Give me liberty, or give me . . .

            I am so radically conservative that I make many right-wing nut cases feel uncomfortable. I am so radically conservative that I bounce around to the other end of the spectrum, pick up a few liberal ideas, then move all the way back to the ultra-conservative region all over again. It’s like I’m playing political Pac Man. Go far enough to the right and you’ll end up on the left, heading right all over again. I am so conservative, I think the Constitution, for all its merit, may even have been a slight mistake. I ascribe myself more to the attitude set out in the second sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Minus the whole wishy-washy part about this Creator character people have been obsessing over for thousands of years, I pretty much agree with that entire statement as being all we need to fairly govern the land.

            After all, who would argue against the notion that the three rights they hold most dear are those of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”? The problem is, somewhere along the line we forgot about these essential truths of human nature. We’ve made some progress remembering the value of the first part of that sentence—“that all men are created equal”—in the last hundred years or so and still have a long way to come. And nobody can deny that the US government allows us the right to life. If nothing else, in fact, we are forced to live; consider the official stance on euthanasia, for example. You don’t have the right to give up your own life. Yeah, good luck enforcing that.

            But what of liberty and the pursuit of happiness? To me, these are really two sides of the same coin. How, after all, do they at all differ? Liberty is freedom to live one’s life as one chooses. I’m no lawyer, but that pretty much sounds to me like how I’ll pursue my personal version of happiness: By living my life however I choose.

            So this brings me to my overall point of discussion for this piece. I am so radically conservative that the one entity in this world, in government, and in my life that I hold most sacred or of any worth whatsoever is my liberty. Without liberty, friends, family, loved ones, hobbies, passions, and education have no value. They may even become a curse. Now, our founding fathers eventually realized that pure liberty is essentially pure anarchy, so certain rules needed to be instated to explain precisely what liberty means for Americans. It cannot be equated with impunity, for example. I do not have the right to kill another person merely because it is the way I wish to live my life. So they drafted the next big piece of legislature, another famous document called the Constitution.

            The point of the Constitution, at least at first, was essentially to define what liberty would mean under the US banner. In the end, the general consensus was that liberty is the freedom to live one’s life however one chooses, so long as one does not interfere with anyone else’s liberty. Simple enough, only a slight addendum to the previous definition of liberty, and a good one at that. So, the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to bear arms, and other textbook Bill of Rights bits were set into writing and made the law of the land.

            Since then, however, most of our liberties have gotten horribly screwed up. The old saying for American politics was “majority rule, minority right,” meaning that what the majority wants, the majority gets, so long as it does not affect the minority’s liberty. But this notion has long since been forgotten. Today, most laws are set by special interest groups hoping to push their worldviews on the rest of the country. They aren’t trying to protect their own liberty so much as preventing other peoples’ liberties from making them uncomfortable. Worse, many laws are influenced by powerful corporations and lobbyists whose sole goals are profit. They’ll restrict your liberties if your liberties restrict their cash flow. The list is endless, but here is a brief sample of some suspensions of minority liberty in this country as imposed by the “majority”:

-          The definition of marriage is one man, one woman . . . because the majority says so. Nevertheless, there are plenty of people who disagree, but they are the minority and are not heard, even though their marrying would have no impact on the liberty of the majority. If two women wish to marry and raise a family, let them—it isn’t hurting your lemming-like suburbia, heterosexual lifestyle one bit. If multiple people all want to marry each other, so what? Defining marriage is like trying to define love, and I don’t know of a single philosopher who has successfully pulled that one off yet. So don’t kid yourself—you don’t know what I’m feeling anymore than I know what you’re feeling.

-          Many drugs, most of which are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, are illegal . . . because the majority say so. If I choose to smoke marijuana from the comfort of my own home and contemplate the meaning of life, that’s my prerogative. But because some closed-minded, brainwashed, paranoid idiots who have never even tried it believe marijuana is the devil’s weed, I am not allowed to enjoy the liberty of doing so, even though it will never harm them.

-          Bars and restaurants that used to allow smoking are being forced to become non-smoking establishments . . . because the majority do not like second-hand smoke. Weren’t plenty of other eateries that were non-smoking already available to choose from? If you don’t want to be around smoke, then don’t hang out with smokers! But don’t tell a business it has no right to promote smokers to enjoy their perfectly legal drug of choice within their doors. If Joe Shmoe wants to smoke a butt while enjoying his Budweiser while out with his pals, let him . . . he’s not hurting anybody but people who are aware of the risk of being around it. Besides, if there weren’t a demand for smoking in these types of places, then why do most businesses after the switch report a drop in business? Now we’re hitting the economy hard, too.

-          Prostitution is illegal . . . because the majority are against it. But if a person decides to offer a service for money, degrading and tasteless though some may find it, it is entirely that person’s decision. Making it illegal only puts these workers at risk for further health, safety, and financial issues. They aren’t committing violent crimes, they aren’t imposing on your liberty, so don’t impose on their liberty or the liberty of their clients.

-          Evolution is being taught as if it were somehow in doubt in numerous school systems now throughout the country . . . because the majority believe in a book written (largely through startling acts of plagiarism and reworking of polytheistic myths) thousands of years ago saying an invisible man created the earth and all of its inhabitants in six days. Oh, and because they have no idea what the word “theory” actually means in a scientific context. Teaching creationism side-by-side with evolution in schools is just a sneaky way of cramming religious idiocy down young peoples’ throats, hoping to brainwash them in order to combat the current country-wide slump in Church attendance. Freedom of religion also entails freedom from religion if it is truly a liberty. Nobody has the right to skew scientific fact in favor of a religious agenda if liberty exists in its pure form.

The list is really endless. These are actually merely some of the biggest issues of concern to contemporary libertarians. It is a growing movement, predominantly young people, and it sends the signal to the government that we want our liberty and we want it now. The PATRIOT ACT especially revoked many key liberties once taken for granted in this country, and it did so in such a sneaky, clever, revolting way that only a politician could have figured out how to make it happen. We’re searching for “sophisticated, dangerous terrorists” in a desert halfway across the globe, but we don’t even notice the very real terrorists slowly stripping away the very aspect of life our founding fathers found most dear: our liberty.

            The best way to combat the problem of loss of liberty, should you feel the way I do, is to talk to people about their liberties. Make these laws seem ridiculous. Ask your parents, your friends, your coworkers, how they would feel if a law were passed banning oranges because a great many people have suddenly decided they find oranges strangely offensive. Such a law would seem farcical, no? Well, that’s how anyone engaging in non-violent behavior that is currently illegal feels every minute of every day. We must force people to think about freedom in order for them to realize that it is disappearing and at risk. If we can band together to fight such hazy, widely misunderstood issues as climate change, then why can’t we tackle as simple a problem as the loss of liberty if we simply stick to our guns?

"Why did you study English?"

           Virtually universally, when someone asks me what I studied in school and I tell them I just finished my Master’s degree in English literature, I get one of two responses: “Why?” or “So you want to teach?” The questions come as if people believe the study of literature is useless for any purpose aside from teaching other people about literature. Implied within that mindset is that literary study has no real-world application beyond the mere aesthetic appreciation of the written word. One studies literature, many believe, because it is beautiful and deserves to be preserved via academia.

            If you are a fellow degree-holder or someone working toward a degree in English literature, I would like to record for you the response I have fine-tuned after years of recital. I used to be exasperated, even offended, by the question; now, I welcome it as a chance to offer my oration, my defense . . . my justification. Although I do not condone the act of plagiarism, I must help my brethren, so the next time someone asks you, feel free to use my argument, or parts of it, at least. It is time, after all, for literary study to garner the respect it deserves.

            In Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, a Slave  (1845), he comes to the realization that the only true difference between himself and his master is the ability to read and write. Without literacy, he concludes that he is hardly better than a dog. Reading and writing are the forms of communication unique to humans, and are thus intrinsic to one’s humanity. Secretly, Douglass learns to read and write, becomes a free man, and writes his famous narratives, having a profound impact on the abolitionist movement as a result. Although this story is no allegory—it is pure autobiography—my young, impressionable mind read it allegorically. In this world, we humans are slaves unless we cultivate these essential and highly-rewarding gifts that we alone in the animal kingdom possess. Furthermore, if literacy is quintessential to the human condition, then its development surely leads to an advancement in one’s humanity as a result.

