I came across this book on the half-price table at Barnes & Noble. When I read the blub and discovered it’s one of the favorite comedic novels in Great Britain and has never been out of print since its first publication in 1889, I decided it was worth trying at only 4 bucks! It was money well spent!
It’s the story of three friends, each the 19th century equivalent of today’s slackers, who decide to take a boat trip down the Thames River, accompanied by the ever-faithful four-legged friend, Montmorency. It’s one of those anything-that-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong adventures, and I was laughing out loud on every page. There’s the plot, of course, but there are all the side-stories of previous adventures recounted by the narrator that make this so much fun.
If you’re looking for (or need) a good laugh-‘til-you-cry escape, you can’t go wrong with this. If you can’t find it at your library or on a bargain table, it’s available for download from Project Gutenberg.
The book has been turned into a film with a screenplay by none other than Tom Stoppard and starring Tim Curry, Michael Palin, and Stephen Moore, directed by Stephen Frears! It’s not available on DVD in the US, but some saintly person has uploaded it to YouTube. You can start watching it here. (OK. It's not as funny as it should be, and I'm not sure it can be appreciated fully without reading the book.)
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