Three Men in a Boat

[watervole]

 Three Men in a Boat is still one of the funniest novels ever written.  Written in 1889, it is a gentle account of three men (and a fox terrier) taking a boat trip along the Thames.  This a book that actually does make me laugh out loud.

As it's long out of copyright, you can read it legally here - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28837

Here's Hugh Laurie reading the opening section  - he is the perfect voice for it.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[elisi]

Three Men in a Boat is still one of the funniest novels ever written.
Hear hear! I was looking up the story about the cheese the other day [for reasons that are not important here] and goodness, I just MARVEL at it. One of my favourite books ever.

Also, a few years ago I read (well, re-read, but I had forgotten it completely) Three Men on the Bummel (the follow-up, twenty years later) and it's delightful! Especially taken with the bit at the start when he decides to act particularly exhausted, so that his wife will feel sorry for him and decide that he needs a break. This instead turns into an argument about who works the most, and ends up with the wife deciding that SHE needs a break and will take the kids & go off to stay with Harris' wife, and maybe Jerome and his friends can take themselves away somewhere else, where they won't be under their wives' feet. He gets what he wants, but is very cross about it, and the cleverness of the writing, and the sending up of himself is *chef's kiss*

It's head & shoulders above most male comics ability NOW.

/random Saturday ramble

[watervole]

I have a vague recollection of not liking that one as much, maybe I'll try it again.

[elisi]

Same here. And it isn't as consistently good, but it has different strengths, and the comments on Germany and the Germans are... fascinating.