Three Men on the Bummel (Penguin Popular Classics)

To be honest, I haven't managed to finish this pretty small volume - it is neither well written or entertaining. If you're a die-hard fan of Three Men in a Boat you might like this one - after all, he tries to imitate the kind of humour which maked the prequel so original and entertaining. I consider myself a die-hard fan of the original, however, and I most certainly did not enjoy this one.


Worth reading...but be warned.   July 16, 2002
 10 out of 13 found this review helpful

Following that exploits of J., Harris and George as they make they way across Europe on bicycles, this book attempts to capture much of the humour of its predecessor Three Men in a Boat. However, I do feel that this time the humour is more laboured and some of the stories do struggle to be funny. Also absent is the effortless way that he combined beautiful poetic prose with outstandingly funny observations seen in Three Men in a Boat. Rather than being a continuous joy to read, the book tends to only shine every now and then. A good book, and well worth looking at, but I feel that it pales in comparison to Three Men in a Boat.


Good - but you may be disappointed...   June 30, 2001
 1 out of 2 found this review helpful

This is a good book, but its not a patch on the first one. There were points when I laughed out loud but, unlike Three Men in a Boat, there weren't those really funny stories which stick in your mind and still make you laugh long after you've finished the book (Harris and the swans, the elderly uncle putting up a picture frame...)


A comic classic   April 5, 2001
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Three Men in a Boat is one of my all time favourite books. When I read it I was banned from the living room for laughing too much. It made me laugh until the tears ran down my face. This is much the same. It took me a long time to read the sequel in the fear that it wouldn't be as good, but it was just as funny and I just wish there were more.


But is it as funny?   July 6, 2000
 8 out of 8 found this review helpful

Three Men on the Bummel is a far less well known book than its big brother, the celebrated and beloved classic Three Men in a Boat. Several years have elapsed between novels - indeed to those of us who know and love George, Harris and J it is somewhat startling to find J and Harris married with children. But domestic bliss is starting to cloy, and as the men develop ploys to escape for a holiday, both wives are seen to be extremely "modern" women! Suffice it to say that a cycling tour in the Black Forrest ensues. Jerome's constant observations of the Germans are disconcerting; yes, he writes amusingly of them as lovable eccentrics, obsessed by order and orders, but he was not to know to what hiddeous effect this contributed to in 1939-45, and the shadow of the War was often in my mind. But is the book as funny? I have to answer "yes." Harris and the hosepipe, George's spree of crime, the phrase book outing, all are as funny as anything in the original. Uncle Podger stories are still there, and I laughed out loud many, many times. A gem of a book. Oh, what's a bummel? Read and find out.