To Say Nothing of the Dog
by Connie Willis
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Book Reviews of To Say Nothing of the Dog
Book Review: Grab bag of intelligence, whim and ideas
Summary: 4 Stars
There are three outstanding traits of To Say Nothing which truly set it apart from anything in the field on sci-fi. There's nothing else quite like it and here is why.
Firstly, To Say Nothing is rich with history, which every time travel novel ought to have. And it's not rich in the same sense as Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, either (which was thick and boring). Willis paints a quaint portrayal of Victorian-era life (of which I'm not a fan, but she does it just right) full of cultural and lingual oddities. The poetry, battles, books, and history memorized by some of the characters is awing look into the quaint intelligence of the time. The more one knows of these subjects, the more one may appreciate the level of intelligence presented by Willis in To Say Nothing.
Secondly, the sheer amount of whim Willis has peppered into the book is a very refreshing addition, compared to the somberness in her other time-travel novel Doomsday Book. It's not only what the characters say but it's now they say it which will really tickle you. Piled on top of this there's the situation comedy aspect of the plot, too. Willis weaves cats, a dog, fish, seances, cathedrals, anal-retentive characters, time travel, ugly architecture and jumble sales all together to form this novel. It's entirely silly yet entirely readable!
Lastly, Willis offers the reader a slew of ideas about some aspects of time travel. These aren't the well-worn, much-trodden hypotheses on the typical Grandfather Dilemma (if you killed your grandfather in the past, how could you travel back to kill him in the first place). Instead, Willis focuses on a historians responsibility to keep history as is, yet also includes history itself as a character in the plot. Can history change its past to agree with its future?
Book Review: Dogs, Cats & People Wandering Around Present & Past!
Summary: 5 Stars
Ms. Willis (1945) has done a wonderful job with this book. "To Say Nothing of the Dog" (1998) is a Hugo winner and Nebula prize nominee.
Time travel is a classic sci-fi subject and there are different possible approaches. In this case the author chooses to play it in a comedic key; as opposite to her previous "Doomsday Book" much more tragic and dark.
Even if the story is a little slow to fully develop, after you pass the first thirty pages you are hooked and incapable to put down the novel.
Ms. Willis propose keen insights, even if joking, on human motivations shown between past (Victorian period & Coventry under the Blitz) and present (future actually as present is year 2058).
Characters are fully developed and show psychological and emotional depth. It is very interesting how Ms. Willis is able to penetrate deep personal traits masked under social roles as with Baines a classical butler of the era.
The reconstruction of Coventry's Cathedral under coercive command of Lady Schrapnell drive every member of Time Laboratory in search of Bishop's Bird Stump lost during Coventry's bombardment.
As they are trapped in labyrinthine adventures historians Ned Henry & Verity Kindle romp near Oxford in 1889 trying to untangle a complicated situation and giving way to hilarious situations.
The author pays several homages to Jerome K. Jerome, Agatha Christie, Tennyson and Lewis Carroll amongst other writers and poets.
Time travel is presented in a very coherent way, avoiding paradoxes, silly conflicts that spoil other novels and explaining coherently how the continuum forces such stability.
This is a book that may be enjoyed by sci-fi adepts as well as general public too!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Book Review: Time travel, Victorian Society and a Dog
Summary: 4 Stars
Willis takes us back to her 2050's England with its quirky, slapstick, Benny Hill type cast of time traveling professors, students and extremely efficient personal assistants. Their search for the "bishop's bird stump" on behalf of "Lady Shrapnell" reminds me of a toned down Douglas Adams novel with a lot of historical research thrown in. Willis is also apparently writing her own tribute to the book "Three Men in a Boat" - in fact the scenes of a confused time traveler sailing down the river with an eccentric Oxford Don, a love-lorn, bad-poetry-spouting student and a dog named Cyril are best of the whole book!
Willis makes her own take on Victorian society clear - they were air-headed idiots with some seriously idiosyncratic mannerisms. Again, Willis has obviously taken her time to do the research necessary for good historical fiction - as Ned and his partner in time-travel Verity go back in forth through time to Victorian England, Coventry during a WW2 air-raid, and a future Oxford - there seems never a chink in her historical accuracy.
There's also lot about time travel here, and while normally I find that kind of thing fascinating, Willis' round-about style and let's-explain-the-whole-thing-at-the-end (which may be deliberate - there's a lot of references to early 20th century detective novels) led to a punch line that wasn't exactly climactic. It seemed the author's flaws - just barely rearing their ugly heads in her earlier Doomsday Book - were more pronounced in this story. Like thick-headed characters and increasingly obvious plot twists.
Still, it's one you will stay up late to finish, just to make sure the whole of universe doesn't unravel because of one un-drowned cat.
Book Review: Almost as good as the sunset on St. Lucia
Summary: 5 Stars
Last week just before I left for St. Lucia, an island in the Caribbean, I stopped by a bookstore (...) to pick up some last minute reading material. After picking up some books I made my way back to the check-out line, but paused at a nearby display of paperbacks. The title of one book had caught my eye. "To say nothing of the dog", I said to myself. I repeated it a few more times, each time stressing a different word. To say NOTHING of the dog. To say nothing of the DOG.
I had never heard of the book, the author, or of the book from which the title of this book was taken. I bought the book merely because the TITLE caught my eye. I didn't know what I was in for.
The clerk at the register told me I would love it. Now I'm telling you, you'll love it.
Once I opened it on the plane I was hooked. I had to force myself to only read a few chapters each day on the beach or by the pool, so I wouldn't spend my vacation indoors merely reading a book.
I won't rehash the plot, other reviewers have done that for you.
I will say that Connie Willis has skillfully combined characters, pace, plot, and humor. Everything comes together in the end.
Too many of the reviews these days complain that the pace was too slow or the book did not change his/herlife. Whats's wrong with just enjoying a nicely contrived and convoluted humorous mystery? In fact, is there anything wrong with reading it again? I'm doing that now---sort of like seeing the SIXTH SENSE for the second time. I read a page and say to myself "of course".
So should you read it? The answer is elementary---of course!
Book Review: Time travel comedy novel that defies genre
Summary: 5 Stars
To Say Nothing of the Dog is a comedy of manners, a comedy of errors, time travel, a touch of romance, and Victorian history lessons; all with a wit so sharp it could skewer Oscar Wilde himself. Connie Willis sets her protagonist Ned Henry on a time-travel induced goose chase through Victorian England for an obscure artifact known as the Bishop's Bird Stump. Originating from the late 21st Century, when the use and laws of time travel are well established, Mr. Henry is nevertheless poorly prepped for the culture shock he experiences. He must interpret a set of instructions he doesn't remember receiving in order to replace something that was taken from its timeline so that history doesn't self-destruct into chaos 60 years later...and do so while never revealing his ignorance of Stilton spoons and the correct way to refer to a pregnant cat in the presence of ladies (that would be never). Along the way are several literary tributes and thoughtful debates on the nature of history: character or unseen forces? ...to say nothing of a plethora of gut-wrenching hilarity.
To Say Nothing of the Dog manages to draw from several literary genres without watering down its verbal potency or losing focus of the essentially sci fi plot. And although it won a Hugo award in 1999, this book will not alienate readers who are not normally into science fiction in general (the publisher persists to this day in classifying it as general fiction). In fact, I will have no trouble recommending To Say Nothing of the Dog to my charmingly `50's mom as well as to a trekker friend.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle.