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Bantam (1998), Mass Market Paperback, 512 pages
Description
Fiction. Literature. Science Fiction. Historical Fiction. HTML:From Connie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, comes a comedic romp through an unpredictable world of mystery, love, and time travel . . . Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He�??s been shuttling between the 21st century and the 1940s searching for a Victorian atrocity called the bishop's bird stump. It�??s part of a project to restore the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid over a hundred years earlier. But then Verity Kindle, a fellow time traveler, inadvertently brings back something from the past. Now Ned must jump back to the Victorian era to help Verity put things right�??not only to save the project but to prevent altering histor… (more)
Language
Original language
English
Media reviews
To Say Nothing of the Dog is charming. It’s funny and gentle and it has Victorian England and severely time lagged time travelers from the near future freaking out over Victorian England, it’s full of jumble sales and beautiful cathedrals and kittens. This is a complicated funny story about
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resolving a time paradox, and at the end when all is revealed everything fits together like oiled clockwork. But what makes it worth reading is that it is about history and time and the way they relate to each other. If it’s possible to have a huge effect on the past by doing some tiny thing, it stands to reason that we have a huge effect on the future every time we do anything. Show Less
I have read several stories by Connie Willis which I have enjoyed. However, these have all been short stories or novellas. At longer lengths, based on the three Willis novels I've read, I'm afraid I subscribe to the minority opinion that her work is vastly overrated. While I'm sure To Say Nothing
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of the Dog will sell well and may even garner Willis another Hugo or Nebula, it is another Willis book which adds to my opinion that she should stick with short fiction and stay away from time travel. Show Less
Gleeful fun with a serious edge, set forth in an almost impeccable English accent.
User reviews
LibraryThing member atimco
Connie Willis is one of those authors whom readers delight to praise, and To Say Nothing of the Dog is probably one of her better-known books. The title comes from the subtitle of Jerome K. Jerome's hilarious little gem of comedy, Three Men in a Boat, and much of the story is built on events and
I was rather disoriented in the book's opening chapters — which makes sense, I suppose, because so is Ned Henry, our narrator. He is suffering from time-lag, which is mental haze after too many time-travel trips (or drops, as they are called). So it took me a little while to catch on. The year is 2057 and time travel is an accepted fact of life. Though millions have been spent trying to develop the commercial possibilities of time travel, the continuum simply doesn't allow any objects to get through the net (understandably, since the absence of any particular item could change the course of the historical past). So much for pilfering the altars of history! So time travel is used primarily for historical research.
By the combined leverage of her immense fortune and domineering personality, Lady Schrapnell has hijacked the entire time-travel history department of Oxford University to help her in her quest to restore Coventry Cathedral exactly as it was before its destruction during World War II. She preaches the philosophy of German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who famously wrote that "God is in the details." And unfortunately for Ned, the last remaining detail to be studied and replicated is the bishop's bird-stump, a piece of Victorian ornamentation which mysteriously disappeared before the Blitz. Ned, returning lagged from yet another fruitless drop, is just being bundled off when he sees the impossible occur: a fellow historian comes through the net with a cat in hand. A cat — Princess Arjumand by name — from the Victorian period! Why is the net breaking down? Or — is it? Ned and Verity must return Princess Arjumand to her rightful time and make sure Lady Schrapnell's ancestress marries the right man (but who is he?). And Ned still has to find the bishop's bird-stump...
The writing is clever and confident; though I was a bit confused in the beginning, the intelligence and ease of the narrative was enough to reassure me that the story was worth continuing. And so it was. Willis writes with a wry humor and her characters are well drawn. And funny! Whether she is describing Ned's encounter with a wild swan, the tricks of spiritualist mediums, or the methods of super-competent butlers, Willis does it all with an eye for the ridiculous that is faintly Wodehousian and certainly Jeromian.
Despite all the fun, the novel also poses some philosophical questions — basically, is there a master plan that overrides all aberrations and works around and through all events to bring about its desired result, or is everything really just chaos and anarchy and accident? The continuum, the law that governs space-time travel, almost seems sentient in its ability to correct events that would appear to disrupt the course of history. The characters come to realize that their attempts to help it along are really just more aberrations that the continuum reaches back into time to fix. What boggles the mind is how far back the continuum will reach to fix things gone awry; what looks like a correction is actually an aberration caused by a correction earlier on, and so on. I love what Professor Peddick says: "you cannot see the Grand Design when you are part of it."
To Say Nothing of the Dog is a fun futuristic/historical romp and I enjoyed it very much. I'm delighted to have discovered Willis for myself. Recommended!
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ideas from that classic 1889 work. But Willis creates a context and characters very much her own in this hybrid of sci-fi and historical fiction, and it can be enjoyed even if you haven't read Three Men (though you should look up Jerome — he's laugh-out-loud funny!).I was rather disoriented in the book's opening chapters — which makes sense, I suppose, because so is Ned Henry, our narrator. He is suffering from time-lag, which is mental haze after too many time-travel trips (or drops, as they are called). So it took me a little while to catch on. The year is 2057 and time travel is an accepted fact of life. Though millions have been spent trying to develop the commercial possibilities of time travel, the continuum simply doesn't allow any objects to get through the net (understandably, since the absence of any particular item could change the course of the historical past). So much for pilfering the altars of history! So time travel is used primarily for historical research.
By the combined leverage of her immense fortune and domineering personality, Lady Schrapnell has hijacked the entire time-travel history department of Oxford University to help her in her quest to restore Coventry Cathedral exactly as it was before its destruction during World War II. She preaches the philosophy of German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who famously wrote that "God is in the details." And unfortunately for Ned, the last remaining detail to be studied and replicated is the bishop's bird-stump, a piece of Victorian ornamentation which mysteriously disappeared before the Blitz. Ned, returning lagged from yet another fruitless drop, is just being bundled off when he sees the impossible occur: a fellow historian comes through the net with a cat in hand. A cat — Princess Arjumand by name — from the Victorian period! Why is the net breaking down? Or — is it? Ned and Verity must return Princess Arjumand to her rightful time and make sure Lady Schrapnell's ancestress marries the right man (but who is he?). And Ned still has to find the bishop's bird-stump...
The writing is clever and confident; though I was a bit confused in the beginning, the intelligence and ease of the narrative was enough to reassure me that the story was worth continuing. And so it was. Willis writes with a wry humor and her characters are well drawn. And funny! Whether she is describing Ned's encounter with a wild swan, the tricks of spiritualist mediums, or the methods of super-competent butlers, Willis does it all with an eye for the ridiculous that is faintly Wodehousian and certainly Jeromian.
