Seeking mirth in the mundane

No one quite does comic novels like the English. The arch observations about humans and their curious ways, the struggles to one-up each other and the failures of treasons and stratagems — all these have been catnip for talented English humorists through the centuries. It must come from living on an island and braving the persistent bad weather — you can’t help but look at life with a cynical eye and exercise your wits to keep you warm in the cold and the rain.

Among the greats of English humorists, Jerome K Jerome is in a class by himself. He didn’t have the prodigious output of a P G Wodehouse, but the two books he did write, about three friends who go on adventurous holidays — first in a boat and then on bicycles through Germany and the Black Forest — remain the kind of stories you return to again and again when the world gets a bit too much.

The idea of three hypochondriacs on a boating holiday on the Thames would be enough to create a riotous comedy — however, Jerome’s novel, Three Men in a Boat, has the added pleasure of a canine traveller, Montmorency, who makes his presence felt early on in this tale: “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.”

The three men — George, Harris and the narrator (a fictional version of the author, named J) — hit upon the idea of a boat trip on the Thames to recover from the various maladies they think they suffer from that “…had been brought on by overwork.” George diagnoses: “The overstrain upon our brains has produced a general depression throughout the system.”

They make elaborate preparations about food and camping and dealing with the weather so naturally on the appointed day, they wake up hours later than they are supposed to and reach Waterloo station where they struggle to find the right train to Kingston — the starting point for their boating trip. They eventually do get there, and here, Jerome’s detailed descriptions of the town and its places of interest betray the origins of Three Men in a Boat — the project was initially supposed to be a travel guide for holidaygoers. The book was published in 1889 at a time when leisure boating trips and sailing were increasingly popular pastimes.

Precisely why the details that Jerome peppers in between the various comic scenarios and situations experienced by the three men (and dog, never forget the dog), are so accurate that even now fans of the novel can take a trip from Kingston to Oxford on the Thames and see many of the landmarks that he describes.

As the three friends navigate the vagaries of a two-week journey up a river and struggle with the weather, tinned pineapple (naturally, they forget to pack a tin opener) and Montmorency’s interfering nature, you realise that the most mundane happenings in everyday life are the best sources for comedy.

Because Three Men in a Boat was about something so defiantly middle-class — men with jobs in offices who decide to take a holiday — it naturally riled up the more snobbish elements in the English press who denounced its supposed vulgarity. Jerome, of course, had the last laugh on those sniffy critics when the book became a runaway bestseller not just in England but also in the US. It was translated into multiple languages and has been adapted for radio, TV, and film. Three men, a boat, a river and a dog: the essential ingredients of the perfect comic tale that never ceases to delight.

The author is a writer and communications professional. When she’s not reading, writing or watching cat videos, she can be found on Instagram @saudha_k where she posts about reading, writing, and cats.

That One Book is a fortnightly column that does exactly what it says — it takes up one great classic and tells you why it is (still) great.