The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
by Jerome K. Jerome
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Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow is a collection of humorous essays by Jerome K. Jerome. The essays cover a range of topics from On Being in Love to On Furnished Apartments to On Getting on in the World. Jerome established himself as one of England's favorite wits with his comic novel Three Men in a Boat..
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The predecessor to the author's 'Three Men in a Boat', this is a collection of Jerome's humorous journalism from the years immediately before that book. These pieces are not laugh-out-loud funny; and indeed, such have our lives and reading tastes changed, some will find them long-winded, circumlocutory and possibly even tedious. And the world they describe, the world that Jerome moved in, is now gone. But if you are in any way appreciative of nineteenth-century London, or want to get a good idea of what occupied the middle classes in those times, this book is perfect.
Interestingly, the author's voice in these essays was echoed in later years by P.G. Wodehouse; some of the idle musings he puts into the mouth of Bertie Wooster are show more straight out of the same mould as cast these gems of Jerome's. And just when you think that there's nothing at all substantial about any of this, you suddenly get hit between the eyes by the bitter reality of 'On being Hard Up', or realise that so often - mainly in 'On Memory', but also at intervals throughout the book, Jerome talks of people who have passed away and we realise that the rate of mortality, especially amongst children, was appallingly high compared to our own time.
But just to show that all is not doom and gloom, Montmorency the dog gets namechecked. And there is much to please throughout the volume.
My copy was the UK Snowbooks 2004 edition, a charming little volume in square hardback format with a "contemporary afterword" by a modern London dandy and flaneur. show less
Interestingly, the author's voice in these essays was echoed in later years by P.G. Wodehouse; some of the idle musings he puts into the mouth of Bertie Wooster are show more straight out of the same mould as cast these gems of Jerome's. And just when you think that there's nothing at all substantial about any of this, you suddenly get hit between the eyes by the bitter reality of 'On being Hard Up', or realise that so often - mainly in 'On Memory', but also at intervals throughout the book, Jerome talks of people who have passed away and we realise that the rate of mortality, especially amongst children, was appallingly high compared to our own time.
But just to show that all is not doom and gloom, Montmorency the dog gets namechecked. And there is much to please throughout the volume.
My copy was the UK Snowbooks 2004 edition, a charming little volume in square hardback format with a "contemporary afterword" by a modern London dandy and flaneur. show less
I absolutely ADORE this man. He would be mine all mine had I been born way back when. JKJ is a woefully underrated writer, in my estimation. He is so funny, so astute, so thoughtful, and so charming! He's easily as clever and observant as Oscar Wilde but without the sneer. (Don't get me wrong, I love Wilde's sneering.) This short book is not as laugh-out-loud funny as Three Men in a Boat but I think it's not meant to be. It's a collection of musings, often funny, sometimes philosophical, and sometimes downright poetic on all sorts of topics that touch every human being alive or previously so. It's wonderful.
"It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy."
"It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy."
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome is one of my favourite books of all time and even recalling it now makes me chuckle. Having read it back in 2011, I thought it was high time to explore more from this eccentric and witty author, so I picked up Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. Big mistake. Huge.
Do you ever worry you'll spoil your love for a book if you read another by the same author and it's a drag? When I read a dud by an author I revere, it inevitably diminishes my overall opinion of their work and it happens more often than I'd like.*
Unfortunately, this was one of those times and I just didn't enjoy Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. There were moments of humour and cleverness, but by the end I was left wishing I'd never picked show more it up.
As a reader, I was greedy to recreate the magic of Three Men in a Boat where I should have been content to leave it as a standalone reading experience beyond compare. Have I learned my lesson though? Probably not. show less
Do you ever worry you'll spoil your love for a book if you read another by the same author and it's a drag? When I read a dud by an author I revere, it inevitably diminishes my overall opinion of their work and it happens more often than I'd like.*
Unfortunately, this was one of those times and I just didn't enjoy Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. There were moments of humour and cleverness, but by the end I was left wishing I'd never picked show more it up.
As a reader, I was greedy to recreate the magic of Three Men in a Boat where I should have been content to leave it as a standalone reading experience beyond compare. Have I learned my lesson though? Probably not. show less
Once again, he’s the Victorian Seinfeld making offbeat observations about the small things in life. Even more so than Three Men in a Boat, he can become sentimental and earnest, and that kind of kills the overall effect a bit. And then there’s the Victorian sexism, classism and race callousness, that makes it a little gear grinding for a modern reader. But when it works it works, and there’s funny stuff. He can be entertainingly deadpan. And it’s short.
