em viagem de barco por esse Tamisa fora. Só pode correr bem, não é?
Pelo caminho tudo lhes acontece: palavra que noutro contexto este livro parecia mais um thriller do que uma comédia. Não sei como chegam os três (os quatro) a casa inteiros, mas isso também não importa muito pois o importante é a viagem. E é aqui que as coisas começam a ficar filosóficas.
Jerome K. Jerome gozou de enorme popularidade com este livro (não tanto com o subsequente Três homens de bicicleta) não só pela comicidade das situações e da sua escrita, mas também porque lhe aplicou uma dose muito saudável de filosofia:

"Deita fora os trastes, homem! Deixa leve o teu barco da vida, carregado apenas com aquilo de que precisas - um lar acolhedor e prazeres simples, um ou dois amigos que mereçam tal nome, alguém que ames e alguém que te ame, um gato, um cão e um ou dois cachimbos, comida e roupa em quantidade suficiente e bebida em quantidade mais do que suficiente: porque a sede é uma coisa perigosa."

Numa narrativa metafórica (por esta não se espera quando se inicia a leitura), o desapego, o mote horaciano "carpe diem", são quase, eles próprios, personagens centrais - estão sempre presentes. Assim, creio, se explica que, mesmo que o nosso gosto amadureça, mesmo que já não nos identifiquemos tanto com determinados moldes (um livro vitoriano só pinta um retrato saudável dos homens ricos), mesmo que até não sejamos grandes fãs de literatura humorística, encontremos sempre neste livro um certo conforto - esta obra viajou pelo mundo; atravessou duas guerras mundiais, chegando a ser encontrada na mala de um soldado morto em combate; vive há mais de cem anos e até neste cantinho da Europa é reeditada de forma regular. Em alguma coisa Jerome K. Jerome acertou.

"Que bem se sente uma pessoa quando está saciada, que satisfeitos ficamos connosco e com o mundo! Dizem a pessoas que já tiveram essa experiência, que uma consciência pura dá muita alegria e contentamento; mas a estômago cheio serve perfeitamente o mesmo objectivo, e é mais barato e mais fácil de conseguir."

Lá está, não gosto de voltar aos sítios onde fui feliz e tenho de perder essa mania porque agora esta review saiu furada. Não quis dar a entender que Três Homens Num Barco é um mau livro - sobretudo para leituras públicas deve ser dos melhores! - mas eu fui muito mais feliz nas suas páginas quando o li pela primeira vez...
É engraçado que Fernando Pessoa, quando fala de Os Cadernos de Pickwick (outro grande, grande, livro!) diz que tem imensa pena de o não poder ler pela primeira vez. E é exatamente isso! Uns olhos limpos e um coração expectante são atributos essenciais para apreciar a leitura (em minha opinião), mas, como de costume, tenho a mania de ignorar as regras básicas que mantenho para mim própria e agora uma review que podia ser um hino saiu um elogio fúnebre...
Felizmente, Jerome K. Jerome e o seu livro Três Homens Num Barco não precisam de mim para absolutamente nada - a sua fama perdurará no tempo e outros leitores, mais cautos do que eu, farão reviews impressionantes, e um monte de gente continuará a rir destas aventuras de três fulanos vitorianos citadinos apertados num barco (juntamente com o rafeiro) por esse Tamisa adentro. E no fim do dia só isso importa.

Yet again I tried to struggle through this classic. I first tried years ago because it was Mr. Russell's (Cliff's father) favorite book in Have Space Suit—Will Travel. (Yes, I've gotten a lot of my suggested reading from fiction authors. Heinlein, Louis L'Amour, & Roger Zelazny were all very well read & their recommendations should be taken seriously.) I keep running into references from or about this book, so I really want to read it to put them in proper context & made myself read it.

According to the Wikipedia article, Esquire voted this the second funniest novel of all time in 2009. Incredible. My funny bone doesn't seem to be located in the same world as theirs. I don't find most British humor or old humor particularly funny & this is old British humor so it's just a slog. The narrator is pitiful as are his companions. The Uncle Podger story was just asinine. The world would be better off without the 3 men, but the dog, Montmorency, showed some promise. There wasn't nearly enough about him, though.

I could take about 15 minutes of this & then I zone out or find myself grinding my teeth, so I switched to a Matt Helm audio book. Even though I've read them all several times in paperback & listened to them once before, I find them far preferable.

I thought an audio book might make it bearable. Librivox has 3 versions available for free. I don't care for the narrator of the first version which is here:
https://librivox.org/three-men-in-a-b...
I'm listening to the second version which has multiple readers, some female. I thought mixing up the voices might help. You can find it here:
https://librivox.org/three-men-in-a-b...
The third version is read by Nick Bulka who is pretty good. You can find it here:
https://librivox.org/three-men-in-a-b...

So, I finally managed to get through it & did find quite a few references that other authors have used, but my masochistic tendencies have been used up. It wasn't worth it.

