Talking Classics: Three men in a boat by Jerome. K Jerome narrated by Hugh Laurie.

"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."

And so we begin the adventure of three men a dog and a boat.  The book was supposed to be a travel book but the witty humour and hilarious antics of the characters overshadowed the travelling bit.  From the hilarious opening scene to the packing and unpacking and repacking of the clothes and the struggle to pull the canvass to cover the boat and also the incident of the dog and cat we see a side of life from the late 19th century. Every page is filled with events that tickle your giggle and you will be better of for having read or, as I have listened to a reading of the novel.  In between all the humour, there are literary treasures that imbue the scenery in a haze of magic, it must truly have been beautiful.

The river - with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding gold
the grey-green beech- trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths, chasing
shadows o'er the shallows, flinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses
to the lilies, wantoning with the weirs' white waters, silvering moss-grown walls
and bridges, brightening every tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow,
lying tangled in the rushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on
many a far sail, making soft the air with glory - is a golden fairy stream.
But the river - chill and weary, with the ceaseless rain-drops falling on its brown
and sluggish waters, with a sound as of a woman, weeping low in some dark cham[1]ber; while the woods, all dark and silent, shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand
like ghosts upon the margin; silent ghosts with eyes reproachful, like the ghosts of
evil actions, like the ghosts of friends neglected - is a spirit-haunted water through
the land of vain regrets.

Three men in a boat as narrated by Hugh Laurie in the Talking Classics Collection can be found on Spotify.  You will be sorry if your miss this great work of humour.