Novel Notes

Jerome is very hard to explain, to those who haven't read him. He is unique. He is, of course, wryly, ludicrously, helplessly funny. His style is replete with the usual digressions, tangents, shaggy dog stories that some man in a pub told him and quiet, wry, entirely modern observations on the state of the world. Novel Notes is no different from usual in this regard. (Also as per usual, it's hard to tell whether it's fiction, autobiography or some peculiar blend thereof.) But it has a harder core than some of his other work. Read Three Men in a Boat, read The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, for Jerome at his best, or at least, his most jaw-crackingly hilarious - for this book, good fun though it is, is a little more poignant. His flights into sad sentimentality, which feel pasted-on elsewhere, seem to fit better into the narrative here, and the framing story of how Jerome and three of his friends failed to write a novel is not, in itself, as funny as it sounds at the outset - there's a wistful air of irresolution to the whole thing. A good, fun book, but a little sadder than you might expect. ( )