Despite all the fun, the novel also poses some philosophical questions — basically, is there a master plan that overrides all aberrations and works around and through all events to bring about its desired result, or is everything really just chaos and anarchy and accident? The continuum, the law that governs space-time travel, almost seems sentient in its ability to correct events that would appear to disrupt the course of history. The characters come to realize that their attempts to help it along are really just more aberrations that the continuum reaches back into time to fix. What boggles the mind is how far back the continuum will reach to fix things gone awry; what looks like a correction is actually an aberration caused by a correction earlier on, and so on. I love what Professor Peddick says: "you cannot see the Grand Design when you are part of it."
To Say Nothing of the Dog is a fun futuristic/historical romp and I enjoyed it very much. I'm delighted to have discovered Willis for myself. Recommended!
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LibraryThing member Eat_Read_Knit
Entertaining, amusing, convoluted. The future, time travel, the Blitz, Jerome K Jerome, cats, chaos, hideous neo-Gothic church architecture, goldfish, mystery novels, romance entanglements and (of course) the dog.
[To Say Nothing of the Dog] is very different to Willis's [Doomsday Book], which it
I liked Domesday Book a lot, but I did think it was a bit slow and repetitive at times. To Say Nothing can also be a bit repetitive, but it's a bit of a farce so this is much less annoying: you expect farces to have parts where people are going back and forth and round and round in circles over and over again. To Say Nothing was also slow at times, but again this worked because of the style of the book: it consciously mimics [Three Men in a Boat], where slowness is part of the charm because the whole point of the thing is the journey and not the destination. In short, the most significant flaws of Doomsday Book were not completely eradicated in this book, but that didn't actually matter.
[To Say Nothing of the Dog] has some wonderful characters, including the irritating and spoiled upper-class Victorians, the put-upon servants and the confused historians. Some are such pure embodiments of literary tropes and stereotypes that they'd completely fail if this book had a serious tone, but because it's quite frivolous the characters all fit in the context. What's more, the characters never slip at all. The plot requires some concentration at times, and can also get quite silly, but accompanying the historians of the future as they chase around Victorian Oxfordshire looking for a hideous piece of ornamental cast-iron is a lot of fun.
All in all, this is a great romp through history and literature. And I do like a character who has a proper appreciation for Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey.
[To Say Nothing of the Dog] is very different to Willis's [Doomsday Book], which it
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follows in the series. To Say Nothing has farce and mad professors and goldfish collectors where Doomsday has plague and death and a lot of serious emotional stuff - but both are built on the basic premise of historians from the future travelling into the past and stuff Going Wrong while they are there. I liked Domesday Book a lot, but I did think it was a bit slow and repetitive at times. To Say Nothing can also be a bit repetitive, but it's a bit of a farce so this is much less annoying: you expect farces to have parts where people are going back and forth and round and round in circles over and over again. To Say Nothing was also slow at times, but again this worked because of the style of the book: it consciously mimics [Three Men in a Boat], where slowness is part of the charm because the whole point of the thing is the journey and not the destination. In short, the most significant flaws of Doomsday Book were not completely eradicated in this book, but that didn't actually matter.
[To Say Nothing of the Dog] has some wonderful characters, including the irritating and spoiled upper-class Victorians, the put-upon servants and the confused historians. Some are such pure embodiments of literary tropes and stereotypes that they'd completely fail if this book had a serious tone, but because it's quite frivolous the characters all fit in the context. What's more, the characters never slip at all. The plot requires some concentration at times, and can also get quite silly, but accompanying the historians of the future as they chase around Victorian Oxfordshire looking for a hideous piece of ornamental cast-iron is a lot of fun.
All in all, this is a great romp through history and literature. And I do like a character who has a proper appreciation for Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey.
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LibraryThing member simon_carr
Light-hearted fun, if a little impenetrable in places, let's be clear: this is no Three Men In a Boat, but enjoyable nonetheless.
L.P Hartley wrote that the past is a foreign country and therein lies the nub of this novel. This is a travelogue, a classic fish out of water story, an Englishman in,
Willis clearly knows her history and to get the best out of this novel the reader will too. There are also plenty of clever literary allusions which may pass some readers by - bone up on your Victorian fiction!
One negative point: the book needed an English editor. Although delightfully idiomatic generally, there are a few clangers - no Victorian Englishman (or woman) would have uttered the horrendously mangled past participle 'gotten'!
Worth a read but Jerome needn't worry too much.
L.P Hartley wrote that the past is a foreign country and therein lies the nub of this novel. This is a travelogue, a classic fish out of water story, an Englishman in,
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er, England if you like.Willis clearly knows her history and to get the best out of this novel the reader will too. There are also plenty of clever literary allusions which may pass some readers by - bone up on your Victorian fiction!
One negative point: the book needed an English editor. Although delightfully idiomatic generally, there are a few clangers - no Victorian Englishman (or woman) would have uttered the horrendously mangled past participle 'gotten'!
Worth a read but Jerome needn't worry too much.
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LibraryThing member bell7
About fifty years in the future, time travel is not only a reality, it's how historians work - by going back into the past and observing events. Note the key word: observing. They cannot create paradoxes by getting involved or taking things forward in time, or the entire space-time continuum might
Up until a few years ago, I had almost never read a science fiction book, and I asked a friend and co-worker to recommend a book that is a good introduction to the genre. This was her recommendation for me, and I have to say it was spot on. It's a light, funny story that still has a lot to say when you think about it, with a little bit of chaos theory and theories of history thrown in, as well as more than a few nods to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog. If, like me, you have never read that book, never fear - there's plenty of fun to be had in this story in its own right and those (and other) literary references can go straight over your head. Though it's not quite as much fun to reread, it remains one of my favorite science fiction stories.
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break down. One of these historians, Ned Henry, is overworked and "time lagged" due to Lady Schrapnell's insistence that everything be perfect for the recreation of Coventry Cathedral down to the last detail. In particular, was the bishop's bird stump present when the cathedral was bombed during the blitz? He's so tired he can barely function, so when one of the historians in the Victorian time period takes something forward in time, he's sent back to get his rest in a place Lady Schrapnell can't find him, and repair the damage all in one.Up until a few years ago, I had almost never read a science fiction book, and I asked a friend and co-worker to recommend a book that is a good introduction to the genre. This was her recommendation for me, and I have to say it was spot on. It's a light, funny story that still has a lot to say when you think about it, with a little bit of chaos theory and theories of history thrown in, as well as more than a few nods to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog. If, like me, you have never read that book, never fear - there's plenty of fun to be had in this story in its own right and those (and other) literary references can go straight over your head. Though it's not quite as much fun to reread, it remains one of my favorite science fiction stories.
