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This novel, to me, was one of the few books that has made me chuckle with every page. Jerome has this undeniable understanding of what irks every human being living in modern society, and those little details about the small annoyances and some great explanations that form our perception of life in a humorous way. Relating to the pure humanity of the characters in this book was definitely easy, and it’s this undeniable human-ness that they possessed which made them so likable.
Yet, almost none of the people I usually discuss books with, or even English teachers in the past, have ever heard about this novel or this author! It seems that there are many great novels and authors in the world, so it might be understandable as to why they have never heard of these. I just wish that such a wonderfully funny and relatable book would be heard about and shared across the world! Well, it definitely has, yet maybe it’s just wishful thinking that Jerome would ever be as renown as someone like Oscar Wilde or any other popular author of humor.
Has anyone had the same experience as me? Or are there cities or countries where Jerome is widely known?Americans, by and large, seem to be as ignorant about (and as indifferent towards) Jerome as the British. During 2009, the 150th anniversary of Jerome’s birth, only one UK national newspaper chose to run anything to mark the event. That exception was The Daily Telegraph who only sprang into action after they published my letter bemoaning the lack of interest in Jerome. They dispatched, at my suggestion, a reporter – the fragrant Celia Walden (now sadly married to Piers Morgan) – to Walsall to see if anyone had ever heard of its most famous son. The results were predictably depressing. Interestingly, the only two countries to have contributed to the sesquicentenary in their national press were Russia and Czechoslovakia where Jerome is, clearly, more highly regarded.
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