Author: Jerome K Jerome
Year: 1900
Publisher: Bernhard Tauchnitz
Language: English
Sequels are
a bit like the second cup of tea from the same tea bag: you recognise the flavour
but miss the intensity.
After the
tremendous commercial fortunes of his “Three Men in a Boat”(see my review from
October 2021), which marked the pinnacle of his fame, Jerome K Jerome’s star
power faded relentlessly. He wrote a few
more books, typically based on his observations during one or another journey, but
he was unable to repeat the success of his previous blockbuster. Eventually he
returned to his most successful creations in the hope of being able to squeeze
some more value out of them. In 1898, “Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow” was
published as a sequel to his comparatively successful “Idle Thoughts of an Idle
Fellow”, and two years later he returned to his boating heroes J, George, and Harris
in “Three Men on the Bummel”.
This time
around, our merry adventurers set off on a train-/bicycle ride across Germany. The
tone of the novel is very similar to that of its predecessor. The travel party
is just as inept and ill-prepared, the story line is frequently interrupted by more
or less loosely connected anecdotes and tangents, and slapstick comedy based on
awkwardness and absurdity abounds. The very decision process leading up to the
trip offers the first laughs as the three gentlemen go to great lengths to
ensure that their wives, who they assume will be devastated by grief and
longing in their absence, will not demand to join them on their trip lest they
perish from heart-ache and pining. Their disappointment upon discovering that
the wives could not be happier about the chaps’ giving them some space and a
bit of time to themselves, is priceless.
Well under
way, J, George, and Harris encounter a string of events and situations that
allows Jerome to ponder on the cultural differences between the Brits and
Germans and how their respective societies are organised. This is of particular
interest as the book was written a decade and a half before the First World War
and in the nearing end of the age of empires. Germany at the time was on the
rise and had only recently caught up with the industrialisation level of France
and Britain and seriously begun to challenge them as a colonial power. The
novel was unambiguously intended for British readers and the narrator mixes
humorous observations about the Germans and the British alike, but exclusively
from an insular perspective. It is slightly amusing that many of the traits and
characteristics that he ascribed to the Germans 120 years ago would still be
recognised by a modern Briton as typical for a “Kraut” to this day.
Despite the
jocularities, pranks, and antics, the British image of, or indeed prejudice to,
Germany and the German people is palpable but unfailingly in a good-humoured
and, as I read it, essentially respectful way. Jerome could hardly have penned
a book like “Three Men on the Bummel” without having spent considerable amounts
of time in Germany and gotten to at least superficially know German customs,
language, architecture, cuisine, and geography. There is no doubt that Jerome
during his travels around Germany took a liking to the country and its people.
A word on
the history of my personal copy since it looks like it was flushed down the
toilet before being retrieved from the water purification plant and
subsequently dried over Mount Doom in Mordor. As a matter of fact this is the
first 1900-edition which was owned by my great-grandfather, Emil, presumably
through his English-born wife Magdalene who must have taken it with her to
Poland and incorporated it into her husband’s library at the family estate in the
early 1910s. It went on to survive two world wars and Stalinist oppression
which banned Western culture and artwork, before being handed down to me by my
grandfather before he passed away.
Although
this novel is less famous than “Three Men in a Boat”, as a leisurely read it is
surprisingly charming for a sequel. The jokes are a little further apart and
the sections of purple writing and half-baked musings a bit more tedious, but
all in all, much like its predecessor, it is too a silly book.
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