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LibraryThing member eleanor_eader
”A Harmless, necessary cat” … William Shakespeare
Lord, what a brilliantly enjoyable book. Funny, clever, likes cats and dogs, pootles about in boats, uses language and quotations nonchalantly, yet to dazzling effect… it occurs to me that my initial summary of this book would make a great
The plot doesn’t really have much to do with how good the book is… it’s great, as plots go; got good bone structure and tucked in ends, but the personality’s the thing, really. Ned and Verity are time-travelling historians who are rummaging around the Victorian era trying to figure out how Verity’s saving a drowning cat has caused an incongruity in the continuum, and how to fix it, as things spiral hilariously out of their control. Yet only fifty percent of the book’s charm is the slapstick dashing about rearranging events; the other half is the good-natured narration and adorable characters. The reader could easily overlook the wealth of historic research and well-disciplined time-related plotting, in all the glorious goofiness.
To Say Nothing… is a book for people who love literature and words and war history and sci-fi and gentle humour and time travel philosophy and dearum darling doggies and nonsignificant objects and think they should all be rolled up together and not taken too seriously but just seriously enough to tell a good story.
Lord, what a brilliantly enjoyable book. Funny, clever, likes cats and dogs, pootles about in boats, uses language and quotations nonchalantly, yet to dazzling effect… it occurs to me that my initial summary of this book would make a great
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personal ad. Let that be an indication of the sort of review I’d like to get across – I want you to take this book home and devote yourself to it, savour it, get to know it. The rewards are numerous.The plot doesn’t really have much to do with how good the book is… it’s great, as plots go; got good bone structure and tucked in ends, but the personality’s the thing, really. Ned and Verity are time-travelling historians who are rummaging around the Victorian era trying to figure out how Verity’s saving a drowning cat has caused an incongruity in the continuum, and how to fix it, as things spiral hilariously out of their control. Yet only fifty percent of the book’s charm is the slapstick dashing about rearranging events; the other half is the good-natured narration and adorable characters. The reader could easily overlook the wealth of historic research and well-disciplined time-related plotting, in all the glorious goofiness.
To Say Nothing… is a book for people who love literature and words and war history and sci-fi and gentle humour and time travel philosophy and dearum darling doggies and nonsignificant objects and think they should all be rolled up together and not taken too seriously but just seriously enough to tell a good story.
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LibraryThing member beserene
I enjoyed this so much more because I had recently read Jerome K. Jerome's 'Three Men in a Boat'. I didn't really realize how much of an homage Willis had created until I paired the two -- even the visual formatting (chapter headings, etc.) is a la Jerome, and yet Willis manages to achieve her own
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unique style within the homage. And, though its set within the same future as Willis' 'Doomsday Book', which I read immediately prior, Willis' second foray is dramatically different from its predecessor (not a prequel/sequel relationship, but it is helpful in smaller details to read them in order). Where the first was grim, this is light and laughable and perpetually enchanting. Jolly good -- I thoroughly enjoyed it. Show Less
LibraryThing member sussabmax
Eh. I persisted in reading this book because some people I like here on LT (although no specific names spring to mind) said it was good, and I was mildly interested in where the bishop's bird stump would turn up, but it was a bit of a struggle. The storyline was needlessly convoluted--all the
So, when they get to the end and Ned figures it all out (or mostly--and I hate that kind of ending, where they throw in a maybe-there-is-one-more-element-we'll-never-be-able-to-know wrench in the works), I find it hard to believe. I find it hard to believe that Ned can find the door to his room when he wakes up in the morning! Too complicated, too irritating, too glib. Oh, and when they figure out what happened--the thing that caused everything to go wrong--they decide it's great that they can do it again and again. Hello? Haven't they noticed 400 pages of craziness, with people trapped in the past and Europe being potentially lost to Hitler to tell them this was a bad idea?
And the foreshadowing was pretty intense. If I hadn't been skimming whole sections and just trying to get through the book quickly, I would have figured out the entire plot well before the end (rather than the 75% of it I figured out without trying).
There were some redeeming qualities to the book, though. Willis is a good writer, and things moved along quickly. I liked Verity (although she was pretty stupid, too). The stuff about butlers was very amusing. Some of the characters were caricatures, but some of them were very well realized and interesting. I found myself liking the characters, even as I wanted to inflict bodily harm on them. The scenes with the animals were well-done. There is enough writing skill that I might be willing to try another Willis book in the future, but I can't recommend this one.
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sections where the hero sits down and attempts to puzzle out how all the time contimuum stuff would try to correct itself, I just skimmed. Who cares? Also, could these people have been any denser? The whole book I couldn't believe they could not figure out who Tossie should marry, since it was blindingly obvious from practically the first scene with her in it. All the craziness they perpetrated while trying to figure out the identity of her future spouse? Made me want to just smack them.So, when they get to the end and Ned figures it all out (or mostly--and I hate that kind of ending, where they throw in a maybe-there-is-one-more-element-we'll-never-be-able-to-know wrench in the works), I find it hard to believe. I find it hard to believe that Ned can find the door to his room when he wakes up in the morning! Too complicated, too irritating, too glib. Oh, and when they figure out what happened--the thing that caused everything to go wrong--they decide it's great that they can do it again and again. Hello? Haven't they noticed 400 pages of craziness, with people trapped in the past and Europe being potentially lost to Hitler to tell them this was a bad idea?
And the foreshadowing was pretty intense. If I hadn't been skimming whole sections and just trying to get through the book quickly, I would have figured out the entire plot well before the end (rather than the 75% of it I figured out without trying).
There were some redeeming qualities to the book, though. Willis is a good writer, and things moved along quickly. I liked Verity (although she was pretty stupid, too). The stuff about butlers was very amusing. Some of the characters were caricatures, but some of them were very well realized and interesting. I found myself liking the characters, even as I wanted to inflict bodily harm on them. The scenes with the animals were well-done. There is enough writing skill that I might be willing to try another Willis book in the future, but I can't recommend this one.
