George Grossmith | Weedon Grossmith
1 Cummings and Gowing
The funniest book ever written. Just get it.
2 Laughed
I laughed till the bed shook
3 A quick read - back to life in the late 1800's
I ordered this book off the back of reading a history of London (recommended as supplementary reading). Whilst I found it a little slow to get into the story, about one quarter of the way through you get totally involved in Charles Pooter's soap-opera, day-to-day adventures... and all of a sudden you are looking forward to the next page, and the next page! A very quick read that takes to you back to life in the late 1800's.
4 Thoroughly Entertaining
The 'Nobody' of the title is one Charles Pooter, an ordinary middle-class Londoner in the late 19th century who reasons that if Pepys and Johnson can write diaries to entertain people, why should his diary be any less exciting? And so we are amused by such characters as Pooter's unpredictable son Lupin, his good friends Cumming and Gowing, and not least Pooter himself, whose most fascinating and hilarious trait is his tendency to write people off as lacking in humour when they fail to laugh at his occasional pun, whilst exhibiting a distinct lack of humour himself when it comes to some of the more trivial aspects of life.
Pooter's descriptions of the mundane, as well as the occasionally unusual, happenings of daily life are told in extraordinary detail, which brings a real vividness to some of the amusing predicaments our friend finds himself in. And he really is our friend by the end of the book. There is a certain air of pathos about this man that proves quite endearing. His Victorian prudery and sensibility provokes much laughter (reading this on the train to London, I had to put it down a couple of times to avoid drawing attention to myself), yet also provokes a certain affection for a character who is as tragic as he is admirable. That is, despite some of his more pathetic idionsyncracies, the warmth and genuineness of his character shine through.
5 Amusing!!
This book is full of common everyday people, what is important to them, and how the generation gap forms. Very brief and as the name implies a diary. You see yourself as well as people you know in this funny little book.
I found myself laughing out loud several times at the jokes, as well as running physical comedy described in this book. The thing I found most poignant is the reason Mr. Pooter is writing this diary. It is meant that when he is gone, dies, his wife and son will have something of himself that will make them laugh and remember him well. Even though he threatens to stop writing the diary, he also finds that he cannot, that the diary has become a part of him and that at times it is were he can be most brutally honest, while hiding his feelings especially from his son, and at times his wife.
Enjoy this book, PLEASE. It is a little known classic, and if you do not mind my recommendation finish is and then read "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons. These should tickle your funny bone and give you a brief respite from your eveyday troubles.
6 Fun book
Perceptions of class as told in the diary of Charles Pooter (truly a nobody), is filled with much insight into Victorian times as is wrenched in irony. Fun, light read.
7 Funny sides of Life!
Set in the early 19th century,a delightful look at a town clerk,Charles Pooter's life through his diary entries. Filled with many funny,witty and ironic thoughts,events and situation. The most amazing part is the Mr. Pooter is just an average working-class Englishman and one day after moving into a new house with his wife decided to start recording his life.
Pooter's wrote about his work,his boss,his family friends,his wife,his son,his son's love affairs,his new bathtub and even his trouser. Grossmith made trivial hosehold matters sounds so amusing and facetious. Everything revolving him seem so bizarre and facetious. Warmhearting family reading filled with numerous comic relief and wrote with great sense of humour. British humour at it's best and an unique timeless classic.
8 charming and timeless
I was reminded of this book after reading that George Grossmith spent many years with the Gilbert and Sullivan company and is portrayed in a very interesing fashion in the film "Topsy Turvy." It was available in a very inexpensive editon from amazon.co.uk and I read it quite quickly and found it delightful. It is truly enjoyable and informative to read the slice-of-life story of Mr. Pooter, an archetypal middle class creature whose idiosyncracies would be recognizable [and, unfortunately, beaten to death] in a current TV sitcom. His problems at home and at work, and his relations with family and friends, are delightfully communicated and it is fascinating to see both what is tied to his own time and what is recognizable to us, today. The story is lightly drawn but there is a subtle undercurrent of profound social commentary.
9 Family
This email is for the author. I was wondering if you and I were related. Bettis is an uncommon last name. I have be conducting my own search genelogy search. Your book was wonderful. Email me at tbettis@hotmail.com
10 Not for everybody but VERY much for some people...
If you respond at all to this gentle, loving, intricately detailed, and acute (but never hostile)evocation of late-Victorian London, the chances are good that it will become one of your favorite books. The humor is rather special, and I've found that some Americans simply can't "get into" Grossmith. As for me, I reread the book every year and the very thought of it can make me smile.
