Narrow Dog to Carcassonne

by Terry Darlington

Terry and Monica Darlington are intrepid pensioners who made the surprising decision to sail their canal narrowboat Phillis May, 1600 miles across France and down to the Mediterranean, accompanied only by their whippet. 'Narrow Dog To Carcassonne' is a true story of high adventure.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, France, Humor, Memoir, British Literature, Book Club

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Terry and Monica Darlington sail the waterways on their narrowboat. Terry writes books, Monica acts as his manager, and Jim and Jess act as their dogs.

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was so much information on each page that I felt my head spinning, as it was a lot to process! It was funny in parts and I learned something about narrow boats and whippets and a whole lot else besides.

New vocabulary word: goongoozler. "A goongoozler is someone who stares at boaters."

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This account of an interesting life on a canal boat expedition is heartwarming, amusing and moving. The writing involves you the reader in the authors life as he lives it and is expressed as though you are alongside him and his wife and longdog throughout - marvellous! No pretensions here; all totally accessible. I was so sad to find that he is longer alive. I miss this person I have not met in the flesh, but feel I know a little.

[Joe White · Rating 1 out of 5]

While the thesis for this book was an English narrowboat (canal boat) taken down England, across the channel, into Belgium, and then to the south of France, the actual amount of material devoted to boating or canal details could have been summed up in less than 15 pages.
This was a rambling prattle, that appeared to have mostly a satirical negative overtone, regarding fleeting glimpses of people and restaurants along the route.
The owners (writers) were older, the trip was apparently expensive, and there were historical detail fill-ins regarding WWII actions in various sites.
There were no maps and no summarized table of distances, times, and costs. No worthwhile details were given at all. For instance, I think the boat was required to be escorted across the English channel, and I think that there is a relatively high cost for the escort service due to licensing, but this wasn't even mentioned.

How locks actually work, how hard is it to handle and steer a narrowboat? - You won't find any detail here.

300 wasted pages trying to colorize a not very interesting trip - one in which the authors didn't seem to enjoy.

To be fair, the English have a different viewpoint than regular people, and this book was intended to be halfway about their dog, a whippet, which was taken on the journey - I had no interest in the dog after about the first 2 pages. There is maybe 1 worthwhile mention of canal travel detail per chapter, so the book can be a fast scan looking for these mentions. Same for the dog relevance portions. You'll never get your life back if you waste the full time trying to read and treasure this.

[Shay · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fun book! This is about an older couple and their dog from England who take a narrow boat across the English Channel. It was quite a dangerous outing, but they had a boat pilot with them and another boat to guide them across the channel. This book chronicles their adventures and misadventures. Told with a sardonic, English humor, this book is just a delightful read.

[Jessica Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The style takes a little getting used to but once you're over that, it's a fantastic read and very funny. The punctuation and sentence structure is actually very clever, giving a stream of consciousness style to the whole piece. If you have ever spent much time in France, his comments will have you laughing in recognition. Highly recommended!

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite developing a kind of mild dislike for the author who, I seem to think, used to be in advertising or PR or something similar, this was an interesting story. One of the critics in the reviews for other books hit the nail on the head, however, by stating that all travel books these days needed a conceit of some sort. Taking a houseboat down through the canals in France - I mean why should we be interested? It's your dream, mate, so entertain me if you can.
Well, I suppose he did in the end. It was a good trip, but I left it feeling that Darlington is a pub bore, that nobody knows better than him and that he itches and burns with a desire to let you know just how bloody smart he is. I felt this all through the book, but couldn't quite put my finger on it, and then discovered on finishing the tale that he'd penned a little postscript pointing to all the literary allusions and quotations he'd peppered the book with. In case you were too dumb to see them. Being not quite as intelligent as he is.

[Emily Kestrel · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF on page 50. I just don't like the writing style--jumpy, lots of hyperbole, and lots of making fun of people. Fans of Bill Bryson might like it.