            Sure enough, I have found that theory to be indelibly true.

            The study of literature unlocks a world of human understanding that cannot be obtained through a more sequestered study of other disciplines alone. Indeed, the study of literature is the omnivorous, universal study of the human condition itself and everything that falls under that umbrella. Through literature, one learns history, philosophy, sociology, religion and mythology, ethics, politics, anthropology, and perhaps above all else, psychology. Part of the reason many people don’t recognize literature’s value is because so few people outside of literary studies read true literature; for some unfathomable reason, people seem to think literature classes merely involve the reading of the New York Times’ best sellers. Well, certainly some probably do, but they aren’t the ones that give one the full scope of a literary education.

            The masters of literature, the great writers of all time, have one quality in common. Only one. It is experience. These writers are individuals who have lived and experienced powerful, moving, and revealing events, then transformed them into a medium capable of transferring the knowledge gained. Whereas some people have similar experiences and choose to write about them in a pure, prosaic fashion—consider philosophical, historical, or political texts that offer just the facts—literary writers transform their ideas into the realm of narrative, capturing the reader’s imagination and taking hold of the mind. The communicative effect is thus so much more potent, so much more thorough.

            As an example, one could easily read a history text about America post-World-War-II and learn plenty of names, dates, and facts. But the result would be far from having experienced America post-World-War-II. To do so, one instead could read such a seminal text as Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957) and become fully immersed in the time, experiencing what anyone with open eyes would have experienced. The Cold War anxiety and paranoia, the bopping jazz music exploding from bars, the sense of lost national identity, the budding civil rights movement, the philosophies that led to the hippie movement of the 1960s . . . all of these experiences and so many more are transferred upon the reader almost subconsciously.

            More powerfully, however, literature and literature alone allows one to peer inside the workings of the human mind. No psychology textbook or psychological study can allow one to do so to the same degree. The whole range of human emotions, desires, and motives become lucid (with a little digging, at times) through literary masterpieces. The result is a greater understanding of our fellow humans. Take, for instance, Thomas Hardy’s controversial text Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), which paints the tormented psychological state of a young girl whose life is ruined by rape. Ultimately, she murders her rapist. Such a novel springs from the mind of a brilliant imagination and an unparalleled understanding of the human psyche, sharing insight into the human mind at an uncompromising level. Another perfect example is James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), which uses the famed stream-of-consciousness technique to put the reader inside the head of Leopold Bloom for every minute of a single day. This protagonist is a man persecuted by anti-Semitism, traumatized by the death of his only son to the point of being unable to have sex with his wife, and tormented by his knowledge that on that day, his wife will cheat on him. His ability to ultimately forgive her strikes the reader as a beautiful achievement of pure human potential, even daring the reader to judge his or her own life by Bloom’s sense of humanity.

            Briefly, literature makes us better people. It makes us rethink how we treat others and demands that we try to understand the motives behind how others treat us. It proves that our fellow humans are in fact knowable at an intimate level, should we decide that knowledge is worth the time to obtain.

            But then again, some people are too pragmatic for all this bleeding-heart, pure education sort of stuff. “All that is good and fine,” the economically minded questioner will say at this point in my harangue, “but how do you plan to make money?”

            The question is valid. Even if you are one of those who does not ascribe to the idiotic need to be a millionaire some day, you do need to eat and sleep under a roof. Money is a part of life that even we literary people can’t escape from, no matter how thick the book we fall into is. We need to make money, and we can be just as good at it as anyone else with the education we get from studying literature. Here’s how.