11 A 'comfort' book
I first 'found' this book as a teenager, would read it in the library whilst waiting for my family to finish choosing books! It's that kind of book, to pick up, read a few entries, enjoy a smile and chuckle at the Pooters, and in reflection yourself, and then put down until you feel the urge again. It will not make your sides ache, but it will lift your heart with good, honest fun.
12 An Evergreen Comic Masterpiece.
This book must be the most nearly perfect piece of comic writing in English, its humour gentle and subtle, its depiction of character, class, time and location flawless. It fixes forever the late-Victorian world of the respectable Lower Middle Class, populated by clerks, petty merchants and tradesmen, observing it with both objectivity and affection. It is splendidly read on tape by Frederick Davidson, whose assumed accent is perfectly gauged to reflect the upwardly-mobile aspirations of the Mr.Charles Pooter, the self-confessed nobody of the title, and which slips down the social scale by several notches in moments of stress and frustration. Though superficially simple, the construction of the narrative is complex in the extreme, with comic situations often being built up over a long period, and with clues carefully planted in earlier sections, only to come to fruition later. It is particularly impressive how the main characters - Pooter himself, his long-suffering and often silly but supportive wife Carrie and his exasperating son Lupin - emerge as rounded characters from apparently simple diary entries and achieve a realism and familiarity as great as any in more serious literature. The situations in which they find themselves - or rather get themselves - are not only ludicrously amusing, but also close to the normality of life as many live it, and one can often, uncomfortably, recognise one's self or one's friends in their reactions to them. What makes the Diary an enduring masterpiece is however the gentle and affectionate treatment of human weakness - and greatness. Pooter may be pompous, foolish and sometimes sycophantic, but he is also loyal, decent and honourable and his life, and his family's, for all its pettiness, also has its dignity. I first read the Diary over forty years ago and it has never ceased to delight me since - it remains a treasured bedside book to be opened at random - and this splendid tape of it is an ideal companion for long or short automobile journeys. (An interesting footnote is that George Grossmith, as a singer and actor, created many of the best known Gilbert and Sullivan roles on stage).
13 Not so funny, after all
A decent book, but not as funny as I thought. It makes you smile, for sure, but don't expect it to make your sides ache. Boring chacarcters, non-existent plot. A big disappointment.
14 A very interesting book that makes you continue reading
This book is indeed a book that makes you continue reading, due to its descriptions. The story shows clearly that it was written during the Victorian age. The friends and shopkeepers play an important role in the story.
15 Light, charming and lovable near-tragedy
A good corrective for everyone who read "The Diary of Adrian Mole" when they were younger and failed to see why it was funny. You'll realise there was no secret: it wasn't funny. This isn't funny either. The old-fashioned word "comic" describes it better: it is pleasant to read, and needs to be, for it induces what would otherwise be unbearable pain with every page. Read this book and you will understand at last what Sue Townsend's book was trying, and failing, to do.
I think the secret is that Pooter's life is much more miserable for spectators than it is for Pooter himself. At any moment his position is fragile. More than he dreams he is ripe to be exploitated by tradesmen, bitter hurt by those close to him, and deeply offended by the newer and laxer code of English ettiquette. It's like watching an incompetent acrobat calmly walking along a tightrope. It's harrowing for the audience even if the acrobat makes it across unhurt. But if the acrobat *does* make it across unhurt; well, to be honest, it's rather fun.
16 Probably the funniest book I have ever read
This book details the minutia of the daily life of a London city clerck. The main character, Charles Pooter, is one of a generation in Victorian England attempting to establish his place in the middle class. The Diary is a chronicle of the minor offenses and meager triumphs that make up Mr. Pooter's life. Were I a better person, I should be ashamed that I found the narrator's pathetic life so very funny.
17 A weak attempt at humor
I really found the book to be too dry. There is a very fine line between good British Humor and something that is simply flaky. This is flaky.
18 A funny portrait of the mid-class life in the Victorian Age.
This book is a collection of narrations published in Punch
in the years 1888-89. It is a hilarious portrait of the
quotidian life of a mid-class Englishman. An Englishman that
doesn't belong neither to the aristocratic class nor to the
lowest one. A man that, briefly, could be called a Nobody.
This man will display before our eyes his inner thoughts and
reflections of his quotodian life in the way of a diary.
Highly recommended for people with a special taste for subtle
humour.
