Three Men in a Boat - 4 stars

I loved this. It was brilliantly written and had me laughing throughout. This was supposed to be a travel document but it turned out to be a laugh-riot.

Three Men on the Bummel - 3 stars

In the second book, our characters embark on a bicycle trip to Germany. I really loved how the author captured everything about Germany but it wasn't as funny as the previous book in the series. It is still enjoyable.

It took a while to finish it. While being witty, and I certainly enjoyed the writing style and use of vocabulary, it is not that exciting. Without the constant flashbacks I might have enjoyed it a bit more.
The scenery described in the book was nice but after having finished a few pages and having put the book aside it didn't make me excited to come back to it, let alone wonder how the story might continue. Not my cup of tea.

This wasn't my type of book at all. It seemed to be three unutterably stupid men being incompetent at almost everything they try - and they don't try much of any interest. There was one really beautiful description of the night, which completely took me by surprise, as it didn't seem to match the rest of the book. Perhaps this just isn't my genre...

My mother read these books to me and my sister when we were young, and I remembered them being entertaining, so I was excited to reread them. Well... I’m not denying that there are some genuinely funny parts here and there (I throughly enjoyed the descriptions of the Germans, and frankly Three Men on the Bummel was a much better read), but otherwise they just failed to make any kind of impact on me. Maybe it would have been a better experience if I’d been to the places mentioned.

Tre uomini in barca finito il 20.10.2008
A metà tra guida di viaggio e diario umoristico, Tre uomini in barca rientra pienamente nella più gloriosa tradizione di letteratura umoristica britannica (alla quale appartiene anche Wodehouse). Tre baldi giovani, poco avvezzi al lavoro e leggermente tendenti all'ipocondria, decidono di guarire i loro mali per mezzo di una corroborante gita in barca di due settimane. Questo dà la stura a una serie di aneddoti (alcuni accaduti durante il viaggio, altri ricordati sull'onda del momento) alternati a piccole note di colore locale o di sapore storico. La voce narrante, J., Harry e George si danno alla vita fluviale con un entusiasmo lodevole ma spesso spento dall'apparire di insospettabili ed esilaranti difficoltà che faranno stramazzare il lettore al suolo dalle risate.
Tre uomini a zonzo finito il 26.10.2008
Qualche anno dopo la famigerata gita in barca, due su tre dei nostri uomini si sono sposati e sentono la necessità di allontanarsi dalla famiglia per una sana vacanza al maschile. In questo romanzo l'elemento comico è ancora molto forte (inarrivabile la dissertazione sulle leggi tedesche e sulle potenzialità di un semplice passeggino) ma a esso si affianca un tono più melanconico in alcuni punti (bellissima la definizione finale di viaggio). Personalmente ho trovato deliziose le parti in cui Jerome affronta con ironia le "problematiche" della vita familiare.

A delight!

A good friend recommended Connie Willis' "To Say Nothing of the Dog" some years ago, which is a time-travelling homage to Jerome K. Jerome's hilarious classic "Three Men in a Boat." Yet, I did not get around to reading TMIAB until my Great Books book club read it for our January 2017 meeting.

In an unusual turn of events, every member who attended loved the book (in 9 years, I can't remember this happening). Comparisons to "Seinfeld" abounded; TMIAB is a travelogue about nothing interrupted regularly by a series of humorous digressions.

There's no question in my mind that Monty Python were influenced by this book. In fact, the 1975 Tom Stoppard screen adaptation stars Michael Palin (to say nothing of Tim Curry) and does a magnificent job of capturing three members of the emerging clerk class on a river holiday with the trusty scallawag, Montmorency.

It is unfortunate that the average American is unfamiliar with this book. The language is relatively modern considering that it was written in the 1870's; many contemporaries considered the book gauche and low-class. This really ought to be required reading.

Three men in a boat
A nice trip the three friends had there - I have rarely laughed so much at a book (already at the first three pages I was rolling on the floor with laughter)

In many ways, these two books are the literary equivalent of the sitcom "Seinfeld" - comedies about "nothing." But instead of three guys and an ex-girlfriend going through the antics of daily life in Manhattan, the first is about three Englishmen and a dog going through ridiculous antics while rowboating up the Thames, and the second (written and taking place some ten years later) is about the same three men on a bicycle trip in the Black Forest of Germany. Written in late Victorian England, the jokes are a lot cleaner than Seinfeld's, and the overall tone is classically British tongue-in-cheek, but the scenes depict the challenges of ordinary life (ie putting up a tent, opening a can of pineapple) hilariously. I know "laughing out loud" is a computer-age cliche, but I promise you, my fellow commuters could hear me as I was reading these books.

The author does diverge from humor in spots, particularly in the second book, in which he makes observations about the German people that underline all the features that gave rise to the Nazi era, though notably, the author acknowledges getting swept up in pugilistic mob thinking himself. That, of course, is anything but funny, but you can't help but be impressed at the author's perceptiveness. The book was written 50 years before the rise of Hitler, though Kaiser Wilhelm was already in power.

All in all, though, the book is good, clean fun. Unlike many other books on my list, you don't have to be Jewish, or a Jane Austen fan, or a parent, or an aspiring writer to enjoy it. It really has universal appeal.

The hilarious bits in 'Three Men in a Boat' were perfect but lacklustre places by the Thames were described for long stretches and was really tedious. Jerome was not a master prose stylist after all.
Rating : 3.5

'Three Men on a Bummel', was a travelogue and encapsulated Jerome's half-baked opinions on German and Anglo-Saxon culture, new women, etcetera etcetera. The adventures of J. with George and Harris which made the first book so charming was scant in this one. Although, it did give insight about law-abiding German citizens and their respect for authority, which explains the establishment and history of Nazi Germany.
Rating: 2.5
Overall rating : 3

Amusing, but you've got to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy this book, and potentially pace yourself. Lots of fun details - some just absurd, but some interesting insights into a different time/culture/etc. (details that either somehow still have strong parallels to current life, or are wildly different). I did look up some of the places mentioned, not being familiar with the geography.

Despite of what most people feel. Both books are extremely hilarious. I will be reading chapters from these books to my friends. I don't care if it gets annoying. I'll make new friends and read to them.

I truly love this book. It's one of my "classics" : it's among the ones I turn to when I don't know what to read next, and it's always a pleasure to read it one more time. No matter how many times I read it in my whole life, I bet this story will always make me laugh.