[Carol Sheppard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amusing and witty but more of a journal than a story

[Memo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave this one star because I haven't got the option to give it none! He says "We could bore ourselves to death, drink ourselves to death, or have a bit of an adventure..." I feel Mr Darlington denied me the last two options by just boring me do death. I thought it might have improved if they had sunk at the end but the only way to improve this was if it sant at the beginning! A classic example of someone with too much time on their hands that think they have a talent for writing to supplement their pension - can only assume Mr Darlington either used some of that pension to fund this book or he is related to the publisher. The publisher also needs a review on how they choose books if this is the best they can come up with. Either way, life is too short to waste on reading this. Not even heavy enough to use as a door stop!

[Judy Beyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know nothing about Terry Darlington, so I approached this book unaware of his life and the role in the advertising world that seemed to affect other readers.
Unfettered by preconceptions, I laughed and laughed. The man tells a rollicking good tale. His articulate and smart wife, the endearing whippet and the adventures had sailing the narrowboat amused me no end.
I’d have liked their take on old Carcassonne, but for the rest this is a great read...

[Hilary · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, laugh out loud read. Those who criticise the writing style have obviously never read the likes of the best-selling author, Cormac McCarthy. Yes, it's a different style to the norm, but who wants norm?

[Kat Fiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect for those who like boats or France or whippets. Should be avoided by anyone with an aversion to dad humour. Makes me long for retirement.

[Booknblues · Rating 2 out of 5]

Last year I read The Narrowboat Summer and was delighted with it and the wonderful relaxing sense of moving slowly down a canal in a narrow boat. When I saw the book Narrow Dog To Carcassonne, I thought that this would be a perfect continuation for this summer with some wonderful tales of French medieval cities, wineries, the Eiffel tower and perhaps some great food.

Then when I realized that Terry Darlington and his wife Monica were planning on taking their narrowboat over the channel, I was completely intrigued and all-in. Truthfully it took me sometime to fall all-out. Jim the dog, a whippet is a great character and I couldn't help but love him.

I was quite delighted that description of food were included:

Nettles are always with us and nettle soup is not hard to make. You take some fat bacon and fry it up in a saucepan, and add some chicken stock. Then slice in some mushrooms and one large potato and add some single cream. Then if you wish add the nettles. It doesn’t make much difference if you don’t.

Monica proves to be nearly invisible and Terry begins to be just too, too much.

There are no maps and the route from Calais to Carcassonne, makes no sense to me. We are certainly not going as the crow flies, but one does have to follow established canals.

I wished for more sense of the towns and the landscape and even the meals along the way. There was a point 65% in that I wondered can I take more of this blather, but I had to know if they ever reached Carcassonne.

The worst part of all this is that he has written a further book about his adventures in the US along the inland waterways from South Carolina to Florida and I regret to say that I'm intrigued with the idea.

[Katie Grainger · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like many readers of this book I really struggled with the style of writing and in the end I just did not find this an enjoyable read.

Having been on two narrowboat holidays, one on the Oxford Canal I was really looking forward to this but sadly I just struggled far to much with the style of writing to find it enjoyable. I am suprised that anyone has been able to finish this to be honest it was that hard going. I just couldn't tell what was happening half the time. Not for me.

[Kristine Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another in my Books About Bargeing in preparation for our barge trip this autumn. British bone China dry and very funny, often poetic, Darlington relates the charming and not so charming aspects of living on and maneuvering and flatboat through English and French canals, and a harrowing Channel crossing, with enormous affection for his wife but especially for his “ narrow dog”, a whippet named Jim. Lovely.

[Kiera Horner · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars, it wasn’t really my kind of writing style, it didn’t grip me and was hard to follow. But I did enjoy the humour and descriptions throughout a lot of the book.

[Sara Eames · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful writing style - jumped all over the place with little or no context - made this unreadable for me.

[Veronique Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great adventure I dont deny but the writing style is more challenging at times, rambling, jumping and at times so off piste you have to double back to check you have not missed a page. But the description of the run down the Rhone and the Canal du Midi was riveting.

[Kate Lock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave up. Did not like the author and struggled to get past that.

