The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome - a Review and Analysis

 

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Jerome K. Jerome was born in 1859, in Walsall, Staffordshire. Leaving school at fourteen he took up work as a railway clerk, this being the first of a number of jobs he was to have, jobs that included acting, teaching, and journalism. His first book was published in 1885, On Stage and Off, and is a collection of humorous pieces about the theatre. This being well received, he followed the work with another collection of pieces - The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. This time around Jerome had turned his pen to such disparate subjects as the weather, memory, and furnished apartments - those little things that make up the day-to-day of life. Jerome was a humorous writer of note. He went on to write Three Men in a Boat - which I wrote about here, and Three Men on the Bummel - which I wrote about here.

Though some of Jerome's attitudes would today be considered outdated, lazy, or even offensive, but his writing of humour can still be considered top notch! As I'm sure many writers can attest to, writing humour is not easy, and writing humour well can be an agonising task. But, Jerome wrote humour very well, his most famous work - Three Men on a Boat - influencing humorists afterward. As I said, some of Jerome's attitudes might make the reader of the twenty-first century raise an eyebrow now and then. But, he was a writer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and, personally, I can forgive writers from centuries gone by if their attitudes do not match contemporary thought and feeling. After all, society progresses incrementally, so you might expect, as you look further and further into the past, that society becomes incrementally less and less progressive.

What readers ask now-a-days in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purpose whatever.

- Jerome K. Jerome, from the preface to Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Whilst it is true that your life may not gain some deeper meaning from reading Jerome's thoughts on being idle, on being in love, or on being in the blues, when you're looking to idle away a little time you could do worse than flick through the pages of Idle Thoughts . . . As far as works from the Victorian era go, this book probably isn't going to outshine Middlemarch or Tess of the D' Urbervilles any time soon, but it is a very well written and humorous little gem. And, though the bulk of the book doesn't concern itself with the highbrow, you might just find yourself reading a few very quotable paragraphs. And, for some, one of the benefits and pleasures of reading is finding those passages and paragraphs that speak to you, that put into words what you already feel.

Jerome tells us that idleness is really only pleasurable when it is stolen, taken between the hectic demands, expectations, and tasks levelled at us by life and the characters that we share the stage with. And, he, in this book, is great company for one of those evenings when you just want to sneak away some where quiet and cosy, maybe with a glass or two of something, and get a little lazy. Maybe you'd even fancy a pipe or two!

We do not hate, nor grieve, nor joy, nor despair in our thirties like we did in our teens.

- Jerome K. Jerome, from On Being in Love, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Though, as you might expect, some of Jerome's considerations and cogitations are not really the concerns of the modern reader, but some of the ponderings are ponderings that we have always pondered, and will likely ponder until our pondering days are done.

Half an hours' indulgence in these considerations works you up into a state of savage fury against everybody and everything, especially yourself, whom anatomical reasons alone prevent your kicking.

- Jerome K. Jerome, from On Being in the Blues, The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Jerome touches on truths, and he writes with warm humour, and, in his best moments, he does both at the same time. I have much time for this book, and his others that I have discussed elsewhere in this blog.

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