I recently read two delightful comic travel novels by Jerome K. Jerome, a popular 19th-century writer, journalist, essayist, novelist, and playwright. Laughing at his books in an empty house had an eerie, manic sound. Worse, it was really chuckling, and I hate chuckling. That throaty chuckle reminds me of an actress who introduces late -night horror movies, often Basil Rathbone in Son of Frankenstein.
For those who prefer comedy, I recommend Three Men on a Boat (1889), a riotously funny book about a boat trip on the River Thames. Jerome sets out with two bachelor friends, Harris and George, none of the three expert boaters, and a dog, Montmorency, who loves fighting with other dogs. Alas, the three men did not practice their camping technique; their packing and unpacking is a disaster, with necessary items forgotten or lost; and they have no idea how to erect the special tent t which drapes over the boat; and when they attempt to sail, they become so entangled in the sails that they barely avert disaster.
I laughed even harder at Jerome’s later book, Three Men on the Bummel (1900). In this account of a hilarious bicycle journey, Jerome and Harris are keen on escaping the annual vacation with their wives and kids, and decide to take a long-distance bicycle trip, a bummel (which means a roaming or wandering) through Germany. As for George, still a bachelor, he is always ready for a fun trip. And I laughed at their bumbling, because I once took a harrowing three-state bike ride. My husband is an expert who made me practice camping beforehand, but he still had to lure me up hills in Pennsylvania (mountains, I prefer to call them) with a reward of a cookie or bubble gum.
Much of the humor in Three Men on the Bummel reflects Jerome’s sardonic attitude toward his friends’ preparations. George has a hilarious German phrase book which makes no sense, and resembles the university German conversation book in Intensive German I.
Jerome describes a typical weird phrasebook situation. In a railroad “compartment load of quarrelsome and ill-mannered lunatics: “Can you not get further away from me, Sir?” – “It is impossible, madam, my neighbor here is very stout. “ – ”Shall we not endeavor to arrange our legs?”
Then there are the fanatics who like to overhaul bikes. Jerome says there are “two ways you can get exercise out of a bicycle: you can ride it or you can overhaul it.” He watches with fascination as a friend destroys Jerome’s wheels and chain in the process of overhauling the bike.
Jerome writes,
On the whole I am not sure that that a man who takes his pleasure overhauling does not have the best of the bargain. He is independent of the weather and the wind; the state of the road troubles him not. Give him a screw-hammer, a bundle of rags, an oil can, and something to sit down upon, and he is happy for the day. He has to put up with certain disadvantages, of course; there is no joy without alloy. He himself always looks like a tinker, and his machine always suggests the idea that, having stolen it he has tried to disguise it…
I love Jerome’s witty philosophizing and satire, and the journey is comically realistic. Two splendid books, and at least one to add to your summer reading, depending on whether you are a boater or a bicyclist.