Το συγκεκριμένο μυθιστόρημα αποτελεί ένα από τα χαρακτηριστικότερα και πιο κλασικά δείγματα της Βρετανικής κουλτούρας και του φλεγματικού χιούμορ της Βικτωριανής εποχής (1889). Ο Τζερόουμ, έξυπνα, χρησιμοποιεί την εκδρομή τριών φίλων με βάρκα στον Τάμεση με τη συντροφιά του απολαυστικού σκύλου τους, Μονμόρενσυ για να σατυρίσει και να καυτηριάσει 'σκοτεινές' στιγμές της Βρετανικής Ιστορίας, αλλά καί ήθη και καταστάσεις της εποχής, όπως την αλαζονική αντίδραση στην ανάπτυξη της τεχνολογίας, τον εγκλωβισμό από τη ζωή στις μεγαλουπόλεις, τον υποχονδριασμό, τον ατομικισμό, τον σνομπισμό, την υποκρισία κτλ.

Το 2ο μέρος του βιβλίου έχει πιο γρήγορη ροή, ενώ, στο σύνολό του, το μυθιστόρημα περιέχει και πολλά στοιχεία χιουμοριστικού διηγήματος καταστάσεων. Μοναδικό και πρωτότυπο - διαθέτει την ίδια 'φρεσκάδα', μετά από.... 129 χρόνια.

Βαθμολογία: 4,2/5 ή 8,4/10.

Laugh-aloud hilarious! I felt as if I were tagging along, unobserved, on a boat trip with my brothers in the days of their youth (transposed back a century). The absurdities and ironies of the ordinary, things going wrong, anthropomorphism employed to great comic effect when boats and all their "cussed" paraphernalia seem to have minds of their own. Men showing off, embarrassments with girls, physical comedy, a bit of social commentary. The affectionate insults and jokes of three young buddies getting on each others' nerves.

Passages of purple prose about the scenery usually presaged a blunt come-down or outright disaster, as if the narrator were making fun of his own literary excess (and tendency to daydream and not pay attention to where he was steering) -- although sometimes those overdone descriptive passages seemed to be sweetly sincere expressions of awe or other emotion. But most of the prose is straightforward and modern. For an 1880s book this has aged amazingly well. The book might be even more enjoyable to someone who is actually familiar with England, the Thames River and her tributaries.

It turns out that I only identify as a woman in 2023 and that my true self is a late Victorian gentleman with a ropey sense of humour. Who knew? Those that know me probably had an inkling when the weak puns in The Diary of a Nobody had me crying with laughter and still chuckling to myself a longer-than-is-seemly while later.
The book is about so many things that are important to me, a journey along the Thames (I am a born and enamoured Londoner), friendship, dogs and the need to sometimes just escape from the humdrum of life. Fortunately for me it is not a travelogue, despite there being some beautiful descriptions of the countryside and villages they pass through and some historical background to said places it is more about the joy and niggles that come with spending a holiday with your best friends.
As with DoaN, I laughed aloud often, much to the annoyance of those unfortunate enough to be around me, as I saw myself or people I know in so many of the situations they describe. (Like Harris I cannot sing, forget the words or more commonly replace the words with what I think they are,
n  ”You don’t expect a man to never remember more than the first three lines of the first verse, and to keep repeating these until it is time to begin the chorus. You don’t expect a man to break off in the middle of a line, and snigger, and say, it’s very funny, but he’s blest if he can think of the rest of it…”n

We may have over 100 years of technological advance but Jerome’s description of a man setting out to hang a picture which turns into an epic involving every family member hunting for the tools, minor injuries, lost glasses until the picture is hung, wonkily, on a wall several hours later is a pretty accurate account of any job that has been undertaken either by my father when I was a child or in my current home,
n  Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up – very crooked and insecure, the wall for yards round looking as if it had been smoothed down with a rake, and everybody dead beat and wretched- except Uncle Podger.”n

In other curiously modern episodes we see the British Library substituted for Google search in helping our narrator discover that he is suffering from every ailment bar Housemaid’s Knee while looking up a treatment for hayferver,
n  ”I sat for a while frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever – read the symptoms- discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St Vitus’s Dance – found, as I suspected, that I had that too…”n

that Reading has always been a shithole,
n  “Even Reading, though it does its best to spoil and sully and make hideous as much of the river as it can reach, is good-natured enough to keep its ugly face a good deal out of sight.”n

and that the right to roam and antagonistic landowners are always a fraught coupling,
n  “Where it is really the owners that are to blame, they ought to be shown up. The selfishness of the riparian proprietor grows with every year. If these men had their way they would close the river Thames altogether. They actually do this along the minor tributary streams and in the backwaters. They drive posts into the bed of the stream, and draw chains across from bank to bank, and nail huge notice-boards on every tree.”n

I adored this book from start to finish as is evident from the amount of quotes I have included (and my phone is full of many more that I couldn’t include without transcribing the whole book). It’s a wonderful testament to friendship, to the Thames and to the foibles of human nature remaining constant despite the changing times. A true joy to read and I urge everyone to do so.

