Three Men In A Boat

Fun! I developed quite a fondness for the narrator. Reminiscent of Mark Twain but with less bite. But I have to admit that I read this pretty lazily – I thought Montmorency was one of the three men in the boat until about halfway through the book when I finally did the math and found that by my count there were four men in the boat, not three. At first I thought it was a joke, but then I considered the book‰ЫЄs subtitle (‰ЫПTo say nothing of the dog‰Ыќ) and realized that Montmorency was, in fact, the dog. In my defense, on our first introduction to Montmorency there is dialogue attributed to him, and I started out reading the non-illustrated Penguin edition and only later switched to an illustrated ebook which had pictures of the dog. Also, the actual story of their trip down the river was not nearly as interesting as the sidebar stories and anecdotes and hypothetical situations, which were the best parts and had little or nothing to do with the dog.

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‰ЫПThrow the lumber over, man! 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.‰Ыќ