[Doug Mitchell · Rating 1 out of 5]

While I was suffering through “Narrow Dog to Carcassonne” I had a conversation with a good friend of mine. As it often does, the topic of our discussion turned to books. He asked what I was reading and I told him of the pain I was experiencing trying to get through Terry Darlington’s awful book about his insufferable trip on his insipid narrowboat the Phyllis May. After he finished laughing, my friend told me his policy was to punish bad books by leaving them, unfinished, on airplanes.

Good plan. Unfortunately for me, and now for you, I had no trips on the horizon. Buying a ticket to Billings and back seemed an extreme price to pay just to dump a book, but I considered it – seriously.

Alas, my reader’s guilt won out and I decided to finish the book and hope beyond reason that it might have a spectacular ending.

Well, at least it had an ending.

“Narrow Dog to Carcassonne” is the story of Terry and Monica Darl

ington’s trip by narrowboat from Stone, England to Carcassonne, France. This trip should have been interesting. Along for the journey would be their faithful whippet named Jim and their course would take them not only along the picturesque canals of Europe, but also on the River Thames and across the English Channel.

Sounds promising doesn’t it? Think again. “Narrow Dog to Carcassonne” is a 397 page version of Aunt Edna’s slide show of her trip to the Corn Palace.

I was eager to learn about both narrowboats and what the canals of Europe are really like. No such luck. Instead, we get virtually verbatim transcripts of conversations between Terry and a variety of friends, fellow travelers and barkeeps.

Thank goodness for Jim. Within twenty pages, most readers will dislike both Monica and Terry. After all, Terry and Monica don’t even seem to like each other. In fact, not once, but twice during the trip Monica leaves the boat and go

es home to Stone – for weeks at a time. But faithful Jim, the whippet, is always there and is the only one I would like to spend any time with – ever. He’s a character that Jim. He eats pork scratchings (whatever they are) by the bagful, lopes effortlessly at 30 miles an hour and is terrified of boats. I connected with Jim. He wanted off that boat in the worst way and so did I.

This was very disappointing. I have often wondered about what a trip along the canals of Europe would be like. The tourist brochures make them look pretty cool, but it’s hard to know for sure. I hoped “Narrow Dog to Carcassonne” would paint a picture of the experience from the eyes of a seasoned traveler. Try though he might, Terry Darlington simply couldn’t oblige. So certain is he that we need to know about his trip to every pub and the number of steps up to every canal lock opening that we learn virtually nothing about the scenery of the trip.

I should have

taken a hint when I picked up the book in the store, opened it and found that the type was blue. At that point one might have two thoughts: a) this is strange and b) how clever. I chose clever. Too bad.

So, if you are on a plane and reach into that elasticized pocket in the seatback in front of you and find a discarded copy of “Narrow Dog to Carcassonne” don’t be surprised.

Because, as my friend says, that’s where bad books belong.

[John Monro · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book which seems to create a polarised opinion here, half loving it, half hating it. I read this book shortly after it was published in 2008, a present from my wife. I falteringly recall it, mainly that I enjoyed the book, rather than any great detail either about the story of Terry and Monica's travels and travails, nor any detail about the writing style. The dog, Jim, features throughout, he's a sort of motif on which Terry pins his story.

So, I've just read it again. I found no problem with the writing style at all, it's always pretty obvious who's saying what to whom, absence of quotation marks notwithstanding. Terry Darlington has a fine line in self-deprecatory humour, a characteristic of English humour we're told, except Terry delights in his deprecation extending to everyone else who characters his writing! And of course, Terry is actually Welsh, that might explain something of the feyness of his writing?

You'll gain almost nothing informative in navigating, steering, managing locks, planning or coping with narrowboat life or travel by reading this book; Terry seems to assume you'll either know about this, or you really can't be interested. There are no maps, which I think is a pity. However, R L Stephenson in his "Inland Voyage" or Jerome K Jerome in his "Three men in a Boat" didn't supply maps either, and both are classics.

His writing remains unformed and discursive; as someone else noted in the Goodreads review and is revealed in an interview transcript, the style is a kind of "stream of consciousness" effect. I think this would be hard to follow if the book was intended as anything serious, but it's appropriate for the material - it is an entertainment, nothing more. A linguistic soufflé perhaps. But it's witty and clever, pointed and funny, very funny in places. He has a nice eye for the absurd. His voyage is illustrated by a succession of little vignettes of a paragraph or two, and the intervening time and place passes un-noted.

