Book Club

[aubrey]

I'll have to admit to not having read it this time because I can't find it. But I have read it 4-5 times before and I always love it.

[trubble]

With apologies to Betty's 'Delights' thread on MCL....

Chapter One.

I loved him reading through the illnesses. We've all done that at least once in this internet age, haven't we?

There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.







Yes, Riot, I agree that there's something English and What-Ho and PG Wodehouse and Saki about the book, but you should remember that Jerome pre-dates the latter two. 1889. It may be a little dated and twee for the 21st Century only because it's been repeated and emulated so many times since. My only criticism so far is that it appears to be a tad longwinded sometimes but that's the case for so many books written over a hundred years ago.

His wit is wonderful. Once you allow yourself to yield to his prose, the lulling pace is intoxicating. The introduction to the mysterious Montmorency is sublime.

[trubble]

Chapter Two



If you were to stand at night by the sea-shore with Harris, and say:

"Hark! do you not hear? Is it but the mermaids singing deep below the waving waters; or sad spirits, chanting dirges for white corpses, held by seaweed?" Harris would take you by the arm, and say:

"I know what it is, old man; you've got a chill. Now, you come along with me. I know a place round the corner here, where you can get a drop of the finest Scotch whisky you ever tasted - put you right in less than no time."

---

I've been on a boating holiday with a Harris Cynic. She woke me up in the night by trudging ridiculously heavily to what I will exaggeratedly call the 'bathroom' and as I my bunk was virtually inside the 2ft x 2ft bathroom I took the chance to jump up on deck to take in the night air and give her some privacy.

We were in the middle of nowhere and the stars were some the of the brightest I've ever seen; they were shining more brightly in their reflection in the lake than they ever shine, even at their most shiniest, here in my home sky. The plough looked like diamonds in the lake's black velvet. The sky itself was dazzling.

The night air was clean, and fresh, and exhilarating, coursing through me with every breath and making me feel detoxed and truly alive. I am the most lucky person, I thought, just to be alive, just to see these stars and breathe this air. How wonderful life is and I will never have enough of it.

She arrived beside me and I mentioned something about 'just think, millions and millions before us have marvelled at this sight, thousands and thousands of years ago some tribe, our earliest ancestors, looked at the very same stars! What a link. No wonder ancient civilisations had so many theories about the stars; they must have blown their minds away'. 'Is that what you think about?', she queried me with the concern of a ward matron in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, 'would you like a sleeping pill?'

Maybe, Riot, you need to have boated to appreciate the truths within this chapter.

[everso]

There's nothing more frustrating than someone who refuses to understand and acknowledge one's finer feelings. I don't know many people who would stand next to me on a boat and know what I was rambling on about in such a situation, Trubbs, for I'd have been saying much the same thing as you. I'd have been there for you.

We must go on a boat sometime.

[aubrey]

I like the bit about pubs having a sign up saying that Harris has never had a drink here; this being more rare than otherwise.

[trubble]

Chapter Three. Hold on a moment.

Feel free to take up the baton/ do your own version/ argue the toss, by the way. This the Fighty Club sort of Book Club, not Jackanory.

---

Chapter Three.

Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.


A quieter chapter but with perfectly observed - and still relevant - ruminations such as the above, and the amusing description of imagining a bracing morning swim to be a lot more fun than it ever is.



This chapter brought to mind the late, great, Miles Kington. If you like Jerome and have never read Miles Kington, for god's sake rush to seek him out.

I feel some whimsical meloncholy that Jerome left this earth without ever experiencing the comic genius of Kington's Franglais. But I suppose you have to look at it like this: if Jerome and Kington were contemporaries, perhaps one of them would never have writtena word, the other already fulfilling the role.

Here's a line that could be from either man:

...but there, everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses.

[trubble]

Aug 12, 2010 9:57:05 GMT everso said:

There's nothing more frustrating than someone who refuses to understand and acknowledge one's finer feelings. I don't know many people who would stand next to me on a boat and know what I was rambling on about in such a situation, Trubbs, for I'd have been saying much the same thing as you. I'd have been there for you.

We must go on a boat sometime.

Oh pleeeeeease can we have the Stub Crouch meet-up as a boating holiday? Oh Pleeeeeeease.

[trubble]

Aug 12, 2010 10:07:11 GMT aubrey said:

I like the bit about pubs having a sign up saying that Harris has never had a drink here; this being more rare than otherwise.

How can anyone not love his wit? The man is superb.

[riotgrrl]

i'll come to that. I like boats. (Was sailing down the Clyde on the Waverley Paddle Steamer just last weekend.)

I just don't like 'Three Men' and their boat.

[trubble]

Oh I see now. It's obviously your knee jerk reaction towards your imagined patriarchy of the whole story, you feminist! <shake fist>

Chapter Four.

A nice little story about cheese that prompts me to recommend one of favourite books to you all, called The Stinky Cheeseman.



If I may say so, Costal, I think you in particular would enjoy its sense of humour in the reworking of traditional fairy tales. The Stinky Cheeseman, for example, is a reworking of The Gingerbread Man only the old people make a man out of stinky cheese, and when the stinkycheeseman says 'Run Run As Fast As You Can' no one does run after him because he stinks so bad.

