Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel | 
 enlarge | Author: Jerome K. Jerome
Creator: Jeremy Lewis
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $11.00
Buy Used: $4.06
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Avg. Customer Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 192161
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0140437509
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780140437508
ASIN: 0140437509
Publication Date: May 1, 2000
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Product Description
Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. and his friends George and Harris decide that a jaunt up the Thames would suit them to a T'. But when they set off, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts and tins of pineapple chunks not to mention the devastation left in the wake of J.'s small fox-terrier Montmorency. Three Men in a Boat was an instant success when it appeared in 1889, and proved so popular that Jerome reunited his now older but not necessarily wiser heroes in Three Men on the Bummel, for a picaresque bicycle tour of Germany. With their benign escapism, authorial discursions and wonderful evocation of the late-Victorian clerking classes', both novels hilariously capture the spirit of their age.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 Guy's nights out December 24, 2008
Jerome K. Jerome is a recent and most welcome discovery. The passage of time sometimes pushes excellent authors off onto literary sidings, much as high speed passenger trains do to important but less flashy local trains. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat" and "Three Men on the Bummel" should not be allowed to be shunted aside. Simply put, this two book in a single volume edition, is fun to read. You don't need specific knowledge of travel in England or Germany to appreciate Jerome's trips with his friends. It does add to the fun, but it is not necessary! You can, however, appreciate the comradeship and comedy of three guys who know each other and each other's foibles only too well, knocking about together on vacation. I've been on these sorts of trips and the scenarios are described to perfection. These stories are exactly what you would want to write about a trip with friends, if you could write as delightfully as Jerome K. Jerome. Highly recommended for just plain fun.
 A bicycle trip through Germany can be a hoot March 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Jerome K. Jerome explains in the preface: "There will be no descriptions of towns, no historical reminiscences, no architecture, no morals. Lastly, in this book there will be no scenery. This is not laziness on my part; it is self-control."
Ten years after their journey up the Thames described in the witty Three Men in a Boat - To Say Nothing of the Dog, George, Harris and Jerome take a bicycle tour of Germany. Their goal is the Black Forest. No dog goes along this time, but many animals appear along the route.
Jerome's first book had moments of seriousness and black humor, but was usually light, dead pan and very witty. Here the blackness is more apparent, especially reacting to German people and "their blind obedience to everything in buttons. [If a German] can find a police notice on a tree forbidding him to do something or other, that gives him an extra sense of comfort and security..... From what I have observed of the German character I should not be surprised to hear that when a man in Germany is condemned to death, he is given a piece of rope and told to go home and hang himself."
He is equally harsh on English tourists in Germany. "The Englishman, unable or unwilling to learn a single word of any language but his own, travels purse in hand to every corner of the Continent....The English-speaking man stands amid the strangers and jingles his gold. 'Here,' he cries, 'is payment for all such as can speak English.'"
The word "bummel" is puzzling; the US edition was called Three Men On Wheels. "A 'Bummel'," I explained, "I should describe as a journey, long or short, without an end; the only thing regulating it being the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started. Sometimes it is through busy streets, and sometimes through the fields and lanes; sometimes we can be spared for a few hours, and sometimes for a few days. But long or short, but here or there, our thoughts are ever on the running of the sand. We nod and smile to many as we pass; with some we stop and talk awhile; and with a few we walk a little way. We have been much interested, and often a little tired. But on the whole we have had a pleasant time, and are sorry when it's over."
Mark Twain described a walking tour of the same area in A Tramp Abroad. Three Men on the Bummel follows the same approach to travel, this time on bicycles, a Victorian craze of the era.
The bicycle talk still resonates: "There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard. There was that saddle you bought in Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked like a pair of kidneys.... The box you bought it in had a picture on the cover, representing a sitting skeleton--or rather that part of a skeleton which does sit.... We will not go into details; the picture always seemed to me indelicate."
