Three Men on the Bummel (Paperback)

As with Three Men in a Boat, Three Men on the Bummel seems thoroughly modern in tone and style of humor. Jerome K. Jerome is particularly fond of comical exaggeration of the sort that would seem totally natural on a television sitcom today. After a mistake involving somebody else's bicycle, and a run-in with the authorities, he summarizes "My going scot free is regarded in police circles there to this day as a grave miscarriage of justice." Portions read much like Douglas Adams ("I wish no one to read this book under a misapprehension. There will be no useful information in this book.") and others like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers (a discussion of an English shopkeeper frustrated when the protagonists, as a prank, pretend not to be able to speak English). The material near the start of the book about the friends and their wives is all quite funny, and thoroughly modern in the way the women effortlessly outsmart the men. The discussions of stereotypical German behavior are remarkable mostly for how little such stereotypes have changed. Germans were, 120 years ago and today, thought to be officious and compulsive in following rules. Fans of old bicycle books will find much here to like, with description of the hazards of amateur bike-tuning, and lies in bike advertisements, and the observation that uphills always seem to last longer than downhills.