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LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
An intriguing Wodehousian take on time travel, the title of which is based on the Jerome K. Jerome novel Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). Twenty-first century 'historian' Ned Henry is sent back to Coventry in 1940 to check whether or not a mysterious item called 'the bishop's bird
Really, like the Jeeves and Wooster novels by Wodehouse, there is no point trying to explain the plot. For a start, I'm not sure I ever understood the technobabble about 'incongruities' and time 'slippages', but also because there is much more than just science fiction to take in. History, literary allusions, and philosophical debates about free will - not to mention the central mystery of the bird stump and the Wimsey/Vane alliance between Ned and Verity - all help to fill over five hundred pages of humorous nonsense. The destruction of Coventry Cathedral is described with respect and emotion - 'our beautiful, beautiful cathedral' - and Ned's narrative is suitably dry and deprecating of the Victorian era of excess, but the Wodehouse pastiche with the Mering family and the constant nods to Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers were a tad overdone (as was the clunking great ode to the title novel). I did like the epigraphs and the synopses for each chapter, though, and Terence St. Trewes' very Victorian quoting was cleverly done, too!
An intricately plotted, multi-faceted novel, travelling back and forth in time, but going nowhere fast until the last hundred pages. Recommended for dedicated readers of the Golden Age of detective fiction, and those 'countless generations' of Jerome K. Jerome fans.
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stump' was in place on the night that the cathedral was destroyed in the Blitz. His boss, a wealthy American called Lady Schrapnell, is building a replica of the original church, and insists that the bird stump is crucial to her plan because 'God is in the details'. 'Time-lagged' from hopping back and forth on similarly random research errands, Ned is sent back to the Victorian era to rest, when he meets another time traveller, the fantastically named Verity Kindle, who has rescued a cat from drowning and may have created an 'incongruity' that could change history.Really, like the Jeeves and Wooster novels by Wodehouse, there is no point trying to explain the plot. For a start, I'm not sure I ever understood the technobabble about 'incongruities' and time 'slippages', but also because there is much more than just science fiction to take in. History, literary allusions, and philosophical debates about free will - not to mention the central mystery of the bird stump and the Wimsey/Vane alliance between Ned and Verity - all help to fill over five hundred pages of humorous nonsense. The destruction of Coventry Cathedral is described with respect and emotion - 'our beautiful, beautiful cathedral' - and Ned's narrative is suitably dry and deprecating of the Victorian era of excess, but the Wodehouse pastiche with the Mering family and the constant nods to Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers were a tad overdone (as was the clunking great ode to the title novel). I did like the epigraphs and the synopses for each chapter, though, and Terence St. Trewes' very Victorian quoting was cleverly done, too!
An intricately plotted, multi-faceted novel, travelling back and forth in time, but going nowhere fast until the last hundred pages. Recommended for dedicated readers of the Golden Age of detective fiction, and those 'countless generations' of Jerome K. Jerome fans.
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LibraryThing member amberwitch
Tho story centers around the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral - destroyed in a Nazi raid in 1940 - in the late 21'st century. To get the details right, the emperious builder has recruited the whole historical department at Oxford to travel back in time to research the design and history of the
One of those historicans causes an incongruity by bringing something back from the past, and to correct it before the course of history is altered Ned Henry is sent back to the Victorian, timelagged and without a clue about his mission. There he encounters every Victorian cliche; an excentric Oxford professor, his harebrained student, a vacuous young lady and her highstrung mother, a fake medium.
In his addled state he ends up rowing down the Thames in the company of the above mentioned professor and student, to say nothing of the dog, when they capsize they are taken in by the great-great granmother of the country rebuilder - and the inspiration of the project.
Neds attempts to right the course are many and humorously described, His narrators voice clear and engaging. His inability to say no a bit difficult to understand, but necessary for the story.
If the reader is acquainted with the litterature of the period, the story might have layers that are otherwise unavailable - there are numorous references to Three Men in a Boat.
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building. One of those historicans causes an incongruity by bringing something back from the past, and to correct it before the course of history is altered Ned Henry is sent back to the Victorian, timelagged and without a clue about his mission. There he encounters every Victorian cliche; an excentric Oxford professor, his harebrained student, a vacuous young lady and her highstrung mother, a fake medium.
In his addled state he ends up rowing down the Thames in the company of the above mentioned professor and student, to say nothing of the dog, when they capsize they are taken in by the great-great granmother of the country rebuilder - and the inspiration of the project.
Neds attempts to right the course are many and humorously described, His narrators voice clear and engaging. His inability to say no a bit difficult to understand, but necessary for the story.
If the reader is acquainted with the litterature of the period, the story might have layers that are otherwise unavailable - there are numorous references to Three Men in a Boat.
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LibraryThing member mabrown2
This is by far and away my favorite novel by Connie Willis. Poor Ned Henry is need of some serious sleep after being sent on a wild goose chase through time. His boss is sending him to the Victorian era to allow him a chance to get some sleep...and also to return something that was accidentally
This book is absolutely hilarious! I laughed until my sides hurt. This is a book I read and reread several times a year. I highly recommend!
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taken from the past. The assignment seems simple enough but it doesn't take long before Ned finds himself in a whole heap of trouble and fears his actions may have serious consequences on the space-time continuum. With the help of another time-traveler, Ned must set the past to right in order to protect the future. Will he ever get any sleep? This book is absolutely hilarious! I laughed until my sides hurt. This is a book I read and reread several times a year. I highly recommend!
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LibraryThing member Raven
Three Men In a Boat is my favourite book, bar none. This isn't, but it's damn close. A companion to Doomsday Book, it's very different; although it has the same setting, Oxford in the 2050s, in a world where time travel has been invented by the Oxford history faculty, it's a delicate comedy
He is helped in this task by the divine Verity, who is smart, competent and beautiful. It's love at first sight. And such is the wonder that is Connie Willis, this is not formulaic but rather, a bemusedly romantic counterpoint to the time travel intrigue. It happens in and around a Greek chorus of hilarious, demented Victorian aristocrats, ornamental fish, kittens, cats, spiritualists, over-earnest curates,and jumble sales, to say nothing of the dog. The plot, also, meanders through jumble sales, romance and philosophical historiography, and although it took me a couple of re-reads to get it, it all comes together in the end to make up a neat, seamless whole. As science fiction goes, it's an achievement, and it's also funny, engaging, and sad, in the right proportions at the right times.
One minor oddity that struck me on the first read is Dunworthy, Balliol's much put-upon history tutor - he gets a surprising amount of characterisation in this book, is a regular feature in Ned's interior monologue as well as having a memorable cameo as a skinny, long-haired undergraduate - but gets a few pages of actual screentime at the most. In a stand-alone novel, I'd call it a flaw, but it makes sense in light of Doomsday Book, and the much larger role he plays in that.