The lady on the barge tied up to his boat kills herself one night, quite a distressing episode, you'd think, yet it just becomes a small and equal part with the rest of his account, the interesting and the mundane. I think this is what prevents his book becoming a classic - the reader, or at least myself, never comes completely emotionally immersed in the story - how Terry and Monica cope, or their relationship with each other, or indeed their relationship with all the characters that make their brief appearances.

R L Stephenson also wrote "Travels with a Donkey" and we got a better understanding of Modestine, his donkey, and their mutual relationship than Terry provides in his book with all the characters he and Monica meet or with each other.

So a good book, a good read, very much recommended, in the mould of the other classics mentioned here, but not quite achieving the same status.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Narrow Dog to Carcassonne by Terry Darlington was recommended by a friend.

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”. Terry, his wife Monica and dog Jim have acquired a canal boat as a retirement hobby. They don’t know much about boats, except have to steer, and definitely nothing about the mechanics of boat engines. They have tootled along the gentle canals of the UK, and come up with the idea of crossing the channel and going down the French canals and the Rhone to Carcassonne in the South. Anyone with boating knowledge would pale at the idea, but they were either oblivious or dismissive of the dangers and problems.

There were many frightening moments, when they donned life jackets, clutched passports and the CD of Terry’s book and said goodbye to Jim. However, they managed to escape disaster by the skin of their teeth, and completed their journey.

There is not much plot to the book, it is a tale of their journey, with anecdotes, a bit of history and a good helping of fantasy and day dreaming.

I like the way the book is written. It does describe actual places, which if you know them is interesting. I live by a canal, and am familiar with a local village described as “rather poor, yet surprisingly supporting a book store” – an apt description. I have visited Carcassonne, Aigue Mort and Sete, and have been bitten by mosquitos by the petit Rhone, where we shared a swimming pool with frogs. To really appreciate the book, I think you have to be familiar with either boating, are the places mentioned. Anyone can appreciate the humour though, and the lyrical, almost poetic prose. It is a light book, but not to be skimmed through, or the detail is lost.

[Sully Augustine · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars out of 5 - I read this over the past few evenings. It's a rather unusual travelogue, almost completely about the journey, in a narrowboat designed for use in narrow canals which the writer and his wife take with great trepidation across the English Channel and then through wide canals and rivers all over Belgium and France, and not at all about the sights along the way. The writer uses language in a quirky way which will amuse you, as it did me, or irritate you, as it sometimes did me. But he makes up for the occasionally irritating quirkiness with fairly regular passages, about his dog, a whippet, or Germans, or his fellow Brits, or the French, or the Belgians, or the quirks of the narrowboat, that sparkle so brightly you have to laugh.

[Rosie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought two copies of this, one for me and one for my aunt, whose daughter has a narrow-boat. As soon as I began reading it, I realised my aunt would give up - since the complete absence of quotation marks makes the reading of it confusing.

I persevered for 75 pages before putting it aside. There's some lovely writing in here, and entertaining stories but I really did struggle with the lack of quotation marks.

Maybe I'll dip into it again, sometime.

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just want to find Phyllis May, plant a huge kiss on the pointy end and navigate away.
My darling won’t let me, but who will quench the fire of inspiration kindled amongst these fine pages.
Until then I will gongoozle on the Shroppie and contemplate my escape with a wider dog.
I will never be without a copy of this.

[Mrs Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

Different, funny, good.

[Sapphira Solstice · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10
Alas, I really loved the other two books in this series, which I read first (I unintentionally read them in reverse order). I decided to read this book to complete the series, but I actually found it to be the worst one. Perhaps Darlington significantly honed his writing skills and improved his perspective as he continued writing books. My complaint about this book versus the others was that I found it super negative, and the wry humor was just far too dry for me. I believe Darlington enjoyed the adventure he is writing about here and that he is generally happy in life, but reading this, you could certainly also believe the opposite.

