To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Reviewed by Sarah
Start Date: August 1st
Finish Date: August 7th
Star Rating: Ten stars. No really. I love it that much. **********
"Movie" Rating: PG

"Your partner says you're suffering from advanced time-lag, Mr. Henry," the nurse said, fastening a tach bracelet round my wrist.

"Listen," I said, "I'm aware that I may have got a bit carried away on the dog thing, but I must get back to Coventry immidiately."

It was bad enough that I'd landed fifteen hours later than I was supposed to have. Now I'd also left the cathedral only partly searched, whish was as bad as not searching at all, and even if I was able to get back there at something close to the time I'd left at, there would still be all those missing moments, during which the verger, led by the cat, might have found the bishop's bird stump and given it for safekeeping to his brother-in-law, whence it would pass out of history altogether.

"It's essential I return to the ruins," I said. "The bishop's bird stump--"

"Preoccupation with irrelevancies," the nurse said into her handheld. "Appearance dirty and disheveled."

"I was working in a burnt-out cathedral," I said. "And I must get back there. The--"


Advanced time-lag - Ned meets a Nymph - Escaping Lady Schrapnell - Ned Fails to Correctly Acertain his Space-Time Location - A Man and a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog - A Fish-Obsessed Historian is Acquired - Ned's Contacts the Naiad - Princess Arjumand Needs Obedience School - Ned Still Fails to Get Rest - Spirits from the Titanic Return Princess Arjumand - a Most Efficnent Butler - a Crisis Prevents Sleep - The Mystery of Princess Arjumands Drowing Solved - the Beginning of Jumble Sales - Finch Has Found His Rightful Place - Not at Liberty to Say - Croquet is a Simple Game - Ned resmbles Lord Peter Wimsey - a Seance Planned - Cyril is a Spirit - the Trip to Coventry - Mr. C fails to appear - The Mystery of Pen Wipers is Solved - Opinions on the Bishops Bird Stump - the Net is Closed - The Butler Did It - the Net malfunctions - Coventry Cathedral is Burned - the Bishops Bird-Stump is Found - Ned informs Verity of her Patriotic Duty - another Penwiper is acquired


And now you know everything that happens.


This is the story of how they found the Bishops Bird Stump at last. And oh my, what an awesome story it is. It involves not only that Horrendously Ugly Bird Stump, but also Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), Time Travel that isn't the lame "oh lets go interact with famous peoples" kind, Lord Peter Whimsey and other detective novel heros, a whole lot of clever hilarious awesomeness, and an incorrigable cat that happens to be Extremely Important to the Space-Time Continuum. Unless it isn't particularly.

While this book is Made of Awesome and I loved it when I first read it two years ago, I appreciated it much more this time around, because I understood this time what are probably the two main literary allusions in the book--Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome and the Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels. This book is Full of alusions to books, and I'm not sure I'll ever get around to them all--but I will say that I'm even more determined now to read some more of the Lord Peter Wimsey books. (Ned, looking like Lord Peter. Who could blame Verity? Not I.)