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overlaid on an intellectually satisfying, immaculately executed whodunit. The narrator and protagonist, Ned Henry, is tired beyond belief, having been sent on innumerable drops to the 1940s by a crazed American called Lady Schrapnell, who is currently trying to build a life-size replical of Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid a hundred years earlier. As nowhere in Oxford is safe from her, Mr. Dunworthy sends Ned to the Victorian era for two weeks' rest and relaxation on the river, and also, as it turns out, to prevent the collapse of history.He is helped in this task by the divine Verity, who is smart, competent and beautiful. It's love at first sight. And such is the wonder that is Connie Willis, this is not formulaic but rather, a bemusedly romantic counterpoint to the time travel intrigue. It happens in and around a Greek chorus of hilarious, demented Victorian aristocrats, ornamental fish, kittens, cats, spiritualists, over-earnest curates,and jumble sales, to say nothing of the dog. The plot, also, meanders through jumble sales, romance and philosophical historiography, and although it took me a couple of re-reads to get it, it all comes together in the end to make up a neat, seamless whole. As science fiction goes, it's an achievement, and it's also funny, engaging, and sad, in the right proportions at the right times.
One minor oddity that struck me on the first read is Dunworthy, Balliol's much put-upon history tutor - he gets a surprising amount of characterisation in this book, is a regular feature in Ned's interior monologue as well as having a memorable cameo as a skinny, long-haired undergraduate - but gets a few pages of actual screentime at the most. In a stand-alone novel, I'd call it a flaw, but it makes sense in light of Doomsday Book, and the much larger role he plays in that.
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LibraryThing member goldenphizzwizards
Almost as good as Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog was much lighter and funnier. I love Brit Lit, but have never read Three Men in a Boat. It's now on my reading list. Even without being familiar with that particular work, it's apparent that this novel seems to be written in the same breezy
The pace of the story was well done and created suspense in all the right places, imitating many of the novels cited within (specifically, The Moonstone, Sherlock Holmes stories, and other early mysteries). Willis does a wonderful job of paying homage to these tricks without betraying the characters and ultimate purpose of the novel. Time travel isn't a big interest of mine, which could have been problematic considering the large role it plays in this novel. (This was less the case in Doomsday Book, which was more or less about how little humanity has changed since the Dark Ages by depicting parallel crises occurring 700 years apart).
The author does such an excellent job of constructing her characters that the bizarre interplay of history, classic British literature, physics, and sci-fi works well. As she clearly is a student of history, she is able to write about time travel and its impact on mankind in a very convincing manner. Again, while I think Doomsday Book is the more well-written novel, To Say Nothing of the Dog was witty and a joy to read!
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and sardonic style. Although the ideas seem incongruous, the author senses when the reader is done with the light banter and frivolity and takes things in a more serious and darker direction. The pace of the story was well done and created suspense in all the right places, imitating many of the novels cited within (specifically, The Moonstone, Sherlock Holmes stories, and other early mysteries). Willis does a wonderful job of paying homage to these tricks without betraying the characters and ultimate purpose of the novel. Time travel isn't a big interest of mine, which could have been problematic considering the large role it plays in this novel. (This was less the case in Doomsday Book, which was more or less about how little humanity has changed since the Dark Ages by depicting parallel crises occurring 700 years apart).
The author does such an excellent job of constructing her characters that the bizarre interplay of history, classic British literature, physics, and sci-fi works well. As she clearly is a student of history, she is able to write about time travel and its impact on mankind in a very convincing manner. Again, while I think Doomsday Book is the more well-written novel, To Say Nothing of the Dog was witty and a joy to read!
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LibraryThing member antao
I think the best value for money I've had during the pandemic was re-reading Connie Willis's “To Say Nothing of the Dog”, one of her time travelling historian novels based on the premise of historians travelling to different eras to study history. It's a comic, SF, mystery historical novel with
It was either this or half an hour a day murdering Norwegian by not being able to trill the ‘r’ sound like a native of Bodø…In hindsight maybe it’d have been half an hour of taking my mind off the world and I’d also have known such invaluable phrases as ‘why does that elk have a bicycle?’, ‘I am not afraid to die’ and yesterday’s timeless ’leave this place and never come back’ in Norwegian…
SF = Speculative Fiction.
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the most convoluted, challenging and at the same time great fun and beautifully flowing plot. Working out what's going on is a challenge to the most hardened nerd, involving as it does fish, cathedrals and jumble sales, to say nothing of the dog. You don't have to read J.K. Jerome's Three Men and a Dog first but it will be a lot funnier if you do. This might not be the right moment for the first of the series about the Oxford historians travelling in time though - Doomsday Book, a tale of two pandemics involving a worrying shortage of toilet paper and some misguided Brexit protesters claiming that immigrants and/or time travel caused the pandemic...Connie Willis is probably a real time traveller as this was written in the 90s. “Blackout” and “All Clear” are the two last in the series and as they depict life in Blitz London they can put our crisis into perspective.It was either this or half an hour a day murdering Norwegian by not being able to trill the ‘r’ sound like a native of Bodø…In hindsight maybe it’d have been half an hour of taking my mind off the world and I’d also have known such invaluable phrases as ‘why does that elk have a bicycle?’, ‘I am not afraid to die’ and yesterday’s timeless ’leave this place and never come back’ in Norwegian…
SF = Speculative Fiction.
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LibraryThing member Meredy
Six-word nonreview: Donated it to the library unfinished.
Extended nonreview:
Two days ago I posted on another thread that I was a third of the way through To Say Nothing of the Dog and wondering why I didn't quit. It's not that it lacks charm, I said, but it's so inflated with excess and repetitive
I decided to put it aside and start something else, just to see if I had any urge to come back to it and find out what happened.
I didn't.
Today I dropped it into the library's donation box along with Doomsday Book. I hope they'll both wind up in the hands of a potential fan who'll love them for all they're worth and not be bothered by all the vacuous verbosity.
There'll be no more of this author for me.
(not rated)
Extended nonreview:
Two days ago I posted on another thread that I was a third of the way through To Say Nothing of the Dog and wondering why I didn't quit. It's not that it lacks charm, I said, but it's so inflated with excess and repetitive
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verbiage that it's like trying to make a meal out of popcorn. Halving the words might have doubled the worth.I decided to put it aside and start something else, just to see if I had any urge to come back to it and find out what happened.
