Two of the funniest novels I ever read.

There is nothing useful this book. Nothing edifying, nothing instructive, or clarifying in this novel.

I read Three Men in a Boat last month and didn't learn anything at all! And this month I pick up Three Men on the Bummel and expected *AT LEAST* a concise travelogue with pretty pictures describing the joys of riding bikes down hills in sweet German countrysides and partaking of local cuisine and generally trying to make myself understood.

What I did get was a bunch of prattle about how to extricate yourself from collapsing in a mess with the locals, how many fines you have to pay when you walk on the wrong side of the street, stolen bicycles, mysterious dogs, and the fact that the narrator was kicked out of his own house because he's a twat.

I swear!

This is last time I pick up a travel brochure from that guy down by St. Denis square with the ratty top hat and that extensive collection of hair restorative products.

This volume contains 2 books. I finished the first but am calling it finished. I'll put it on the shelf and see if I want to read the 2nd someday.

It's always tough to read something written almost 150 years ago by an Englishman using words and phrases uncommon in America today. Cute tales with good humor but it seemed like a lot of work to get through.

Wow, this book started off hilarious on the very first page and never let up. It's only about 150 pages long, but the consistent level of hilarity in itself is still remarkable. The very basic story is just 3 guys and dog who decide to take a constitutional river cruise for a couple of weeks in a small boat. Most of the book is made of digressions, something happened that will remind the narrator, known only as J., of something a friend once told him, or something that happened to him once, which will remind him of something else. I can't pinpoint a favorite part, but some parts that stand out are the story about transporting the foul-smelling cheese (being a hater of cheese myself, I can understand), the scene where the men try to bash open a tin can of pineapple, the dog fighting with the tea kettle, the tea kettle getting angry in another part of the story and boiling over, the cowardly mast that hits people in the back of the head, and on and on and on. I'd recommend this to anyone, though only 2 of my friends have read it, one gave it 3 stars and one gave it only 1. Which blows my mind. I nearly pissed myself laughing out loud at it.

This was more a book I felt I should read rather than one I wanted to read. Nevertheless, as it is often mentioned alongside the very funny 'Diary of a Nobody' I had high expectations. Though it is amusing in places, its humour is somewhat dated and the most I managed was a wry grin. (Whereas DoaN still makes me laugh at loud.)

Jerome K. Jerome's classic travelogue is collected here with its follow-up, Three Men on the Bummel. Jerome's writing is accessible given the time and Three Men in a Boat serves as a humorous snapshot of the late Nineteenth Century in Victorian Britain as the titular men (to say nothing of the dog) row up the Thames. Its "sequel" sees the same three (this time without the dog) travel to Germany, ostensibly to cycle through the Black Forest, though they frequently get sidetracked.

It's a fine enough read, however some of Jerome's digressions did not hold my attention. German customs and cultural traits are the chief subject in Bummel which may have been novel observations at the time but through a Twenty-First Century lense, come across as rather tired. Perhaps unusually though, I enjoyed it more than the far more celebrated and famous Three Men in a Boat as I found the backdrop more interesting. The Germany Jerome describes would have been the vast Second Reich, as it was at the time, which in a little over a decade would be at war with Great Britain.

Mostly though, my inability to find any book funny once again leaves a renowned work of humour a rather unnoteworthy read.

It was actually just Three Men on the Brummel I read.

There is less slap-stick in here than Three Men in a Boat but also less wistful romance (fairies, etc). The humour is still up-to-date.

Maybe not as funny as the first book, but still far funnier than a lot of other 'humorous' books.

More a chuckle than a tearful seizure.

What a fun read! THis book follows 3 men over 100 years ago who decide to take a boat ride down the Thames River. The second book follows the same men 10 years later on a bike trip through the Black Forest of Germany. Since we lived in both of these places, I found Jerome's descriptions hilarious. The story was simple but was full of tangents ("That reminded me of the time that ...")and insights on life.

Here's a long quote I liked from chapter 3: "George said: "You know we are on a wrong track altogether. We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without."

George comes out really quite sensible at times. You'd be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life, generally. How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat till it is ever in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber.

How they pile the poor little craft mast-high with fine clothes and big
houses; with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not
care twopence for them, and that they do not care three ha'pence for;
with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and
fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with - oh, heaviest, maddest lumber of all! - the dread of what will my neighbour think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and swoon the aching head that wears it!

It is lumber, man - all lumber! Throw it overboard. It makes the boat
so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so
cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's freedom
from anxiety and care, ...
Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, ... enough to eat and enough to wear, ...
You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to work. Time to drink in life's sunshine - ..."

4 stars for sheer joy & delight. The second book can be a bit chilling. They visit Germany on a bike tour a couple decades before WWI and WWII and rhapsodize over how orderly and well-behaved the Germans are. And how docilely they take orders and respect authority.

Envelhecer vai-me ensinando, aos poucos e poucos, a largar livros. Este é daqueles que me ajuda às tácticas de desistência, algo que o encurtar de caminhos (olha a meta já ali) aconselha (sobretudo porque a lista é longa). A dica vem de longe, de um tempo em que resistia muito mais às dicas do que agora. Prova disso é que só o levei da livraria décadas depois, mais porque o preço me conviesse do que por um interesse intenso. Ficou na estante outra tanta espera e às tantas, porque demorou mais tempo uma das habituais encomendas bulímicas (vá, deu-me a fome) acabei por pegar nele. Esperava, devo dizer, muito mais. É verdade que entretanto a dita encomenda chegou, e ficou a olhar para mim. Ou pode ser que talvez o humor britânico seja demasiado subtil para a minha cabeça. Contudo, se algum adjectivo me surge não é "subtil", mas ingénuo - um humor ingénuo, uma fragmentação de anedota televisiva, à mistura com o lado mais domesticamente sensaborão da excentricidade inglesa. Acelerei, saltei páginas e deixei para outra vida a segunda história. Acontece aos melhores.

I really enjoyed Three Men in a Boat. I enjoyed the was they told the story and how ridiculous the three men were while still seeming not over the top. I found myself giggling on more than one occasion.

Three Me on the Bummel was less enjoyable. The three men are back and are older and two of them married with children. I appreciated that in this book they were all three more mature. There are still some funny observations and some funny episodes but as a whole this one felt, well, meaner. Trigger warning there are racist passages and misogynist ones. But also a good portion of the book is dedicated to mocking late nineteenth century Germans and Germany. It just felt kind of bully-ish after a while.

Jerome K Jerome first came to my attention through watching, and enjoying, Gryff Rhys Jones and co in the TV program, Three Men in a Boat, and so, upon espying Three Men in an Omnibus in the booksellers stall at a second hard market, I was thrilled.
Although not overly taken with the chapter on his days in the theatre, other parts of the book, particularly Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (love the essay on weather) and Three Men in a Boat were fabulous.
I’m not certain what this says about me, but, as a rule, stories which contain the word ‘curmudgeon’ tend to appeal to me, and this one kept up the tradition.