At the beginning of Chapter I, friends J. (the narrator), George, and Harris are lounging around, chatting about how bad they are—“bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course,” J. is quick to point out. But the more we hear, the more we understand that none of them are suffering from any serious illnesses. They’re all feeling slightly listless or “seedy.” They have occasional “fits of giddiness,” too. Eventually they agree that they have all been overworked. Going on a vacation would provide the rest and relaxation that they seem to desperately need. Soon enough, they are planning a boat trip along the River Thames.
J. also has the audacity to say: “George fancies himself ill; but there’s never anything really the matter with him, you know.” This comes after J. tells us his own story of hypochondria: when he once consulted a medical book at the British Museum and found to his horror that he had symptoms of every disease listed except for one, and this was “housemaid’s knee.” No, these three English gentlemen seem to invent reasons to go on a trip. And this realization on the part of the readers means that for the rest of the book, we’re never really sure if J. or the others are telling us the truth. Certainly from this point on, no task is as easy or as complicated as they report it to be.
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