(Image: Three Men in a Boat painting by Winslow Homer)

This short novel is about three dudes who decide to take what they assume will be a relaxing and rejuvenating boat trip up the Thames. 

They are in need of a rest because it was oh-so-tough to be a rich person of leisure in England in the 19th century. 

There are a few amusing incidents which elicited a smile and, less often, a chuckle. There are also boring parts and supposed-to-be-funny-but-are-not parts. 

I most enjoyed, in the beginning, when Jerome (the main character's name is the same as the author's) self-diagnoses with the aid of a medical encyclopedia:

"The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations I have ever felt.". (Ring a bell, anyone?)

Every single disease, with the exception of housemaid's knee, he realizes he's suffering from. (Dr. Google at your service!)

"There were no more diseases after zymosis so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me."

It is a dry sort of humor, the kind I like most, and yet the mishaps that fall upon these men - or they bring upon themselves - just aren't that funny. 

The guys take Montmorency, a fox terrier, along and I wish there'd been more about him. He was more interesting than those dolts whose company he found himself in.

Remember I said about the supposed-to-be-funny-but-are-not parts? Here's a for instance. Poor Montmorency gets injured by a tea kettle full of hot water. 

That just makes me think of the stupid videos on 'America's Funniest Videos' that are anything but funny, just a bunch of people and animals getting hurt or scared.

So.... ho-hum and a diddle, diddle, dee.

Utterly delightful from beginning to end; had me in stitches more than once. I loved the digressions, the endless tales about friends and friends-of-friends; the charming diagrams; the sudden swoops into romantic (and Romantic) flights of fancy. In my mind, all three characters spoke like Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster (with similar sensibility; that is to say, none at all).
I can't reproduce it all here, but one of my favorite scenes was that in which the narrator describes his loathing for steam launches -- hilarious! -- followed by the scene in which they are towed by a steam launch and the narrator rails against the "wretched small boats that are continually getting in the way of our launch."
And the packing scene! "I never saw two men do more with one-and-twopence worth of butter in my whole life than they did."
And the chapter headings! Loved.
I am now going to go back and re-read that scene in To Say Nothing of the Dog in which they run into the hapless boaters.
Folded corners:

...down he would slide on to the piano, a really fine musical effect being produced by the suddenness with which his head and body struck all the notes at the same time.
And Aunt Maria would say that she would not allow the children to stand round and hear such language.

The remaining four passengers sat on for a while, until a solemn-looking man in the corner, who, from his dress and general appearance, seemed to belong to the undertaker class, said {the smell of the cheese} put him in mind of a dead baby; and the other three passengers tried to get out of the door at the same time, and hurt themselves.

They started by breaking a cup. That was the first thing they did. They did that just to show you what they could do, and to get you interested.

Montmorency was in it all, of course. Montmorency's ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted.

She was nuts on public houses, was England's Virgin Queen. There's scarcely a pub of any attractions within ten miles of London that she does not seem to have looked in at, or stopped at, or slept at, some time or another.

...a gentleman in shirt sleeves and a short pipe came along, and wanted to know if we knew that we were trespassing. We said we hadn't given the matter sufficient consideration as yet to enable us to arrive at a definite conclusion on that point, but that, if he assured us on his word as a gentleman that we were trespassing, we would, without further hesitation, believe it.

You get near the kettle, so that it can overhear you, and then you shout out, "I don't want any tea; do you, George?" to which George shouts back, "Oh, no, I don't like tea; we'll have lemonade instead--tea's so indigestible." Upon which the kettle boils over, and puts the stove out.

When I meet a cat, I say, "Poor Pussy!" and stoop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace. When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinary respectable man all his life, with care.

Goring is not nearly so pretty a little spot to stop... but it is passing fair enough in its way, and is nearer the railway in case you want to slip off without paying your bill.

What a quaint little book!

I had no idea this existed. But I'm definitely glad I could rectify that now.

The story is that of three friends, elderly gentlemen, who decide to journey up the Thames in a little boat together with the dog one of them owns. The preparations for the trip are already very entertaining, but the trip itself is no less so. Apart from them actually travelling for a bit, we are treated to various stops along the way (I looked a few places up on a map and was delighted to see there are indeed so many interesting places along the river). During the voyage as well as the stops, there are some reminiscences, childhood memories as well as later encounters, from all three. All while they are stumbling about. You might have guessed that not only do they encounter a bit of bad luck, their own helplessness and the fact that they don't actually know what they are doing isn't helping either.

The characters (the dog definitely being one of them) are very quirky. It's basically the story of three old(er) grumpy men travelling together with a dog, having some mishaps on the way. The way it was told was light and quite modern so the age of the book actually surprises.
Seeing society through the eyes of the three friends (and the dog) was very funny and the light way the story is told in that is nonetheless full of dry humour makes it clear why this book was an instant success back when it was first published.

Once again, I've chosen the audioversion and am glad for it because although I do not have the version narrated by Hugh Laurie, it was wonderful to have this story brought to life with the proper British accent.