Monday afternoons are most favorable to practice the art of idling. The anxiety of a fresh work week prevails over the dormancy of deadlines and you are back on detoxification diet after a carb loaded Sunday. On one such afternoons amid my momentary sniffing of liquid black ink( the one that fills the belly of a fountain pen), I hear a deafening sound enough to crack the inner chords of my ears. As I look up from my sniffing activity, I observe a recognizable obnoxious face of a dear friend who also acts as my local bookworm.
“Have you heard of Jerome K Jerome “, she says overlooking my disdain.
“Is he your fuck mate?” I ask, trying to outwit with my sarcasm.
You lightheaded bitch!, she shows displeasure. “He is the one who show more wrote Three Men in a Boat”.
Laughter overcomes me as I tell her my awareness of the author stating that he is one of the funniest men in English literature.
As she takes a mouthful of my salad, “Read this book. It is quite interesting”, she urges while masticating on the lettuce. “Jerome writes that although this book might be a good change in between reading “the best 100 books ever”, it wouldn’t even elevate a cow. But, I think it might elevate you”.
As she squanders away to my relief, I sit at my desk torn between the desire to resume ink inhalation or read a book by one of my favourite author.
Idling can be a joy if it is masked in the aura of procrastination. Lethargy is an entirely different concept as it is accompanied by comatose temporal lobe. So, I concur with my dear friend Jerome, when he states that in the world of slow-coaches and indolent people, a true idler is a rarity. A lazy person can sit on a park bench for hours and would care the least even if his butt falls asleep while staring expressionlessly at the birds. On the other hand, an idler for a gem of a person that he is, counts the pigeons in the park, browses the newspaper and exhibits characteristic facial expressions indicating his choc-a bloc schedule. Jerome infers idleness is as sweet as stolen kisses. Idle thoughts on the other hand, can weave an intriguing web of frivolous words and rational sentences. An imposed idleness can relay a series of thoughts, wondering why isn’t the life-cycle of a mosquito applicable to certain neighbors when they share the same blood-sucking attributes of the insect. Your mind debates the legitimacy of Darwin’s claim of man being evolved from apes, when you can clearly see the physical similarities and behavioral patterns between a walrus and one of you elder uncles at a family reunion. If we could identify with the baby talk, would all the “goo-goo-ga-ga” spell out Stewie Griffin’s verbal diarrhea? As you idle away work responsibilities, flinging pebbles in the nearby pond, the simultaneous ripples in the water brings a plethora of dystopian phrases that you might scribble away. Pigeons are devilish birds and so are seagulls. They secretly hate me like my exes. They stare at me and then maul me for a bag of cookies. Cats are smarter than dogs. An individual is the most compassionate and cheerful when he is fed. It is funny how a hungry stomach lustfully adores a plate full of gastronomic delicacies. Hunger is a luxury for those well-fed, as myself. Melancholy is like a glob of butter on toasts. It is detrimental to health, but without it life would be as flavorless as a stale oat. Vanity is not an honorary title solely bestowed on Simon Cowell. Everyone is vain. Take pride in it, just like my aunt whose bedroom lifestyle can put a praying mantis to shame (so claims my uncle, marvel at him being still hale and hearty), flutters like a butterfly at a cosmetic counter even though she appears to be a victim of a reversed metamorphosis. Jerome inscribes that memory is a rare ghost-raiser. Like a haunted house, its walls are ever echoing to unseen feet. Through the broken casements we watch the flitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all are the shadows of our own dead selves. Self- imposed amnesia is the best cure. That is what my cousin prescribes to when she runs into one of her ex-husbands while on a shopping spree.
Jerome is not at his sarcastic best. He is sick, you see. But, he does not disappoint at all. With the help of his dearest companion – the pipe, his drugged temporal lobe leisurely grabs every thought that runs through his mind contemplating from animal attitudes to love, furnishing apartments, babies, food and merriment of the time gone by. The text comprising of 14 varied essays, are rich with the humorous undertones on frolicsome anecdotes filtering into a theoretical finesse.
I am alone and the road is very dark. I stumble on, I know not how nor care, for the way seems leading nowhere, and there is no light to guide. But at last the morning comes, and I find that I have grown into myself.
As the alarm once again nearly ruptures my ear drums, it is 4’oclock in the evening and as I erase the defined whorls off my cheek printed by the ink stained thumb, a thought lingers asserting that my friend was precise of this book elevating me. Moo!!!!!
show less
“Have you heard of Jerome K Jerome “, she says overlooking my disdain.