Then Jerome breaks into a packing story that I relate to:

My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when I'm travelling, and makes my life a misery. I dream that I haven't packed it, and wake up in a cold perspiration, and get out of bed and hunt for it. And, in the morning, I pack it before I have used it, and have to unpack again to get it, and it is always the last thing I turn out of the bag; and then I repack and forget it, and have to rush upstairs for it at the last moment and carry it to the railway station, wrapped up in my pocket- handkerchief.

Of course I had to turn every mortal thing out now, and, of course, I could not find it. I rummaged the things up into much the same state that they must have been before the world was created, and when chaos reigned. Of course, I found George's and Harris's eighteen times over, but I couldn't find my own. I put the things back one by one, and held everything up and shook it. Then I found it inside a boot. I repacked once more.


And his entire packing story might as well be the BBC threesome, Griff, Rory and Dara.

I enjoy Jerome's way of looking at the smallest of absurdities and detailing them to make them large absurdities. He is the epitome of gentle and funny observational humour.

[trubble]

I've been forced to skip Chapter Five having read the introduction.

Chapter 5




CHAPTER V

MRS. P. AROUSES US.

I don't hold with kiss-and-tell stories and if Bets wants to come on here and tell her version in her own words I am sure we will be happy to accept it without the smallest doubt in our minds. What cads those three men are.

[Weyland]

Aug 12, 2010 11:52:17 GMT trubble said:

I've been forced to skip Chapter Five having read the introduction.

CHAPTER V

MRS. P. AROUSES US.

I don't hold with kiss-and-tell stories and if Bets wants to come on here and tell her version in her own words I am sure we will be happy to accept it without the smallest doubt in our minds. What cads those three men are.

Please be sure to put the Chapter V pics up on PhotoFit. In the Mystery Objects thread if appropriate. Just use your judgement.

[trubble]

;D ;D

Montmorency had invited two other dogs to come and see him off, and they were whiling away the time by fighting on the doorstep.

I do love the whole Montmorency thing but then I am a dog-lover.

If anyone else enjoys Montmorency as much as I do, perhaps you might like A Dog Day by Walter Emanuel (illustrations by Cecil Alden). It's a diary of a day kept by a dog.

(Riot should not even bother to look it out. It is definitely twee and I love it.)

Extract:

5.20 to 5.30 - slept again

5.30 - Awakened again by eczema. Caught one.

5.30 to 6pm - Frightened canary by staring greedily at it.

6.0 - Visited kitchen-folk. Boned some bones.

6.15 - Stalked a kitten in the kitchen-passage. The other little cowards ran away.

6.20 - Things are looking brighter: helped mouse escape from cat.

6.30 - Upstairs, past the drawing room. Door of old Mrs Brown's bedroom open invitingly. i entered. Never been in here before. Nothing much worth having. Ate a few flowers out of a bonnet. Beastly.

Then into Miss Brown's room. Very tidy when I entered. Discovered there packet labelled "High-class Pure Confectionary". Not bad. Pretty room.

7.0 - Down to supper. Ate it, but without much relish. I am off my feed to day.

7.15 - Ate kittens' supper. But I do wish they would not give them that eternal fish. I am getting sick of it.

7.16 - Sick of it in the garden.

[aubrey]

Oh, my dog once rescued a mouse from a cat. Rescued it for better things, I mean; it squeaked as it went down. I tell myself that it would have died anyway.

[everso]

Trubbs wrote:

I feel some whimsical meloncholy that Jerome left this earth without ever experiencing the comic genius of Kington's Franglais.

I often think of things like this. Have you ever listened to the words of "Pictures of Lily" by The Who? (I believe it was banned in the US when it was released). It's about a young lad who's having trouble sleeping and his dad gives him a photo of someone called Lily, which he looks at regularly and (presumably) masturbates to, which helps him sleep. He eventually falls in love with the photo and asks his dad how he can get to see Lily. His dad (rather callously) tells him she's been dead since 1929.

I often regret the fact that I never got to dance with Fred Astaire.

[housesparrow]

Aug 12, 2010 8:06:10 GMT trubble said:

With apologies to Betty's 'Delights' thread on MCL....

Chapter One.

I loved him reading through the illnesses. We've all done that at least once in this internet age, haven't we?

There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.

I quoted from the book on the Aspergers thread in The Bull.

www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbarchers/F2693943?thread=7650738&skip=60&show=20 (68)

[trubble]

I see it went over their heads.

[trubble]

Announcement:

>>>

The Girl who played with Fire (or similar) - Weyland knows the details - is the next book club book.

It is currently being choreographed for the Stub Crouch Synchronised Reading Team to perform at the Olympics 2012.

We begin reading on Monday.

Yes, that's this Monday.

Please sign up here if you wish to audition for the team.

No experience necessary although previous participation in BBC's Songs of Praise will be looked upon favourably. Quiet page-turning skills and cough sweets essential.


(Anyone taking place in the 500 page sprint should note that we are sprinting The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo this weekend. I have just started and have very good chances of finishing by Monday. Or Tuesday. Thursday at the latest.)

[everso]

I'd be no good in this synchronised stuff. I have two left feet.

[riotgrrl]

I am half-thinking of joining in, but, on the other hand, I'm not keen on fiction.

I accidentally bought fiction recently (I thought it was history) but it's a sort of fictional history thing.

It's 'The Brige over the Drina' by Ivo Andric, which is turning out to be excellent so far.

I can also recommend the book I read last night (it's a one night kind of a book) which is a very to-the-point biography of Tito by Neil Barnett. Well-written and no arseing about. Top bananas.