To Say Nothing of the Dog: How We Found the Bishop’s Bird
Stump
This is by far the most lighthearted of Connie Willis’ time travel
stories. It is based on Jerome K. Jerome’s semi
autobiographic and comic novel “Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog”
about three men and a dog who go on a boating vacation on the Thames. In Willis’ story, the historians have been
recruited by a rich benefactor to recreate Coventry Cathedral, which was
destroyed in the Blitz. Ned Henry, a
time traveler who is a 20th century specialist, is sent to return
items back to the late 19th century because he is the only one
available to fix a possible problem in continuity, but he is effected by time lag. He meets up with two
contemporaries and they go on a leisurely trip up the Thames along with a dog
and the same time Jerome did in real life.
Eventually he meets another historian Verity Kimble and they have to solve
the mystery of what happened to the Bishop’s bird stump, an item that was in the
cathedral at some point, but which may have been destroyed in the blitz.
The book is a mix of comedy, romance, and mystery. Ned gets dragged into repeated complicated misadventures involving pets and social demands. There is a mystery full of clues as to what
happened to the Bishop’s Bird stump, a very ugly iron vase that was donated to
the church and which vanished for seemingly no obvious reason. And several characters fall in love over the
course of the story. The main science
fiction themes are the problems of determinism vs free will which crop up some
in her other time travel stories along with thoughts on the space-time
continuum. Besides the time travel there
is not that much other science fiction apart from a plague that killed all cats
in the future, but this actually has relevance since historians take a cat into the future, which isn't supposed to be allowed by the laws of time travel.
All in all this is a novel appropriate for all ages and is a
good choice for comedy, mystery or romance fans.