“Is he your fuck mate?” I ask, trying to outwit with my sarcasm.
You lightheaded bitch!, she shows displeasure. “He is the one who show more wrote Three Men in a Boat”.
Laughter overcomes me as I tell her my awareness of the author stating that he is one of the funniest men in English literature.
As she takes a mouthful of my salad, “Read this book. It is quite interesting”, she urges while masticating on the lettuce. “Jerome writes that although this book might be a good change in between reading “the best 100 books ever”, it wouldn’t even elevate a cow. But, I think it might elevate you”.
As she squanders away to my relief, I sit at my desk torn between the desire to resume ink inhalation or read a book by one of my favourite author.
Idling can be a joy if it is masked in the aura of procrastination. Lethargy is an entirely different concept as it is accompanied by comatose temporal lobe. So, I concur with my dear friend Jerome, when he states that in the world of slow-coaches and indolent people, a true idler is a rarity. A lazy person can sit on a park bench for hours and would care the least even if his butt falls asleep while staring expressionlessly at the birds. On the other hand, an idler for a gem of a person that he is, counts the pigeons in the park, browses the newspaper and exhibits characteristic facial expressions indicating his choc-a bloc schedule. Jerome infers idleness is as sweet as stolen kisses. Idle thoughts on the other hand, can weave an intriguing web of frivolous words and rational sentences. An imposed idleness can relay a series of thoughts, wondering why isn’t the life-cycle of a mosquito applicable to certain neighbors when they share the same blood-sucking attributes of the insect. Your mind debates the legitimacy of Darwin’s claim of man being evolved from apes, when you can clearly see the physical similarities and behavioral patterns between a walrus and one of you elder uncles at a family reunion. If we could identify with the baby talk, would all the “goo-goo-ga-ga” spell out Stewie Griffin’s verbal diarrhea? As you idle away work responsibilities, flinging pebbles in the nearby pond, the simultaneous ripples in the water brings a plethora of dystopian phrases that you might scribble away. Pigeons are devilish birds and so are seagulls. They secretly hate me like my exes. They stare at me and then maul me for a bag of cookies. Cats are smarter than dogs. An individual is the most compassionate and cheerful when he is fed. It is funny how a hungry stomach lustfully adores a plate full of gastronomic delicacies. Hunger is a luxury for those well-fed, as myself. Melancholy is like a glob of butter on toasts. It is detrimental to health, but without it life would be as flavorless as a stale oat. Vanity is not an honorary title solely bestowed on Simon Cowell. Everyone is vain. Take pride in it, just like my aunt whose bedroom lifestyle can put a praying mantis to shame (so claims my uncle, marvel at him being still hale and hearty), flutters like a butterfly at a cosmetic counter even though she appears to be a victim of a reversed metamorphosis. Jerome inscribes that memory is a rare ghost-raiser. Like a haunted house, its walls are ever echoing to unseen feet. Through the broken casements we watch the flitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all are the shadows of our own dead selves. Self- imposed amnesia is the best cure. That is what my cousin prescribes to when she runs into one of her ex-husbands while on a shopping spree.
Jerome is not at his sarcastic best. He is sick, you see. But, he does not disappoint at all. With the help of his dearest companion – the pipe, his drugged temporal lobe leisurely grabs every thought that runs through his mind contemplating from animal attitudes to love, furnishing apartments, babies, food and merriment of the time gone by. The text comprising of 14 varied essays, are rich with the humorous undertones on frolicsome anecdotes filtering into a theoretical finesse.
I am alone and the road is very dark. I stumble on, I know not how nor care, for the way seems leading nowhere, and there is no light to guide. But at last the morning comes, and I find that I have grown into myself.
As the alarm once again nearly ruptures my ear drums, it is 4’oclock in the evening and as I erase the defined whorls off my cheek printed by the ink stained thumb, a thought lingers asserting that my friend was precise of this book elevating me. Moo!!!!!
show less
There's something oddly satisfying about this book. Calming, interesting and humorous all at once. Two of these adjectives are not ones I tend to seek out in a book very often, but this man made it happen. High five, JKJ!
"The world must be rather a rough place for clever people. Ordinary folk dislike them, and as for themselves, they hate each other most cordially."
"The world must be rather a rough place for clever people. Ordinary folk dislike them, and as for themselves, they hate each other most cordially."
