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To Say Nothing of the Dog, Or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last
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In her first full-length novel since her critically acclaimedDoomsday BookConnie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, once again visits the unpredictable world of time travel. But this time the result is a joyous journey into a past and future of comic mishaps and historical cross-purposes,
… More »In her first full-length novel since her critically acclaimedDoomsday BookConnie Willis, winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, once again visits the unpredictable world of time travel. But this time the result is a joyous journey into a past and future of comic mishaps and historical cross-purposes, in which the power of human love can still make all the difference. On the surface, England in the summer of 1888 is possibly the most restful time in history--lazy afternoons boating on the Thames, tea parties, croquet on the lawn--and time traveler Ned Henry is badly in need of a rest. He's been shuttling back and forth between the 21st century and the 1940s looking for a Victorian atrocity called the bishop's birdstump. It's only the latest in a long string of assignments from Lady Schrapnell, the rich dowager who has invaded Oxford University. She's promised to endow the university's time-travel research project in return for their help in rebuilding the famed Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in a Nazi air raid over a hundred years before. But the bargain has turned into a nightmare. Lady Schrapnell's motto is "God is in the details," and as the l25th anniversary of the cathedral's destruction--and the deadline for its proposed completion--approaches, time-travel research has fallen by the wayside. Now Ned and his colleagues are frantically engaged in installing organ pipes, researching misericords, and generally risking life and limb. So when Ned gets the chance to escape to the Victorian era, he jumps at it. Unfortunately, he isn't really being sent there to recover from his time-lag symptoms, but to correct an incongruity a fellow historian, Verity Kindle, has inadvertently created by bringing something forward from the past. In theory, such an act is impossible. But now it has happened, and it's up to Ned and Verity to correct the incongruity before it alters history or, worse, destroys the space-time continuum. And they have to do it while coping with eccentric Oxford dons, table-rapping spiritualists, a very spoiled young lady, and an even more spoiled cat. As Ned and Verity try frantically to hold things together and find out why the incongruity happened, the breach widens, time travel goes amok, and everything starts to fall apart--until the fate of the entire space-time continuum hangs on a sÚance, a butler, a bulldog, the battle of Waterloo, and, above all, on the bishop's birdstump. At once a mystery novel, a time-travel adventure, and a Shakespearean comedy,To Say Nothing of the Dogis a witty and imaginative tale of misconceptions, misunderstandings, and a chaotic world in which the shortest distance between two points is never a straight line, and the secret to the universe truly lies "in the details."
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One of the most pleasantly surprising reads I've ever come across. Don't be put off by the Sci Fi designations. This is a fun, suspenseful book with something that few books ever seem to have...a terrific ending.
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Add a QuoteHistory was indeed controlled by blind forces, as well as character and courage and treachery and love. And accident and random chance. And stray bullets and telegrams and tips. And cats.
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Add a CommentThe Victorian age and all the murder mystery and romance and comedy of manners tropes are all very entertaining, but the overall treatment of time-travel was too silly and very jarring after it was treated so seriously in "Doomsday Book". Recognized many of the very obvious (too obvious!) Victorian literature shout-outs.
fascinating time travel
Thoroughly enjoyable time-travel novel, witty, at times hilarious, incredibly well-researched, believable, well-written. The ending was a trifle predictable in Victorian fashion, but I think that it was fitting, given the subject matter. Short summary: lots of people are travelling in time to help an eccentric and powerful rich lady restore Coventry Cathedral to the state it was in before the Second World War, romance follows, as do silly and laugh-provoking coincidences.
This book seems to move very slowly in the beginning, but after the first fifty pages, I couldn't put it down. It is a very interesting idea, and is a good science fiction that will leave you wondering about its implications in the real world.
The author is entirely devoted to recreating the world of Three Men in a Boat and does a reasonable job of it. There is humor and place/time, but the overarching time travel plot is tedious and jumbled. Perhaps I'd say that about any time travel since I'm not fond of the genre.
It's years since I read this but I remember loving it and recommending it at the time. Funny and delightful.
Took a little to get into the story, but once I did, I was hooked. A good way to learn a little about history without realizing it. The story is a thoroughly entertaining caper with quantum physics, Victorian clothing difficulties, boating mishaps, cat burglars (literally), romance, séances, time travel confusion, butlers, 'little grey cells', Grand Designs, and a dog named Cyril. What more could you ask for?
Ned, an historian in the future is sent back to Victorian times to retrieve a mysterious object, a "Bishop's Bird Stump", in order to keep appease a wealthy university benefactor (Lady Shrapnel) and along the way keep history from going completely out of whack. Written with a fine sense of character and wit, Willis richly portrays the foibles of both the past and the future. This is something of a sequel to The Doomsday Book and is perhaps slighly better paced and certainly a lot funnier.
Funny, well-written time travel romp.
My favourite book by Connie Willis. All of her books are different, but they're all great.