To Say Nothing of the Dog wasn’t sitting on my shelf at home, but was tucked away in a used book store in Loreto, Mexico. I had seen the book title years ago, once confusing it with Let’s Not go to the Dogs Tonight (these books have nothing in common other than Dog in the title) and for a few pesos was willing to give it a go. The story is intentionally silly, the Coventry Cathedral is being rebuilt in Oxford in the future. The driver of this project is Lady Shrapnell (love that name) and she terrorizes the Oxford historians in her quest to have a perfect replica. (Always be wary of your funders) There is an ornament known as the bishop’s bird stump that is missing and Shrapnell insists that historians be sent back in time to find it. Makes sense? Time travel is possible but not infallible. One risk is slippage: making it difficult to arrive at the right time and the right place. Repeated trips to the same place get more difficult. Also, there are “rules” which include not messing with events in the past so that they may change history, or bringing items from the past to the future. A prime directive of sorts. In this instance, what has been transferred to the future is a very naughty cat.
The protagonist, Ned Harry, starts out in the Coventry Cathedral during Nazi air raids but is soon transferred to in the Victorian era. The manners and customs of the period set up comedic moments from the outset, making it all a bit of a romp. Ned befriends Terence, who through Ned’s actions fails to meet his future bride, instead falling in love with the frivolous Tossie, and mistress of that naughty cat. Marriage to Tossie would rewrite history, so Ned and another time traveler, Verity, try repeatedly to find the man Tossie was supposed to marry, with much silliness following these attempts. The farce includes a nutty professor who almost drowns, the naughty cat that has a taste for valuable rare fish, jumble sales aka yard sales, and of course Terence’s bulldog: Cyril. Cyril is used to the finer things in life, including sleeping in a human’s bed rather than in the barn. Needless to say, alls well that ends well, including the appearance of the bishop’s bird stump.
The book was written over twenty years ago, but it holds up quite well. While the “future” in this case is now, one can easily imagine as some indefinite point in the future. The writing is well paced and frankly we can all use a bit of humor these days.
