To Say Nothing Of The Dog: A comedy of manners and pet preferences

The frighteningly rich and appallingly mannered Lady Schrapnell has invaded Oxford University’s time travel research project, promising to endow it if they help her rebuild Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed during an air raid in World War II. The University thinks this is a great idea, until Lady Schrapnell seconds every staff member and student in the department, packing them off all over the past with little concern for their safety, well-being or the preservation of the space-time continuum.

Ned Henry is a young man suffering severe time lag. He has been dispatched to jumble sales all over the 1940s, before ending up scavenging through the bombed remains of Coventry Cathedral, all in an effort to locate the Bishops Bird Stump — a hideous example of Victorian art that changed Tocelyn ‘Tossie’ Mering’s (Lady Schrapnell’s great-great-great-great grandmother) life and in so doing prompted Lady Schrapnell to embark on her Cathedral rebuilding project. After over ten jumps in one week, Ned is hauled back to the present of 2057 and sent off to 19th Century Victorian England for two weeks of rest. He only has to perform one task and the rest of the time is his, unfortunately his time lag has resulted in a difficulty in distinguishing sounds and he has no idea what that task is meant to be.

Verity Kindle inadvertently brought something forward from the past — something that scholars thought impossible due to Net safeguards — and while the repair of the potential incongruity has been passed on to someone else, she is sent back to Victorian times. Her mission is once again on behalf of Lady Schrapnell, and she is attempting to find Tossie’s diary to uncover the possible whereabouts of the missing Bishops Bird Stump.

Ned’s arrival in Victorian times is somewhat unceremonious as he lands on a set of railroad tracks. Things really don’t improve to much for him from here on out, as he interrupts an intended meeting and mistakenly assumes one of the contemps, Terrence, is his contact. He then finds himself on a rowboat with a mountain of luggage, his new friend and a bulldog named Cyril.

Along the way they rescue an eccentric Oxford professor from the river and run into Terrence’s new love interest, Tossie. A deeply confused Ned now meets up with his real contact, Verity, who is posing as Tossie’s distant cousin. When she asks if Ned is in possession of Princess Arjumand, Tossie’s cat that Verity rescued from a watery grave and brought back through the Net, Ned has no knowledge of the cat.

The three men, to say nothing of the dog, head back downstream on the river, where Terrence announces his plan to head for Muchings End to try and meet up with Tossie once more. Ned discovers the missing cat in his luggage and hides it until he can hand it over to Verity at Muchings End. Unfortunately the boat capsizes and they arrive at the Merings’ soaked to the skin.

After being invited to stay on to help with a church fete, Ned and Verity are handed the task of trying to keep Tossie and Terrence apart so that she can meet and marry her mysterious Mr C — mysterious due to a water-logged diary that is still trying to be deciphered by the History department.

Verity and Ned are trying to solve a mystery using 19th century detective novels as their lead — a mystery that I didn’t manage to solve myself until near the end of the book. Ned has been thrust into the past with no preparation and is constantly trying not to offend anybody, while coping with his time lag and the odd behaviour of the people around him. They have to deal with the Victorian penchants for horrible breakfasts, jumble sales, penwipers, spiritualism, the seriousness of engagements, the importance of good manners and the general cluelessness of the contemporary population.

The only problem you may encounter is an initial confusion about what is going on, as the fact that Ned is a time traveller from 2057 who is visiting 1940 is not immediately apparent. I had this problem with The Doomsday Book, but after the first chapter, I soon got the gist of the situation.

If you’ve read Connie Willis earlier The Doomsday Book, you’ll enjoy To Say Nothing Of The Dog. It is definitely a romantic comedy of errors that, while straying from the seriousness of The Doomsday Book, shares much of its predecessor’s feel.

To Say Nothing Of The Dog is an hilarious romp through Victorian times. With references to Dorothy L Sayers, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Conan Doyle, and an encounter with Jerome K Jerome, whose subtitle of Three Men In A Boat provides the name of this book. It’s a fun read that I enjoyed immensely. It is a well deserving of its Hugo Award.