            Obviously, teaching is an avenue for making money. In fact, as far as an education in literature goes, it is by far the most noble avenue—spread the good word, teach others how to do so. Teach at public schools, colleges, universities, adult education institutions. Teach English as a second language. Be a tutor. Writing, too, is an obvious option, and it needn’t be one of those New York Times’ bestsellers to make you a pretty penny. Article writing (especially online these days) is a lucrative market, as is publishing short stories, essays, or editorials. Furthermore, in the business world, virtually every company has to work with writing, and they need skilled writers to do so and copyeditors to double-check those pieces. You need only open your eyes to see a world of writing all around, and although it is a highly competitive job market, it can quickly yield a strong payoff once you get your foot in the door. It’s merely a matter of persistency.

Wrapped up in these two skills of teaching and writing, however, comes the essential skill that can allow us to make money. Having studied literature, we have mastered the art of oration. We know better than anyone else how to express an idea and argue for it, even if it is a far-fetched one. My thought is, we should use that skill to argue for ourselves. No matter what job one applies for, the interview is the most important part, and interviews are where literature students shine. Presentations are a standard part of what we do while studying, and an interview is simply a presentation where the thesis is, “You should give me this job.” Yes, we’re the best bullshitters around; so let’s bullshit these corporate execs into giving us the jobs we need to feed ourselves.

The Silent Giant: A Plea for Canadian Literature

            I love books. I love to read them, smell them, and feel them in my hands. I love the way a treasure from a used book store has its previous owner’s name written on the inside cover and some of the pages still dog-eared. In fact, you can usually judge how good a book is by how many pages are dog-eared; if the previous owner felt the need to stop every five or ten pages and take a break, it probably isn’t that great. I love the way a vast collection of books presents itself upon a bookshelf with the dim lighting from a gentle standing lamp beside it casting a warmth upon the different colored spines, a comfortable chair nearby luring you to put off your chores and fall into a tome. Above all, I love the way a book can capture you, transport you to a new world, and even alter your worldview.

            Naturally, I spend a lot of time in bookstores. I also spend a lot of time talking to people about books. In fact, I’ve spent practically my entire life with those two pastimes as the backbone of my very existence. Yet somehow, until I moved to Canada a few years ago, I never really heard anything—good or bad—about Canadian literature. Well, except for Margaret Atwood. But more on her later.

            It wasn’t even that I didn’t try to find some Canadian books while I lived in the States. Frankly, if you go to Borders or Barnes and Noble, you’re not going to find the good stuff. Sure, you’ll find plenty of the predictable stuff Atwood writes, and you may even find a copy of Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. But that’s more or less where it will end.

            Fortunately, I started reading up on Canadian literature when I arrived in Montreal in the fall of 2008. I also took a summer course, “Canadian Literature: Experiments in Genre.” My aim is to share with anyone interested what I have learned so far. As a disclaimer, however, I don’t claim to be an expert in Canadian literature. Far from it. At best, I’m a casual admirer. Furthermore, I don’t claim to be terribly well-read, either; my experience so far is up to around twenty texts, max. But, I’ve found that to be more than enough to formulate an opinion, and it is as follows: Canadian literature is some of the most underrated, enthralling, and original literature in the world of letters.

            Unfortunately, one person has become “representative” of Canadian literature. And I hate to bash her, dwell on her, or even discredit her. Margaret Atwood is not a bad writer. She just isn’t an excellent writer, and she is far from representative of the type of writing Canadians do best. High schools across America assign The Handmaid’s Tale, probably just to get a feminist perspective on dystopian literature and to get a break from other masterpieces of that genre, such as 1984, A Clockwork Orange, or Brave New World. But when I read that book back when, it left a stale taste in my mouth. It was good, but again, not representative of the dystopian or apocalyptic-future genre.

            I’m not one to let a single bad experience ruin something for me, though. Actually, I’m probably the person who gives more chances than anyone else I know. Or maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment. Whatever the case, I continued reading Margaret Atwood, hoping I could figure out exactly what her appeal is. I’ve come to the conclusion that The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) is pretty much the middle of the spectrum for her works. At the absolute bottom is The Journals of Susanne Moodie (1970), a somewhat rambling, obtuse, and horribly boring collection of “poetry.” At her best, she has The Penelopiad (2005), a book with an interesting premise—almost an attempt to do with Penelope what James Joyce did with Odysseus—but not terribly well executed even then. The book is cute, clever at times, but leaves the reader wondering why it couldn’t have been so much better in the end. So, enough about Atwood. Let’s talk about some real Canadian writers.

