Tres Anglesos S'esbargeixen
1953
Three Victorian-era hypochondriacs decide they need a holiday. George, Harris, and the unnamed narrator (with Montmorency, the dog, whose opinion doesn't count) are convinced they're dying of every ailment known to medicine. Their solution: a rowing trip up the Thames. What follows is a masterpiece of comic incompetence. They can't pack a suitcase, they can't pitch a tent, they can't even paddle without capsizing. Meanwhile, they deliver endless philosophical reflections on everything from the proper way to make tea to the geological properties of cheese. Montmorency, the dog, watches it all with disdain. The genius of Jerome's comedy lies in its gentle absurdity: these men take themselves completely seriously while the reader watches them fumble through the simplest tasks. It's a love letter to male friendship, to the English countryside, and to the art of making a mountain out of a molehill. Over a century later, the book remains irresistibly funny because it captures something timeless about friendship, the absurdity of everyday life, and the elaborate lengths we'll go to avoid actually resting.
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“I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can't help it.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“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. ””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon.And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do.But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for more than my proper share.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“Everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“How good one feels when one is full -- how satisfied with ourselves and with the world! People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well, and is cheaper, and more easily obtained.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
“We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without.””
— Jerome K. Jerome
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