Three Men in a Boat (Three Men, #1) in MobileRead Book Challenges

Mar 09, 2018 Paul rated it liked it

Shelves: read-as-ebook, classic, comedy

3.5 stars

When I read The Big Sleep I commented that it felt cliched but that that was probably because of all the things I'd seen/read before that had actually copied it.

I think there's a kind of humour in this book that has been done a lot since. It's where you have someone express something in a kind of naive innocence that is either the exact opposite of what you think they really think, or a kind of absurdism. For example, perhaps the most famous quote from Three Men in a Boat is:

I like wor

3.5 stars

When I read The Big Sleep I commented that it felt cliched but that that was probably because of all the things I'd seen/read before that had actually copied it.

I think there's a kind of humour in this book that has been done a lot since. It's where you have someone express something in a kind of naive innocence that is either the exact opposite of what you think they really think, or a kind of absurdism. For example, perhaps the most famous quote from Three Men in a Boat is:

I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.

So the thing that typifies my attitude toward this book is that I find that sentence funny. It's a perfect little joke. Man expresses liking for work, surprise! he's actually expressing his laziness.
However, this comes from a longer passage:

It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.
You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon.
And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do.
But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for more than my proper share.
But I get it without asking for it — at least, so it appears to me — and this worries me.
George says he does not think I need trouble myself on the subject. He thinks it is only my over-scrupulous nature that makes me fear I am having more than my due; and that, as a matter of fact, I don’t have half as much as I ought. But I expect he only says this to comfort me.

Now that's still funny, especially the last couple of sentences, but it feels like he's stretching the joke, labouring the point.

And I feel he does this a lot. Probably it's just the difference between modern attention spans (or just mine maybe!) and that of the nineteenth century.

All of which is to say that I really wanted to like this book more than I did. And liked it fine, many a wry smile was had, but based on its reputation, I was expecting to like it more and laugh out loud maybe. ...more

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