The Ur-Text for British Humo(u)r
A year or two ago, I finally got around to reading Three Men in a Boat, and discovered that it is the spring from which all British humor flows. You can download it free from Project Gutenberg, or get it from Amazon, or whatever works for you.
The opening paragraphs:
There were four of us - George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were - bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.
We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that HE had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what HE was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all.
In other news, I have the first reading of Act I of the whodunit play with the actors tomorrow. The thought of this makes me nervous, sullen, and defensive. And they haven't even seen it yet -- just think what I'll be like tomorrow! (Pity my poor husband and child.) And I think my liver may be acting up....
posted by Laura E. Goodin @ 9:06 AM (permalink)
5 comment(s)
5 Comments:
You wouldn't be a writer if your liver wasn't acting up!
Love h
I've been meaning to read 3 Men for several years now. For a while, it seemed like the universe was trying to force me to: I had just seen Stoppard's "The Invention of Love" and had also read "To Say Nothing of the Dog" by Connie Willis.
Somehow, it avoids climbing to the top of the queue even still.
It's short. It's free. It's shriekingly funny. What's not to like? I urge you to bump it up the queue.
I tend to prefer the dead-tree edition, if only because I loathe taking my computer to bed with me, and bed (or the hammock outside) is where I do most of my reading.
So it's not quite free. But I shall bump it up a bit. Or at least, acquire it so it can join the physical queue.
I was hooked on this story once I found out who Montmorency was.
It's the ancestor of all British wit and humorous writing. Both frank Muir and Laura goodin say so!
h
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