The story was of an incredible adventure taking a narrow boat - meant for tame, manmade British canals - across the English Channel and then along canals and waterways to the bottom of France. It was certainly an impressive feat, especially for an older, retired couple who sought out this brave adventure just for the hell of it. There were many amusing follies along the way, plus a few tense moments where real disaster appeared imminent, and of course, lots of the type of magical moments that occur when traveling, including cultural experiences, special chance encounters, and many a new friend made. I loved the travel element of the book, and I do love a boat too.

Darlington seems like a great fellow despite being so negative, which I think is mainly for show. At heart, I think he’s a genuine and sweet guy, he seems like he would be a great conversationalist and an interesting person to know. I found it weird and random that Darlington talked about his mother’s ghost appearing several times. I don’t believe ghosts exist, so this diminished his character a bit. His wife, Monica, comes across as a very lovely person, super caring and impressively practical and resilient in their, at times, hair-raising adventures. I love that Terry called her ‘Mozza’ at one point as I call my husband Azza! They were quintessentially English, completely fulfilling the stereotype in some aspects: love of a pub and very dry, self-deprecating humor. Their whippet, Jim, is arguably the star of the book. It made me want to get a whippet! I love the way Darlington personifies him, and as a pet parent myself, I’m all about this. Jim was definitely a highlight throughout the story.

Good quotes from the book:
- “You shouldn’t be allowed out on your own with Jim, said Monica. He can’t look after you, he’s only a dog.”
- “all throwing up Bondi waves”
- “There are notices outside – please do not feed the boaters.”
- “In the front deck, Jim lay in his bed in his life jacket, looking like one of those orange-and-black liquorice allsorts. If you can imagine a terrified liquorice allsort, then you have him spot on.”
- “Some poplars were pillars, and some were pompoms”
- “A jet-ski is a motorbike that has been modified so it sinks more slowly. It is used for sexual display and to generate waves.”
- “It’s wider than the Thames. Down with the throttle – let’s rock and roll.”
- “You know, I said to Jim, I think we are missing the leisure opportunities in this boating lark. Some days we should try not getting up.”

The setting was delightful, with a bit of the UK, lots of quintessential France, and a ton of waterways. I loved it all, and it was evocatively portrayed and beautifully described.

The main theme was travel writing and it checked the box well, also narrow boats, French culture, whippets, and a good amount of autobiography.

Darlington is a great writer, very sharp and on point. He always portrays and explains the scene well, although notably from his subjective point of view. It was just unfortunate that a lot was with a negative lens and there was a lot of complaining, again very typically British. Darlington certainly includes a lot of humour in the book too, some of it hilarious, some of it falls flat on its face, I guess you win some, you lose some. There is a good amount of French phrases throughout the book interwoven into the storyline when relaying dialog and often to give a punchline, which is lost on the non-French speaker (me), but I’m told (by a French speaker) that the dictionary of phrases at the end of the book is highly amusing.

The ending wrapped up nicely, they made it to Carcassonne - against the odds - and had already teed up for the next narrow boat adventure to Indian River. I loved how this came about; some Americans mentioned it to the Darlingtons and Terry writes “I got that turning feeling in my stomach when you think you might do something very exciting and very stupid”.

I would only recco this particular book for the French element, otherwise I would certainly recommend reading about Darlington’s adventures but via the other two books. That said, if someone has a real penchant for extremely dry, sarcastic humor, they might love this book! In any event, Darlington seems like a top block and I would encourage all to get to know him through all or some of these three books.

[Ell · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘In England shops are normally open, and in France they are normally shut. When they are open the lights may be out and you bang on the door to get in. Market stalls close like oysters as you draw near. The brass plates of doctors and lawyers have a piece of paper with yellowing tape saying that no opinion will be offered until ten to three Thursday fortnight. Outside a restaurant in Sens the list of closing times is longer than the menu. There are supermarkets the size of a city that seem to be open from time to time, but they are not - they are going round behind you making faces.’

