Customer Reviews

Narrow Dog To Carcassonne

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

Hilarious, moving and exciting. The author has a wicked eye for the small details that make you laugh - a dry observational sense of humour. A British Bill Bryson perhaps although personally I found him funnier. It is very well-written and reads like a really good novel rather than a travel book. In fact it is unlike anything I have read before - a unique voice. In addition, of course, the fact that the story is true is amazing - apparently these old guys and their dog actually drove their canal boat across the channel and down to the South of France!!!

This is my mother's favourite book, and I have to say that I don't quite share her enthusiasm, although it was amusing enough at times. This is the true story of Darlington and his wife, both retirees, who own a narrow boat which they use to pootle up and down the waterways of the black country. They also have a very nervous dog which travels with them with great reluctance and spends a lot of time hyperventilating. For some strange reason one day they take it into their heads that the thing to do would be to take the narrow boat through England, across the channel and down through France. This is, if you know anything at all about narrow boats, extremely dangerous. They are not made for waves, they are about as good at steering as a child in a bumper car, and they are so heavy they sink during times of adversity. The book is the tale of their ill conceived oddity.
At times it is very funny, and is always very honest. It is however written in an singularly peculiar style which I found rather trying and incredibly hard to get into. It was at worst like reading a very poor translation, at best quirky, and almost always annoying. If you can get past the style issues, it is a good book, but you really have to work at it.

The author has the most turgid prose style I have ever encounted. He also comes across as a know it all (even one of his friends describes him as a smartass).

The most boring book I have ever read. It only gets one star because its the lowest mark possible.

dreadful, truly dreadful

If you want to know what scratchings are you'll have to read the book. Narrow dog was a great read, I didn't want the journey to be over to be honest. Contrary to some of the (very few) negative reviews received here, I found the writing refreshing and different and as one reviewer put it 'as if I was a friend travelling with them'. I love Jim and think that Terry and Monica must be very laid back characters, at least they have the backbone to get up and do something rather than just festering away like so many other people do! I also enjoyed very much the french lesson at the end, most useful! Three cheers Terry, can't wait for the next one!

The author has a very irritating/annoying style and drifts off somewhat into his anecdotes. I bought this and it's successor (Indian River) to cover a long flight to the US.

It's OK but why oh why does he insist in telling us repeatedly about the dangers of what he is attempting - one story about the risks of being crushed by a large steel hulled barge would have suffice, after half a dozen it just gets boring.

This book was so good...............I left it in the Villa in Kissimmee for our follow on guests.

Enticing cover, original idea, adventure and perception . . . . . well if you are of a fairly limited social type this might stir you. But please, if anyone thinks this is how most English people behave it is a shame. I felt sorry for the poor wife to be stuck with a husband so selfish in his endeavours to drag her across parts of Europe without any art, good attitude or good humour, missing out on most of the plain good things to be had in England, Belgium and France. I couldn't even finish it

Having seen some of Terry, Monica and Jim's adventure on the Waterworld TV series some years ago and having visited Carcassonne several times myself, I was looking forward to reading the book. I've only just tracked it down and I must say I was disappointed with the result.

The style is very difficult to get the hang of. According to the interview in the back of the book the lack of quotation marks to show when someone's speaking is modelled on a newspaper columnist's style. Well, it may work for a short article, but in book form it's hard going. Nor is it helped by the fact that speakers follow one another in the same paragraph instead of starting a new paragraph with a new speaker. This makes it very difficult sometimes to tell who's talking to whom. Occasionally I also found myself wondering what Terry was writing about, as he seemed to go off on a tangent about something completely irrelevant.

As you would expect, this is mainly a canal boat journey travelogue and very little is said about the places visited. Most of what is said about them is depressing.

Terry's quoted in the interview as saying he wants people's lives to stop and wants them to miss meals to read his book. Sorry Terry, for me you came nowhere near achieving that. Although there are some slightly amusing moments, there was nothing that really made me smile or even laugh out loud. I won't be reading further.

Occasionally funny but mostly just irritating. As another reviewer has pointed out it's written in weird stream of consciousness 'episodes' that leave you scratching your head. The constant use of sarcasm becomes less funny with time and leaves you disliking the narrator, who seems to show no real insight or affection for the journey.

This is one of the worst books I have tried to read; a total waste of money. The sentences are simple, choppy and the descriptions are high schoolish and trite. The idea of taking a narrowboat to France from England was so appealing I bought the book but should have read one chapter and it would have returned quickly to the shelf. I can't believe this writer went to Oxford and studied English.

Having seen all the positive reviews I was looking forward to reading this. However I was soon disappointed- I found it so hard to read - interjecting unfamiliar poems with disjointed writing which never seemed to gel- was a chore instead of a pleasure - treacle and walking through it spring to mind- tried to persevere but had to give up to save my sanity. I feel you would have to be familiar with all the areas they visited to fully appreciate the book - will keep to terrafirma books in future.