Digital Sextant

by George and Wheedon Grossmith; Narrated by Martin Clifton for Librivox

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Charles Pooter, our narrator, records his daily life with a stoicism and sincerity that makes its humor all the funnier. While he isn’t as boorish as David Brent, he has the same sense of self-importance and blindness to his faults that Gervais’ character had. He records slights and indignities in ways that reflect the worst in his own behavior.

• Particularly amusing is his inflated sense of his letter-writing ability. One letter, which he sent to a laundress after his handkerchiefs were returned drained of their color, he refers to as his best letter ever.
• The Grossmiths really outdid themselves in naming the characters in this book. Aside from the main character, Charles Pooter, we have his son, Lupin, and his friends Cummings and Gowing. There’s a wealthy man named Posh as well.
• Pooter’s sense of humor is legendarily bad, focusing mostly on terrible puns that apparently entertain his wife to no end. An early passage illustrates the kind of humor: I don’t often make jokes.
• The book relies on a dry sense of humor and a running catalog of problems to push the story forward. Pooter alternates between complaining about and rejoicing in his buddies who’re always coming and going. Now I’m making jokes like he does.
• The book has a tender side too–particularly in Pooter’s love and respect for his wife, and in the Dickensian deus-ex-machina ending.

As usual, Clifton does a superb job with the narration, giving Pooter a sense of dignity necessary for a character so regularly making an ass of himself.