I didn't.
Today I dropped it into the library's donation box along with Doomsday Book. I hope they'll both wind up in the hands of a potential fan who'll love them for all they're worth and not be bothered by all the vacuous verbosity.
There'll be no more of this author for me.
(not rated)
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LibraryThing member Jax1976
Connie Willis' books tend to combine her love of history, literature, chaos theory and Preston Sturges-type screwball comedies to varying effect. In "To Say Nothing of the Dog," her sort-of-squel to "The Doomsday Book," she finally perfects the combination. Following the format of Victorian era
Ned Henry is sent back to the Victorian era to rest and recover from a bad case of time lag, and to return the object before it's absend can rip apart the fabric of time and causality. But almost from the moment of his arrival, things go wrong, and Ned and the beautiful time-travelling Verity have to think on their feet, while juggling an overbearing Victorian matricarch, a possibily murderous butler, thieving mediums, a bulldog, a cat that likes exotic fish, and Verity's ditzy "cousin" Tossie, an ideal example of Victorian womanhood and the nexus around whom everything turns.
History, science, math, poetry, chaos theory, time travel and animal husbandry all come together in a terribly clever way to help Ned and Verity solve a mystery, while several young loves blossom in spite of a host of obstacles. A clever, engaging and literate adventure that just gets better everytime I read it.
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books such as Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)", from which she takes the book's name, Connie takes us on a romp through time to locate an urn called the Bishop's Bird Stump, which a wealthy American crackpot wants for her true-to-the-tiniest-detail 22nd century reconstruction of Coventry Cathedtral, which was bombed during World War II. But a time traveller coming back from the Victorian era has made a critical and previously thought impossible mistake by bringing something back through with her, something that must be returned or the entire space time conintinuum might fall apart.Ned Henry is sent back to the Victorian era to rest and recover from a bad case of time lag, and to return the object before it's absend can rip apart the fabric of time and causality. But almost from the moment of his arrival, things go wrong, and Ned and the beautiful time-travelling Verity have to think on their feet, while juggling an overbearing Victorian matricarch, a possibily murderous butler, thieving mediums, a bulldog, a cat that likes exotic fish, and Verity's ditzy "cousin" Tossie, an ideal example of Victorian womanhood and the nexus around whom everything turns.
History, science, math, poetry, chaos theory, time travel and animal husbandry all come together in a terribly clever way to help Ned and Verity solve a mystery, while several young loves blossom in spite of a host of obstacles. A clever, engaging and literate adventure that just gets better everytime I read it.
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LibraryThing member Helenliz
The blurb on this make you expect something hilarious and this wasn't that. but it had a certain charm, and was most certainly amusing in a Victorian drawing room farce kind of way.
I admit that I am very fussy when it comes to playing with the laws of physics, so a book using time travel is
The openeing surmise has the story set in 2057, where Lady Schrapnell is buolding a copy of Coventry Cathedral, as it stood just before it was burnt down in the Blitz. She's building this in Oxford, of course. And as part of her researches she has sent historians all over the early 20th century to check various items, their location and to get details of what they looked like. The last item is the oddly named Bishop's Bird Stump, a ghastly piece of Victoriana that was seen by Lady Schrapnell's ancestor, when it changed her life. After quite some time rooting around in Coventry before and on the night of the Blitz, Ned gets severe time lag and gets sent to the Victorian era for a rest and to escape Lady Schrapnell. Only he also has a task to complete that he's not entirely paid attention to... And so the Victorian comedty of manners begins.
The other thing to love about this is the sheer number of loterary references it manages to pack in. Lord Peter Wimsey & Hercule Poriot get name checked, as does Three men in a boat. You've got to love a Historian who can pinpoint his date by which Christie novel has just been published. >:-)
It was noticable that in this book published in 1998 that there was a pandemic in the early 21st century, the author was just a few years out...
I can think of far worse ways to spend time that hurtling around a Victorian summer, trying to save the world by making sure that certain people end up in the right place at the right time to not change the course of history. It might not have bene laugh out loud funny, but it certainly made me smile multiple times. And that's no bad thin.g
I admit that I am very fussy when it comes to playing with the laws of physics, so a book using time travel is
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probably not going to be right in my wheelhouse. but this manages to pull it off very neatly. I can suspend disbelief and allow the author to break one rule of physics, or introduce one inexplicable thing, but only so long as the remainder of the book all makes scientific logical sense. And while this does allow timetravel, it alos has rules about how it is used, that you can only go backwards, that you can;t take anything that didn;t exist at the time and that you can't intentionally change the nature of history. So you can't go back in time with the intent to assissinate Hitler (no matter how much you might like to). I like a world that runs to certain rules, so this all made the acceptance of timetravel seem far more normal. The openeing surmise has the story set in 2057, where Lady Schrapnell is buolding a copy of Coventry Cathedral, as it stood just before it was burnt down in the Blitz. She's building this in Oxford, of course. And as part of her researches she has sent historians all over the early 20th century to check various items, their location and to get details of what they looked like. The last item is the oddly named Bishop's Bird Stump, a ghastly piece of Victoriana that was seen by Lady Schrapnell's ancestor, when it changed her life. After quite some time rooting around in Coventry before and on the night of the Blitz, Ned gets severe time lag and gets sent to the Victorian era for a rest and to escape Lady Schrapnell. Only he also has a task to complete that he's not entirely paid attention to... And so the Victorian comedty of manners begins.
The other thing to love about this is the sheer number of loterary references it manages to pack in. Lord Peter Wimsey & Hercule Poriot get name checked, as does Three men in a boat. You've got to love a Historian who can pinpoint his date by which Christie novel has just been published. >:-)
It was noticable that in this book published in 1998 that there was a pandemic in the early 21st century, the author was just a few years out...
I can think of far worse ways to spend time that hurtling around a Victorian summer, trying to save the world by making sure that certain people end up in the right place at the right time to not change the course of history. It might not have bene laugh out loud funny, but it certainly made me smile multiple times. And that's no bad thin.g
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LibraryThing member nillacat
A homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, a comedy of Victorian manners, a time travel romp, a mystery and a romance.
Lady Schrapnell, a wealthy eccentric obsessed with rebuilding Coventry Cathedral, under the guise of an enormous donation to the Oxford History Department of the mid 21st
There are several mysteries and several romances and a great many plot twists. And we actually meet Jerome K. Jerome boating down the Thames...
Utterly charming.