The problem with Jerome Klapka Jerome is that generally he would succeed when trying to be funny, and fail when trying to be poetic. This didn't matter so much in Three Man in a Boat, where he was for the most part attempting the former; unfortunately in these essays he was mostly attempting the latter.
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Jerome K. Jerome was born in Walsall, Staffordshire, England on May 2, 1859. He grew up in London and had to leave school at the age of 14 because of his parents' death. Afterwards, he worked as a clerk, an actor, a journalist, and a school teacher. In 1885, he published his first book On the Stage - and Off: The Brief Career of a Would-Be Actor. show more This was followed by numerous plays, books, and magazine articles including Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, Three Men in a Boat, and Three Men on the Bummel. He founded the weekly magazine To-Day in 1893 and edited it and a monthly magazine called The Idler until 1898. He also worked as a lecturer. During World War I, he enlisted in the French army as an ambulance driver because he was rejected for active service in his own country. He published his autobiography My Life and Times in 1926. He suffered a paralytic stroke and a cerebral hemorrhage and died on June 14, 1927. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Jerome K. Jerome: 14 books in 1. 3 Men in Boat (To Say Nothing of Dog)-3 Men on Bummel-Diary of Pilgrimage-Novel Notes-Paul Kelver-Tommy & Co-They & I-All Roads Lead to Calvary-Idle Ideas in 1905 by Jerome K. Jerome
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
- Original title
- The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
- Original publication date
- 1886
- People/Characters
- Jerome K. Jerome
- Dedication
- To the very dear and well-beloved friend of my prosperous and evil days—
To the friend who, though in the early stages of our acquaintanceship did ofttimes disagree with me, has since become to be my very warmest comrade... (show all)—
To the friend who, however often I may put him out, never (now) upsets me in revenge—
To the friend who, marked with coolness by all the female members of my household, and regarded with suspicion by my very dog, nevertheless seems day by day to be more drawn by me, and in return to more and more impregnate me with the odor of his friendship—
To the friend who never tells me of my faults, never wants to borrow money, and never talks about himself—
To the companion of my idle hours, the soother of my sorrows, the confidant of my joys and hopes—
My oldest and strongest pipe, this little volume is gratefully and affectionately dedicated. - First words
- On Being Idle: Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really am au fait.
- Quotations
- Idling always has been my strong point. I take no credit to myself in the matter--it is a gift.
Love is too pure a light to burn long among the noisome gases that we breathe
Chivalry is not dead: it only sleeps for want of work to do. It is you [women] who must wake it to noble deeds. You must be worthy of knightly worship.
When things go wrong at 10 o'clock in the morning we--or rather you--swear and knock the furniture about; but if the misfortune comes at 10 p.m., we read poetry or sit in the dark and think what a hollow world this is.
There is no pathos in real misery: no luxury in real grief.
Why assume that a doubled-up body, a contorted, purple face, and a gaping mouth emitting a series of ear-splitting shrieks point to a state of more intelligent happiness than a pensive face reposing upon a little white hand, ... (show all)and a pair of gentle tear-dimmed eyes looking back through Time's dark avenue upon a fading past?
[...] standing in the stillness under earth's darkening dome, we feel that we are greater than our petty lives. Hung round with those dusky curtains, the world is no longer a mere dingy workshop, but a stately temple wherein ... (show all)man may worship, and where at times in the dimness his groping hands touch God's.
It is wonderful what an insight into domestic economy being really hard up gives one.
I do like cats. They are so unconsciously amusing. There is such a comic dignity about them, such a "How dare you!" "Go away, don't touch me" sort of air.
It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one.
Ambition is only vanity ennobled.
But outsiders, you know, often see most of the game; and sitting in my arbor by the wayside, smoking my hookah of contentment and eating the sweet lotus-leaves of indolence, I can look out musingly upon the whirling throng th... (show all)at rolls and tumbles past me on the great high-road of life.
Be your own natural self, and then you will only be thought to be surly and stupid.
All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.
I saw a little mite sitting on a doorstep in a Soho slum one night, and I shall never forget the look that the gas-lamp showed me on its wizen face--a look of dull despair, as if from the squalid court the vista of its own sq... (show all)ualid life had risen, ghostlike, and struck its heart dead with horror.
"Oh, give me back the good old days of fifty years ago," has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday. [...] From all accounts, the world has been getting worse and worse ever since it was created.
The world must be rather a rough place for clever people. Ordinary folk dislike them, and as for themselves, they hate each other most cordially. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But at last the morning comes, and I find that I have grown into myself.
- Original language
- English
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