            As a starting point, I want to bring Michael Ondaatje back into the thread for a moment. Interestingly, he isn’t even Canadian technically; he’s from Sri Lanka. But, he lives in Canada, calls himself Canadian, and Canadians consider him Canadian. That’s one of the things I love most about Canada; regardless of your skin color, ethnicity, or even place of birth, you can be simply a Canadian, no modifying adjective before your nationality. Again, more on that later. Back to Ondaatje. I read The English Patient (1992) and loved it; I still haven’t bothered to watch the movie, maybe because after reading the book, I don’t need to. But a far superior text by this stellar writer is his brilliant The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970).

Notably, it was published the same year as Atwood’s The Journals of Susanna Moodie and does something fairly similar. But Ondaatje actually delivers something profound, intelligent, and entertaining. The book is impossible to classify. It is part poetry, part prose, part mixed media, part autobiography, part fiction, part history . . . Everything under the sun, really. Its premise is to offer a sort of journal of Billy the Kid’s life and death, but it doesn’t focus on Billy the criminal. Instead, it works hard to paint a human portrait of a young man caught in bad circumstances and forced to make do with the hand life dealt him. In the end, you can’t help but feel as though you’ve come to know him—and Ondaatje—at a personal, hauntingly intimate level. Although a bit tough to follow at times because of its bizarre structure, if you treat it like a Tarantino movie you’ll come out on top, admiring Ondaatje’s masterpiece.

            Continuing with the idea of what it means to be a Canadian, Vancouver resident Fred Wah serves up a fun and provocative dish in The Diamond Grill (1996). 

This book is straight-up autobiography, but with a distinctively Canadian twist. In brief vignettes and anecdotes, Wah recounts his experience growing up as a half-Chinese, half-white-Scots-Irishman who was born in China but grew up mostly in Canada. In his search for a national identity, he decides to cut out all the adjectives and simply be Canadian. But the book is about so much more; it is loaded with scenes from the family diner that gives the book its title, using location to perfectly capture the essence of the human condition and the pervasive power of family, tradition, and community. Best of all, Wah offers an abundance of maxims that stick with you long after you’ve finished reading, such as “Cook your silence, but don’t let it simmer” (Wah 92). This book is especially ideal for anyone with any restaurant work experience.

            For poetry, look no further than Alberta’s Robert Kroetsch. His somewhat obtuse-sounding poetry does what all other obtuse poetry always fails to do: it begins to make sense with a bit of reflection and probing. So put down Poetry magazine or the latest issue of The New Yorker, and read something satisfying for a change. Grab yourself a copy of Completed Field Notes: The Long Poems of Robert Kroetsch (2000). 

Don’t let his unorthodox structural style scare you off—part of what he does so well is prevent his readers from finding the beginning or ending of a poem. Instead, he often tries to drop you into the middle of things and sort your way out from there. My personal favorite is “The Sad Phoenician,” a jerky poem broken up into stanzas alphabetically and with the first word of every line alternating between “and” and “but.” From what I can tell, it’s a monologue of a regretful, middle-aged man with a masturbation addiction looking back on the mistakes he’s made in relationships past. But I think it could mean lots of entirely different things, too; why don’t you read it and tell me what you think?

            The last person I want to talk about (for now, at least!) is Ontario’s Timothy Findley (who apparently used to be my girlfriend’s father’s neighbor!). Although Findley is dead now, he is one of Canada’s most respected novelists, famous for his seminal work, The Wars (1977). I haven’t read that one yet, but I have read Famous Last Words (1981), an enthralling piece of historical fiction that puts you into the world of an ex-patriot fascist writer and friend of Ezra Pound named Mauberley during World War II. 

He finds himself involved in high European affairs, rubbing elbows with some big names, and ultimately getting wrapped up in a plot to kill Hitler, believe it or not. Interestingly, the entire book is presented as being read by an American soldier off the walls of a hotel Mauberley stayed in while hiding out from an assassin. He wrote the story on the walls as a final testament before death; during the entire novel, you already know he’s been brutally killed, but you don’t know how or why until the final few pages. This book is a bit hard to come by these days, but if you can find a copy, grab it and enjoy!