Lady Schrapnell, a wealthy eccentric obsessed with rebuilding Coventry Cathedral, under the guise of an enormous donation to the Oxford History Department of the mid 21st
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century, co-opts the department's entire staff of time traveling historians to go back in time to research the details of the construction of the Cathedral and its furnishings. On one such jaunt to the Victorian era an historian rescues from drowning Princess Arjumand, a little black and white cat, who plays a key role in a Temporal Crisis that our hero, a much put-upon and dreadfully time-lagged historian, must sort out.There are several mysteries and several romances and a great many plot twists. And we actually meet Jerome K. Jerome boating down the Thames...
Utterly charming.
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LibraryThing member vilia
Rolicking time travel adventure. Ned Henry is sent to Victorian England for a break from trying to find the bishop's bird stump before the re-dedication ceremony of Coventry Cathedral (in the 21st century). Hilarious, side aching historical comedy of manners. Highly, highly recommended.
LibraryThing member Mendoza
Time Travel, SciFi, mystery, comedy of manners, Fantasy, Victorian Era? Believe it, it all fits and very nicely.
LibraryThing member linepainter
I wish I knew why this didn't work for me. People have been telling me about this book for years.
Things I love: time travel, twee, Three Men in a Boat.
But, I felt like I didn't know the characters, didn't care if they fell in or out of love, and that the stakes were absurdly low. Page after page of
Things I love: time travel, twee, Three Men in a Boat.
But, I felt like I didn't know the characters, didn't care if they fell in or out of love, and that the stakes were absurdly low. Page after page of
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Inconvenient Amnesia befuddling the bland pudding of a protagonist. There were some amusing lines, but JKJ has more, so it required a deliberate outburst of will and determination to finish this one before rereading Three Men in a Boat. Show Less
LibraryThing member grizzly.anderson
Visiting the same world of time travel as Dooms Day Book, but this time as a farce in the style of P G Wodehouse, Willis tells a wonderfully amusing tale of romance, mistaken identity, and literary allusion. Every time I read this book (and I re-read it often) it leaves a smile on my face, and I've
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recommended it to so many friends that I had to get a second copy to loan out, for fear that some day it might not come back. Show Less
LibraryThing member delphica
(Book 16 in the 2005 book challenge)
If this book were any more adorable, it would be unbearable. I'm sure I first heard of Connie Willis on the SDMB, and last year I read the Domesday Book, and enjoyed it very much. That was like the dark side of time travel. This is the light side, time travel
Grade: B+
Recommended: To people who think Charley's Aunt is hilarious (Brazil! Where the nuts come from!)
If this book were any more adorable, it would be unbearable. I'm sure I first heard of Connie Willis on the SDMB, and last year I read the Domesday Book, and enjoyed it very much. That was like the dark side of time travel. This is the light side, time travel
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back to Victorian England with a Charley's Aunt type of plot. Two people from the future accidentally change something back in the past, and then have keep going back repeatedly to try to straighten it out, but of course, keep getting foiled by the wacky cast of Victorians. Hoot and a half.Grade: B+
Recommended: To people who think Charley's Aunt is hilarious (Brazil! Where the nuts come from!)
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LibraryThing member RobertDay
Connie Willis' first novel of time-travelling Oxford dons, 'Doomsday Book', was powerful and bleak in places; in others, it reflected Medieval England with a mid-21st century world with its own problems that mirrored those of the time traveller stranded in a deadly past. It wasn't perfect, but it
Then I ran across the first major error - setting Birmingham and Coventry sixty miles apart. I used to live near Coventry and commuted to work in Birmingham. Sixteen miles is nearer the mark, not sixty. More errors followed; as someone with an interest in railways, the ones I spotted were railway-oriented, but this is not a matter of nerdy, "that engine could never have run with those carriages" pedantry. No, we are looking at things like:
- Oxford station being a sleepy backwater and destitute of staff (even the smallest stations had a staff of three - four people)
- Porters travelling with trains (this never happened)
- And worst of all, the main character going to "the observation platform" at the rear of the train. Observation platforms were a uniquely American thing, and the Great Western Railway - or any other British railway - never had them.
Indeed, all the way through this book, I had the feeling that here we had an American writing a book and assuming that what they had not seen about Britain that they immediately recognised as different, must be the same as in America. This throws the whole idea of accuracy in an historical novel out of the window - for when I can see basic errors in my particular field of knowledge, then it has to raise questions as to what else is wrong. And after all, science fiction is an international community and it would have been quite possible for some fact-checking with British sf fans who were also railway enthusiasts - I'm far from the only one!
More of the "American abroad" surfaced as I got into the book and found examples of American English in the mouths of Victorians. 'Contemps' would not have said "Go tell" or "Go see"; they would have said "Go and tell", "Go and see". "On the rebound" only came into common usage in the UK in the 1960s. And here, we do not have 'Fall', we have 'Autumn', and we always have. Using American English in this situation is either bad editing or sloppy writing. Do we not read science fiction to experience The Other? "The past is another country - they do things differently there" wrote L.P. Hartley, and that extends to language. Are Americans really unable to understand the Queen's English?
So why did I persevere with this book when it irritated me so much? Well, the story is well-constructed, Willis' writing has verve, and I wanted to see what happened next (even if I did spot the solution to the central dilemma some distance out.) And the account of the burning of Coventry Cathedral had real passion and immediacy. That, at least, I could believe in. There was also some back story over the back story of how time travel came to Oxford, which was of interest.
At other points, I was smiling at the P.D.Wodehouse pastiche (I found it easier to imagine it as Wodehousian rather than Jerome K. Jerome-like, as the situation was much closer to a Bertie Wooster story), but I never burst out into uncontrollable laughter the way the blurb suggested that I might. I suppose British and American ideas of humour are rather different.
So: a well-written book, and one with a place in the Oxford time-travel series (there is a minor revelation towards the end of the book that sets up some important questions about history and causality, though it is rather thrown in as if in acknowledgement of science fiction's role in expressing Big Ideas); but not one written for a British readership, and one whose research is less rigourous than the author would like you to think it is.