Overall, this book lacks the Thames to create a sense of cohesion. Nevertheless, the clash of cultures has a certain charm, and if you buy a volume containing both books, it will deliver some very enjoyable moments.
Robert C. Ross
Bikes'n'boats February 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Imagine Bertie Wooster and two of his idiot friends out on a boat... with no Jeeves.
That about describes the antics in "Three Men in a Boat : To Say Nothing of the Dog" and its drier sequel "Three Men on the Bummel." Jerome K. Jerome paints his little books with gloriously goofy antics, as we watch three upper-class Englishmen try to rough it -- on land and on water.
The three men are George, Harris and the narrator, who are all massive hypochiandriacs -- they find that they have symptoms of every disease in existance (except housemaid's knee). To prop up their failing health, they decide to take a cruise down the Thames in a rented boat, camping and enjoying nature's bounty.
Along with Monty -- an angelic-looking, devilish terrier -- the three friends set off down the river. But they find that not everything is as easy as they expected. They get lost in hedge mazes, end up going downstream without a paddle, encounter monstrous cats and vicious swans, have picnics navigate locks, offend German professors, and generally get into every kind of trouble they possibly can.
But our valiant outdoorsmen aren't done yet. Some years after the first book, the boys are feeling stifled by domesticity. So they decide to take a vacation from home, hearth, and some equally stifled wives -- by taking a bike trip in Germany. Naturally, they have trouble even before they leave -- hard bike seats, a history of leaving wives behind, and a dog that eats ball bearings.
But eventually they get to Germany, and promptly cycle their way through towns, cities, and the Black Forest. Our narrator reflects on German personalities, customs, and geography... and when he isn't, they are rained on, get lost, get into linguistic battles over cushions, encounter more odd dogs, and finally the most important question: what is a Bummel anyway?
As you'd expect, the first book is an absolute riot of comic disasters, written in Wodehousian prose. The second... not so much. But even though they were published more than a century ago, Jerome K. Jerome was uproariously funny -- he was able to wring humour from any subject, be it poetry, bicycles, pets, plaster fish, or the woes of setting up a tent successfully.
Jerome's real talent is in finding humor in everyday things, like trying to erect a tent in the woods, fighting the weather, or trying to fix one's own bicycle. Written in Jerome's dry, goofy prose, these little occurrances become immensely funny. And for stuff that is funny anyway -- like an anatomically correct bike seat -- it becomes hilarious ("it was like riding on an irritable lobster!").
The second book does get a bit dry at times, as Jerome spends a lot of time musing on Germany rather than conjuring wacky hijinks. And the first book's end has its solemn, compassionate moment when the boys find a drowned woman: "She had sinned - some of us do now and then - and her family and friends, naturally shocked and indignant, had closed their doors against her."
But back on the funny stuff. The capstone on all this humor is the "three men." These guys are basically pampered Victorian aristocrats, who have a romantic yearning for the great outdoors and not too many brains. You'll be laughing at them and with them, as they struggle through the basics of boating and camping.
Wacky, self-mocking, and full of odd people, "Three Men in a Boat" and its slightly less funny sequel "Three Men on a Bummel" are still fresh and funny a century after they were written.
Just Delightful June 5, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What a delightful read! The book weaves the happenings of a current boat trip with stories of previous trips and experiences. It is hillarious, laugh-out-loud funny in a lot of spots. The language is superb and the research section is very helpful. All in all a great read!
Mediumly funny, but dry humor (except where they fall overboard!) April 20, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
I liked it, but then I have a dry wit as well. It is two books in one publication and so it is good value. It also came from an age where the average folk could afford to buy books. So it is very colloquial in content. The sort of "you could be out having fun" too sort of tale. And yet most of us could easily replicate a journey like their's either rowing up the Thames or biking in Germany.
So not a laugh a minute slapstick stuff but definitely funny. On the other hand if you are worried, buy a used copy some of them are quite cheap. Or get it from the library.
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