To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

There are connections between books. Some are very explicit, as in this case where Connie Willis takes the subtitle of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat as the title of her novel. Some are less overt, but are simply small connections that make the reader want to go out and read another book after finishing the one in hand. I’d first read To Say Nothing of the Dog when it was first released in 1997. After reading it, I immediately re-reread all Dorothy Sayers’s Peter Whimsy novels, since they are mentioned quite a few times in this book. This time, I first read Three Men in a Boat, and then went on to read To Say Nothing of the Dog. And now I may read a few of Agatha Christie’s Poirot novels (also mentioned a number of times in this book).

To Say Nothing of the Dog is set in the same universe as The Doomsday Book, a universe in which time travel is possible and investigators are sent back in time to learn more of the past. There are rules, though. The “web” protects history, prevents changes in history, and in fact causes things to readjust if the investigators do the wrong thing. Safeguards even prevent investigators from getting too close to historical pivot points, where small actions could have big effects.

However, To Say Nothing of the Dog is very different in tone from The Doomsday Book. It’s full of humor and manners (though with more of a serious plot than Jerome’s book). Lady Shrapnel is investing billions in restoring Coventry Cathedral, destroyed by the Nazis in World War II. She is overbearing and demanding, and has much of the time service tracking down missing bits she needs. In particular, several agents are looking for the Bishop’s bird stump (sort of a large, tacky, ugly metal flower vase). Ned, the main character, is being particularly hassled by Lady Shrapnel, and has made so many time jumps that he has severe time lag. His doctor recommends rest and relaxation (and hiding from Lady Shrapnel) and what better place for that than Victorian England, along the Thames.

At the same time, though, another time agent, Verity, has done what should have been impossible. She’s saved a cat from drowning and brought it back to the future. Ned must bring it back and set history right. From here, we have a novel that moves from one amusing segment to the next, as Ned and Verity try to re-connect two sets of young people who were supposed to marry, and encounter several very eccentric Oxford professors, crooked spiritualists, a butler who reads philosophy and books on the rights of man and who is as smart as Jeeves, and various flakey members of the upper class. Ned and friend (to say nothing of the friend’s dog) travel on the river and even pass Jerome K. Jerome, Harris, and George (to say nothing of the dog). Like Three Men in a Boat, much of this book is hard to review, since so much of what makes it so charming are the many incidents and character interactions that make you want to go back and say “and remember where …”

Though, unlike the Jerome book, which has no overarching plot beyond the simple river journey, To Say Nothing of the Dog has a very elaborate, very structured, very detailed plot underlying all these events. (As Lady Shrapnel would say, “God is in the details.”) Willis does a masterful job of pulling many seemingly unconnected things together by books end. She dedicates the book to Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel¸ since that book also pointed her to Three Men in a Boat. But the dedication is also appropriate because this book – like several great Heinlein stories – is a very intricately worked out time travel story, one in which a number of events and paradoxes are all tied neatly together come book’s end.

Being able to combine such an intricate time travel plot with a Three-Men-in-a-Boat-style comedic travelogue (not to mention throwing in bits of 1930s mystery novels) is quite an accomplishment. It enable the book on one hand to be compulsive good fun ala Jerome or Wodehouse, but at the same time be serious, well though out SF novel, and to be worth rereading for both of these aspects.