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was pretty stunning. So when I opened this book, the next in the series of novels Willis has written about her Oxford time-travellers, I wanted to find out more. I began to have doubts as soon as the story was set up, with an English aristocrat, very obviously based on one of Wodehouse formidable Aunts, dictatorially ordering the reconstruction of the bombed-out Coventry Cathedral in Oxford. How? Why? Willis might have done her research into Victorian England, but she is utterly ignorant of how such a project would get off the ground in the United Kingdom at any time in history. The whole premise of the novel fell apart for me at its sheer impossibility, let alone Willis' total ignorance of the role and status of the British aristocracy in our modern times. (Most British aristocrats are now precariously financed at best, and wield no special privilege or influence when it comes to spending public money or getting projects off the ground. The ones that are well-off have done it through business - good, old-fashioned business, red in tooth and claw, and being a Lord or Lady cuts no ice with the City these days.)Then I ran across the first major error - setting Birmingham and Coventry sixty miles apart. I used to live near Coventry and commuted to work in Birmingham. Sixteen miles is nearer the mark, not sixty. More errors followed; as someone with an interest in railways, the ones I spotted were railway-oriented, but this is not a matter of nerdy, "that engine could never have run with those carriages" pedantry. No, we are looking at things like:
- Oxford station being a sleepy backwater and destitute of staff (even the smallest stations had a staff of three - four people)
- Porters travelling with trains (this never happened)
- And worst of all, the main character going to "the observation platform" at the rear of the train. Observation platforms were a uniquely American thing, and the Great Western Railway - or any other British railway - never had them.
Indeed, all the way through this book, I had the feeling that here we had an American writing a book and assuming that what they had not seen about Britain that they immediately recognised as different, must be the same as in America. This throws the whole idea of accuracy in an historical novel out of the window - for when I can see basic errors in my particular field of knowledge, then it has to raise questions as to what else is wrong. And after all, science fiction is an international community and it would have been quite possible for some fact-checking with British sf fans who were also railway enthusiasts - I'm far from the only one!
More of the "American abroad" surfaced as I got into the book and found examples of American English in the mouths of Victorians. 'Contemps' would not have said "Go tell" or "Go see"; they would have said "Go and tell", "Go and see". "On the rebound" only came into common usage in the UK in the 1960s. And here, we do not have 'Fall', we have 'Autumn', and we always have. Using American English in this situation is either bad editing or sloppy writing. Do we not read science fiction to experience The Other? "The past is another country - they do things differently there" wrote L.P. Hartley, and that extends to language. Are Americans really unable to understand the Queen's English?
So why did I persevere with this book when it irritated me so much? Well, the story is well-constructed, Willis' writing has verve, and I wanted to see what happened next (even if I did spot the solution to the central dilemma some distance out.) And the account of the burning of Coventry Cathedral had real passion and immediacy. That, at least, I could believe in. There was also some back story over the back story of how time travel came to Oxford, which was of interest.
At other points, I was smiling at the P.D.Wodehouse pastiche (I found it easier to imagine it as Wodehousian rather than Jerome K. Jerome-like, as the situation was much closer to a Bertie Wooster story), but I never burst out into uncontrollable laughter the way the blurb suggested that I might. I suppose British and American ideas of humour are rather different.
So: a well-written book, and one with a place in the Oxford time-travel series (there is a minor revelation towards the end of the book that sets up some important questions about history and causality, though it is rather thrown in as if in acknowledgement of science fiction's role in expressing Big Ideas); but not one written for a British readership, and one whose research is less rigourous than the author would like you to think it is.
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LibraryThing member AMQS
It is difficult to describe To Say Nothing of the Dog, as it is a genre-bending spoofy combination of time travel SF fantasy, Victorian comedy of manners, 1930s Agatha Christie/Dorothy Sayers-style mystery, and romance. In the year 2057, Oxford historians are using time travel to conduct historical
There is a lot going on in the book, but it all works, and is a real laugh-out-loud romp. The book is full of literary allusions, some of which I’m not as familiar with as I should be. I already know I will be rowing the Thames again with Jerome K. Jerome and company (to say nothing of the dog), and I will definitely be going back with Ned and Verity to 1888. Great read!
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research. The current, frantic project is the reconstruction of Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in WWII more than 100 years before. A domineering American woman, Lady Shrapnell, is financing the reconstruction, and sending historians all over time to track down large and small details, and to solve the mystery of the fate of the bishop’s bird stump, a mysterious, and reportedly hideous Victorian monstrosity that has been missing since the air raid. Historian Ned Henry has completed countless “drops” into 1940 to search for the bird stump, and has attended just about every 1940s church jumble sale that ever was. Exhausted, and suffering from near-delirious time-lag, he is sent to Victorian England, both to get some Lady Shrapnell-free rest, and to repair a time-travel emergency: Verity Kindle, another historian, inadvertently brought a Victorian object into the future, and it must be returned before the course of history is altered and the space-time continuum breaks down. Ned’s appearance in 1888, however, seems to alter the course of history even further. Too time-lagged to understand his mission, he bumbles around a bit, preventing Terence St. Trews from meeting his future wife at a train station, and instead embarking on a river excursion a la Three Men in a Boat, during which Mr. St. Trews meets and falls in love with Tossie Mering, an ancestor of Lady Shrapnell. As historical incongruities seemingly mount, Ned and Verity must do their utmost to repair them, while maintaining their Victorian cover.There is a lot going on in the book, but it all works, and is a real laugh-out-loud romp. The book is full of literary allusions, some of which I’m not as familiar with as I should be. I already know I will be rowing the Thames again with Jerome K. Jerome and company (to say nothing of the dog), and I will definitely be going back with Ned and Verity to 1888. Great read!
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LibraryThing member Gwendydd
Brilliant! This book is laugh-out-loud hilarious all the way through, and manages to include lots of clever references to Victorian novels, mystery novels, and history. I was shocked to discover that Willis is American - this novel is classic British humor.
I was surprised to realize that this is a
There is also a constant theme of the forces of causality in history. A doddering old Oxford don is always muttering about how history is caused by individual actions and personalities, not major forces. Meanwhile the time-traveling characters are trying to figure out if they've screwed up the course of history, and whether minuscule actions have an effect on history or not.
A really really fun read, with some good food for thought in it as well. It made a great book to read out loud as well - it was fun to share it with someone else.
I was surprised to realize that this is a
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mystery novel as much as a science fiction novel - I'm generally not much of a mystery fan, but I enjoyed the problem-solving involved in this book.There is also a constant theme of the forces of causality in history. A doddering old Oxford don is always muttering about how history is caused by individual actions and personalities, not major forces. Meanwhile the time-traveling characters are trying to figure out if they've screwed up the course of history, and whether minuscule actions have an effect on history or not.
A really really fun read, with some good food for thought in it as well. It made a great book to read out loud as well - it was fun to share it with someone else.
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