            Some runners-up for serious discussion include Sheila Watson, George Elliott Clarke, bpNichol, and Elizabeth Smart. Perhaps someday I’ll write a second plea for Canadian literature. If you’re an American looking for a good book that satisfies in a way John Updike simply never did, or if you’re one of the many Canadians I’ve spoken with who has no idea how great your country’s literature is, go out, find some of these books, and get yourself a comfy spot in that chair by the bookcases.

A few words about the purpose of this blog

            We are entering the beginning of the next great epoch of human society, and our current social constructs are raging against these changes. Modern government, economics, and lifestyles cannot function under the strain of the Internet’s ability to engender radical change. More importantly, this new system of communication, commerce, and information sharing has created a great rift in our society unlike any ever seen before. Demographically speaking, it is the separation of the young and the old—the Internet and technology savvy against the old-fashioned, computer-illiterate. Unfortunately, it is the latter group, not the former, that still holds on to the official power—the government, the capital, and tradition—while the youth are, simply put, waiting for their grandparents to finally die so they may take over.

My goal for this blog is manifold. On the one hand, I hope to prognosticate for everyone involved in this future a rough idea of where we are headed and to stir up intellectual debate. In order to do so, it will be beneficial to break this enormous subject up into three categories: government, economics, and lifestyle. From these three categories, many subsets branch off, which I will attempt to discuss fully in my posts with discussion topics ranging from legalization of marijuana to absolution of the capitalist system as we now know it. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do claim to have a great many complaints and questions. I'm open and indeed anxious to hearing your comments.

On the other hand, I think about more than merely these huge socio-economic issues day in day out. That is where "The Idiosyncratic Notion" comes from. Idiosyncratic has a few meanings; foremost, it suggests anything particular to the individual. More in the vernacular, however, it can also suggest the day to day. A notion, as we all know, is an idea, but not necessarily a piece of knowledge. It is something one suspects, perhaps vehemently, but does not claim to absolutely know. So this blog is a place for me to share my idiosyncratic notions; my ideas, particular to myself, on a day to day basis. As such, I intend to talk about some of the other elements of life that interest me. Expect a great deal of book reviews, movie reviews, casual discussions of art and the media, etc. Basically, anything goes, but that doesn't mean I lack an agenda.

Thanks for bearing with me as I get the ball rolling here. I have a selection of pieces in varying stages of completion that you can look forward to in the near future. Cheers!

Book Review: Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog!) (1889)

            The fin-de-siècle was a period of literary and aesthetic change in which artists rebelled against the strict, oppressive Victorian sensibilities of the nineteenth century in anticipation of the twentieth. From the projects and experiments in this period arose modernism, an artistic period still defining contemporary movements. Strictly speaking, fin-de-siècle refers to the 1890s, but as with any artistic movement, it need not be confined to that time alone. Indeed, many works of literature from the 1880s or even earlier fit best beside works of the 1890s; for example, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) fits best alongside such works as Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890-91), and H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man (1897). Therefore, it seems only fitting to discuss and evaluate the current topic, Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog!) (1889), within the same literary milieu. Indeed, it perhaps would not fit alongside earlier comic novels from the century; it has little in common with a Dickens novel. It is unquestionably a product of the fin-de-siècle.

            For those unfamiliar with the term fin-de-siècle, a brief description will be helpful. The period was marked by anxiety, even paranoia, over the century’s end (fin-de-siècle is literally French for “end of the century”). However, some artists were more optimistic, anticipating a sort of revolution in the coming period. In hindsight, with the coming of the World Wars, the rise of modernism, and the beginnings of a global economic infrastructure, both camps were correct. Either way, they expressed their anxieties or excitement through their writing, and they were able to do so unlike ever before thanks to Oscar Wilde’s efforts to promote l’art pour l’art, or “art for art’s sake,” encouraging artists to produce art for no other reason than art’s intrinsic beauty and value. Suddenly, a writer need not justify his or her work within a social rubric, allowing an explosion of generic development.

            Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog!) is an excellent example of a novel advancing this generic development. It is hard to accurately classify this work; part travelogue, part autobiography, part fiction, part Menippean satire, part historical narrative, it defies any attempt to be classified. But its individual elements can be broken down, analyzed, and understood in order to evaluate this text two ways: based on its overall literary merit and historical importance, and based on its timelessness and entertaining power regardless of its historical situation.

            Considered as a work of the fin-de-siècle, this novel perfectly expresses many of the concerns of the period. It begins with the three friends and the dog discussing their poor health: “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” (Jerome 7). This opening scene of friends lounging about, smoking and chatting, casts a slightly decadent mood over the text from the start which Jerome sustains throughout. This group is one of idle pleasure-seekers. Their comparisons of ill health, however, is a reminder of the unfounded paranoia of the age; the narrator, J., finds out when he goes to the doctors that he in fact is in perfect health, despite his own belief that “the only malady . . . I had not got was housemaid’s knee” (8). So, they decide to escape their fabricated woes in pursuit of the pleasures of a two-week journey down the Thames River.

            Although the book is actually linear and a bit picaresque, it is highly digressive and mostly a chronicle of associative musings. Events that take place along the river trigger someone’s memory of a similar tale, leading to the recounting of anecdotes and “stretchers” in a style similar to the associative stream-of-consciousness technique Joyce would perfect in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, but also harking back to such earlier writers as Laurence Sterne. Indeed, one could easily see Jerome’s text as a bridge between the two writers.

The following are some brief examples of Jerome’s finest moments. His critique of weather forecasters is clever and timeless: “I do think that of all the silly, irritating tomfoolishness by which we are plagued, this ‘weather-forecast’ fraud is about the most aggravating. It ‘forecasts’ precisely what happened yesterday or the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is going to happen today” (42). When the group tries in vain to open a tin of pineapple, the comic frustration is slapstick, yet utterly human: “There was one great dent across the top that had the appearance of a mocking grin, and it drove us furious, so that Harris rushed at the thing, and caught it up, and flung it far into the middle of the river, and as it sank we hurled our curses at it, and we got into the boat and rowed away from the spot, and never paused till we reached Maidenhead” (117). Jerome is at his best in Chapter 17, whose main focus is “the art of angling” (161). The group stops at an inn and sees a great trout mounted and kept behind glass. The locals each take turns describing its capture. Everyone has his own unique story of how much the fish weighed, how he caught it, and how his conquest is the pride of the community. Before the night ends, the group have heard so many different men boast of their having caught the fish that they truly have no idea who the true champion is. The chapter’s climax brilliantly answers the question:

It really was a most astonishing trout. The more we looked at it, the more we marvelled at it.

It excited George so much that he climbed up on the back of a chair to get a better view of it.

And then the chair slipped, and George clutched wildly at the trout-case to save himself, and down it came with a crash, George and the chair on top of it.

‘You haven’t injured the fish, have you?’ I cried in alarm, rushing up.

‘I hope not,’ said George, rising cautiously and looking about.

But he had. That trout lay shattered into a thousand fragments—I say a thousand, but they may have only been nine hundred. I did not count them.

We thought it strange and unaccountable that a stuffed trout should break up into little pieces like that.

And so it would have been strange and unaccountable, if it had been a stuffed trout, but it was not.

That trout was plaster of Paris. (168-69)

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog!) is loaded with short comic scenes such as this one, the comedy not a bit dated, the writing direct, refreshingly readable. Overall, the contemporary reader will find this book to be a pleasurable, quick, easy read. Some parts are a bit dated, but the language never alienates or challenges. It can be enjoyed both as a key example of fin-de-siècle, pre-modernist literature or simply as a casual read for the less literary inclined. Doubtless, it will make you laugh.

Sources

Jerome, Jerome K. Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog!). Baltimore: Penguin, 1962.

Read it online: 

http://www.archive.org/stream/threemeninboatto00jeroiala#page/n5/mode/2up