To Say Nothing of the Dog: Connie Willis

Ned Henry, a historian working in the Time Travel department at Oxford, has made too many trips to 1940 in search of the Bishop's bird stump, and has been prescribed a week or two in Victorian England to get some rest and relaxation. He thinks he is there to recuperate, but really he has a new mission to pursue, and he has no time to relax.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis is at once an adventure story and a romance, with time travel thrown in. It is the second novel in the Oxford Time Travel series. I am reading that series in the order of publication, but from what I have read, the first two novels can stand alone. I read Doomsday Book first. Where Doomsday Book was sad, To Say Nothing of the Dog is humorous with some elements of a mystery and more than one romance.

This book alternates between 2050, when time travel is possible and used by academics for studies of the past, and Victorian times (1888), with a couple of short trips to the 1940's (all set in England). The focus in this book is finding the Bishop's bird stump, which is an ornamental piece that once existed in the Coventry Cathedral. The Oxford time travelers are more interested in learning  history than finding this piece, but they continue the quest for the Bishop's bird stump because Lady Schrapnell's donation will keep the time travel project funded.

I loved this book just as much as Doomsday Book. They each have their strengths. In my opinion, the characterization is not as strong in this book as in Doomsday Book, but there were still very many interesting characters: Ned Henry and Verity Kindle are the primary time travelers in this book, but some of the secondary characters in the Victorian timeline are a lot of fun: Tocelyn "Tossie" Mering, an ancestor of Lady Schrapnell, and Baine, the butler in the Mering household; Mrs. Mering who is into spiritualism, and Colonel Mering, who collects exotic goldfish.

This book is more frenetic, and has much better pacing than Doomsday Book. In fact at times it can get confusing. I may have zoned out during sections of the book, but I had confidence at all times that it would be worth the read and that the story would come together to a satisfying ending. Which it did.

Another thing I especially loved about this book were the animals. A bulldog named Cyril and a cat named Princess Arjumand are very special characters. Although this is a humorous book throughout, it was the scenes with Cyril and the cat, especially toward the beginning of the book, that made me laugh out loud. In the near future world of this book, where time travel is possible but not perfected, cats are extinct. A disease has killed them off. So the time travelers are both charmed by the cat and so unused to the behavior of cats that they don't know how to deal with them.

With regards to the title, there are references to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat in this novel, but not having read that book, the references did not mean that much to me. There are also references to Golden Age mysteries and to other authors but, to be truthful, I am sure I missed the majority of those references. Regardless I enjoyed the story immensely. I think that the references add another layer of interest for those who appreciate them.

And what comes next? Blackout and All Clear are two very long books that are connected. From what I have read, we once again meet with Dr. Dunworthy and his time travel team and Colin Templar who was just a boy in Doomsday Book. Members of the team go back to various locations and events in World War II. Reading these books will be an ambitious undertaking -- they are both very long -- but I am looking forward to it.

I did not go into much detail about the story so if you want to read more about that and read other opinions, see these sources:

• Academic Time Travel at Tor.com
• Clothes in Books
• In so many words
• Becky's Book Reviews
• Simon's Book Blog

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Publisher:   Bantam Books / Spectra, 1998 (orig. publ. 1997)
Length:      434 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Series:       Oxford Time Travel, #2
Setting:      England 
Genre:       Time Travel
Source:      Borrowed from my husband.