Three men on the brummel

[yperman]

I have recently discovered and recommend this sequel by Jerome K Jerome to 'Three men in a boat' . It is the story of the same three men's extensive cycling tour of Germany prior to the Great War (in 1900). and it gives a fascinating account of German life and culture as seen by Englishmen (with the same JKJ Edwardian humour).It also reflects, I think, the 19th century English sense of affinity with  Germany.

 

Jerome  is very positive (though far from uncritical) about Germany and there is a real warmth towards the Germans. Jay's account of his difficulties with the German fondness for rules (especially while he was "stealing" a bike in a railway station!) is classic. Though he notes Prussian militarism, the growth of socialism and the failings of German women as house wives (who he thinks if they would only use their magnificent education could change Germany for the better) he is on the other hand poisonous about the behaviour of the  English abroad.

 

Overall he and his companions think " the Germans are a good people. On the whole the best people perhaps in the world;  an amiable, unselfish, kindly people and I am positive most of them will go to heaven. But I cannot understand how they  will get there ...that the soul of a single German has sufficient initiative to fly up and knock at St. Peter's door I cannot believe. My own opinion is that they are taken there in small companies under the charge of a dead policeman". 

 

He says in passing that Germany's future will depend on its ruler. This comment and the  book as a whole sums up for me the tragedy that we went to war with Germany so soon after it was written.

 

Yperman

 

 

 

 

 

[tootrock]

That should be "Bummel" rather than "Brummel".

 

Explanation of the word, from the book:

"A 'Bummel'," I explained, "I should describe as a journey, long or short, without an end; the only thing regulating it being the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started. Sometimes it is through busy streets, and sometimes through the fields and lanes; sometimes we can be spared for a few hours, and sometimes for a few days. But long or short, but here or there, our thoughts are ever on the running of the sand. We nod and smile to many as we pass; with some we stop and talk awhile; and with a few we walk a little way. We have been much interested, and often a little tired. But on the whole we have had a pleasant time, and are sorry when it's over."

 

I did not enjoy this book as much as "Three Men in a Boat"

 

Martin

Edited 15 October , 2017 by tootrock

[thetrenchrat22]

I've not read the books but BBC Radio 4 Extra have had in the past have had an programmers on 

 

which I've enjoyed,

[yperman]

Quite right tootrock - memo to self reading glasses are there to be worn. I agree it is not as funny as Three men in a boat but (for this forum) not without interest. Yperman

[IPT]

And, of course, there was "Three Men and a Baby" with Magnum PI in it.

 

It's been many years since I've read the book (although I've got a copy somewhere), but I recall his disapproval of the student duelling societies that presumably gave every German officer film baddie his scarred face.

[healdav]

Given that it was written well before the First World War it is surprising just how prescient it is about the German love of rules and their willingness to follow anyone who is giving them a set of rules to follow. Indeed, he even almost foresees a war because of this.

Edited 15 October , 2017 by healdav

[IPT]

it's online if anyone wants a peek

 

https://archive.org/stream/threemenbum00jero#page/n7/mode/2up

[Steven Broomfield]

Years since I read it.

 

Don't forger Three Men and a Little Lady. Or Three Coins in the Fountain.

[keithfazzani]

I read it and Three Men in a Boat when a teenager and laughed until I cried. Re-read it recently and didn't break out in a grin. However I also as a teenager, read The Good Soldier Svejk and found it completely unamusing. I re-read The Good Soldier Svejk a year or so ago and laughed until I cried. Shows how ones tastes change.

[Steven Broomfield]

Interesting you say that, Padre: I tried re-reading Three men in a Boat a year or so back and gave up. On the other hand I can read The Diary of a Nobody and still laugh every time.

[healdav]

15 hours ago, keithfazzani said:

I read it and Three Men in a Boat when a teenager and laughed until I cried. Re-read it recently and didn't break out in a grin. However I also as a teenager, read The Good Soldier Svejk and found it completely unamusing. I re-read The Good Soldier Svejk a year or so ago and laughed until I cried. Shows how ones tastes change.

I can't even begin to see why the Good Soldier is though to be anything but stupid.

[Nick Beale]

On 15/10/2017 at 16:49, keithfazzani said:

I read it and Three Men in a Boat when a teenager and laughed until I cried.

So did I, and I still do.

[keithfazzani]

Perhaps I should try again, but it will have to join a large pile of "books awaiting reading".

[IPT]

As he was born in 1859, I had no idea that he had been an ambulance driver in WW1. 

 

He appears on the French Red Cross Victory/BWM medal roll as Klapka J Jerome, and is shown as serving abroad from September 1916 to March 1917. 

 

 

Some quotes;

 

“The French army didn’t quite know what to make of us. Young recruits, in the dark, assumed us to be Field Marshals.”

 

“The cross country roads in France are designed upon the same principle as the maze at Hampton Court”

 

“The cockroaches were having a bad time. They fell into the stews and no one took the trouble to pull them out.”

 

“Fuel [firewood] was our difficulty. The news that a shelled village had been evacuated by its inhabitants flew like wildfire. It was a question of who could get there first and drag out the timbers from the shattered houses. Green wood was no good but in the dug-outs it was the only thing to be had. They say there’s no smoke without fire. It is not true. You can have a dug-out so full of smoke you have to light a match to find the fire. If it’s only French matches you have, it may take a boxfull.”

 

“A pity the common soldiers could not have been left to make the peace. There might have been no need for Leagues of Nations.”

 

“During the actual fighting, Hague Conventions and Geneva Regulations get mislaid. The guns were eating up ammunition faster than the tramways could supply them, and the ambulances did not always go up empty. Doubtless the German Red Cross drivers had likewise their blind eye."

 

“Those who talk about war being a game ought to be made to go out and play it. They’d find their little book of rules not much use."

“The French cigarettes that one bought at the canteen were ten per cent poison and the rest dirt. The pain would go out of a wounded soldier’s face when you offered him an English cigarette”

 

“One had no brain for any but the very lightest literature. Small books printed on soft paper, the leaves of which could be torn out easily, were the most popular.”

 

“I came back cured of any sneaking regard I may have ever had for war…Compared with modern soldiering, a street scavenger’s job is an exhilarating occupation.”