When a friend lent me this book in October, I was somewhat surprised, to start with, by the way it was written. From the blurb I'd expected a more straightforward sort of comedy memoir in the style of Bill Bryson, but Terry Darlington's prose is almost Joycean - full of brief sentences, poetic allusions, stream-of-consciousness, foreign phrases and bawdy jokes. Less like reading a book than being told a story by a very erudite, well-travelled and quite drunk friend over a dram of whiskey (or in this case probably calvados), at the kitchen table, at about 2AM, surrounded by crumpled cans of bitter and a dozen dog-eared books he wants to lend you. (God I miss the days before COVID.) You hear Darlington's voice as you read -- although in this case the voice I heard was the wrong one: I'd read that he was born in Wales and imagined him speaking in a Swansea brogue, only to dig up a Youtube interview when I was about 50 pages from the end and discovered he actually speaks in RP.

I initially struggled with the style a bit, for all its loveliness and humour and warmth. You know when you read a magazine interview and whoever wrote it down has had to put loads of brackets in, and chop up the sentences to get them to read as articulately as they originally sounded? That's because half of what the person said was in the way she said it. Intonation and gestures and so forth. Narrow Dog is a bit like that: on the page, Darlington never uses quotation marks (which for some reason always makes a novel read as a lot more 'literary', at least for me) and never wastes time on exposition. So for instance rather than writing 'There was a lock-keeper. He walked over to me and said, 'Mind your dog doesn't fall in', he'd write A lock-keeper wobbling on the quay - Mind your dog doesn't fall in.

It's lovely to read, and much more fun than Bill Bryson, but you HAVE to imagine Terry Darlington speaking to you across the kitchen table, doing impressions of French people and singing and quoting Rimbaud at you, otherwise you're missing out on half the book and what you ARE reading doesn't always make sense. Speaking a little bit of French isn't essential but it'll probably be funnier if you can. I left the book for about two months and when I came back to it, I found it was much easier to read, like a language I'd gotten fluent at. It's full of glorious passages and genuinely really funny jokes which only work because of the way it's written, and how much of the author's personality comes across through that.

‘In the water, red stems and green hair, and clouds and inverted trees. I tried to look through the reflections. I knew there were forests of weed beneath the glassy cool translucent wave, and green herds that swim through rainbows from the skies ... the Phyllis May was an airship passing through the clouds, forbidden to land, though her captain longed for the streams and woods below.’

You'd never get that in Notes from a Small Island.

[Tracey- Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been a rather surprising read . When, I saw the title Narrow Dog to Carcassone , I did not imagine that they would take a canal narrowboat across the channel and down the Mediterranean into France. It's certainly an adventurous thing to do and this book catalogue the whole journey..
The couple Terry and Monica and their whippet Jim , don't have an easy time but I do have each other as they travel from England across the channel including 6 foot waves and then down through Rhone meeting all kinds of people as they want to know why they're on this painted boat and with their dog.
It's a very different way to travel to France and a new experience virtually with them as they go through the canal beneath Paris and it's a journey I would not take myself but it's a journey that I've enjoyed taking with them .
It's a very unique read and I cannot wait to pass it onto to a friend now , who I know will love this book as much as I did.
It is slowly told, but that is the right speed for this autobiographical story. I did find it humorous at times, but also scary.. this book makes you feel emotions throughout , as they take a canal boat on a journey has rarely been done before.
I do have another one of their books from the same series to read and I'm looking forward to the next adventure with them

[Neil Mason · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terry Darlington succeeds in taking the joy out of reading.
Lets be clear, his "writing" would be failed by a junior school teacher as it lacks basic punctuation. This makes his rambling and haphazard text very difficult to read as he doesn't really use anything which can be regarded as sentence structure. I had to stop after 70 or so pages as up to that point I had endured a lot of fleeting thoughts about the state of the canals in the UK, some sarcastic mockery of various individuals who appear and disappear in the narrative with very little fanfare, what felt like some attempts at poetic descriptions of boating early in the morning, and the highlight, some anecdotes about Jim the dog, who is obviously the centre of his world.
The blurb for this book looks very compelling, I genuinely looked forward to this book, expecting a funny and lighthearted story of travels and a mischievous whippet. Some may love this book, I prefer compelling stories and fully formed sentences.