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Literature for the Funny Bone: Comic Novels and Stories
From the tragic to the lighthearted, I like most kinds of literature. I like the great books (especially Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Dickens, Eliot, and Conrad). I like a good action novel (the late-great Vince Flynn, but also Lee Child and Daniel Silva). I really love great historical fiction (Hilary Mantel, Patrick O’Brian, Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle). I love the great epic poems (Homer, Virgil, and Dante), and have forced myself to at least appreciate some modern poets (Auden, Yeats, Stevens, and Billy Collins).
I like old stuff (Don Quixote, the Canterbury Tales, and pretty much anything by Shakespeare). I’ve become a real fan of sci-fi/fantasy (LOTR, of course, but also Gene Wolfe, Robert Heinlein — though Stranger in a Strange Land is a weird book — and Roger Zelazny). OK, I hate romance novels., and I must say that I’ve never embraced the group that Joseph Epstein calls the “boy novelists” (Mailer, Roth, Updike).
But a special category for me is the great comic novel or story. I grew up with O. Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief” and Booth Tarkington’s Penrod and Penrod and Sam. All of Twain’s books have some hilarious scenes. As I became an adult, I went through a Kurt Vonnegut phase (though I can’t read his books now). Catch-22, which I recently reread, still stands up pretty well in the “black humor” category. Confederacy of Dunces was funny, but not as funny as I’d been led to believe.
Which brings me to my point: what are the Ricochetti’s favorite comic novels or stories?
I’ll throw out a few of my favorites:
August Carp, Esq, by Himself (actually written by Henry Bashford): It presents itself as the autobiography of one Augustus Carp, the world’s most clueless hypocrite. He pretends to be religious but is only sanctimonious. He’s a man who believes the reader is panting to hear about everything that ever happened to him. Of a nasty little incident in his early life, he writes: “But the fact remains that for several weeks I suffered from indigestion in two main directions.” He’s a misogynist and a hypochondriac. Above all things, he’s hilariously hypocritical. Truly one of the funniest books ever written.
Mapp and Lucia by E. F. Benson: War breaks out when Lucia moves to Tilling, a small town on the south coast of England, whose previous arbiter of all things social is the redoubtable Miss Mapp. Lucia immediately seeks supremacy. War ensues. The war is comparable to academic squabbles, because the fighting is so vicious but so little is at stake. Early in the battle, Miss Mapp sizes up the political landscape: “Miss Mapp, though there was no question about her being the social queen of Tilling, sometimes felt that there were ugly Bolshevistic symptoms in the air . . . .” Good from start to finish.
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome: The story of a boat trip by three friends (and one dog) on the Thames. This is truly a joyous, and very funny, book. This little exerpt makes clear that all fishermen lie, but only the very best make it an art form: “Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous—almost of pedantic—veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.” And, in the midst of all the humor, Jerome manages to throw in little moral fables. Here’s one that teaches us much about ambition and enduring to the end:
“I like to watch an old boatman rowing, especially one who has been hired by the hour. There is something so beautifully calm and restful about his method. It is so free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century life. He is not for straining himself to pass all the other boats. If another boat overtakes him and passes him it does not annoy him—all those that are going his way. This would trouble and irritate some people; the sublime equanimity of the hired boatman under the ordeal affords us a beautiful lesson against ambition and uppishness.”
One of thing I’ve noticed about great comic novels is that I like to reread them often, even when I know the jokes are coming. They’re good for the soul.
So, Ricochetti, tell us about your favorite comic novels and stories.
Published in General
Well, that sounds encouraging.
I often see Peter DeVries touted in this category. (George Will is a fan.) The only DeVries book that I’ve read, however, is Blood of the Lamb. That book is most emphatically not funny–it is the saddest, most harrowing book I’ve ever read. Autobiographical novel of the author’s experience with his 12 year old daughter’s leukemia.
It is not a comic novel per se, but True Grit is full of wit and humor, and is a great book. One of my favorite novels.
It feels silly to mention any particular Wodehouse, but I’ll give it a try. Code of the Woosters, Joy in the Morning, and Right Ho, Jeeves. And the golf stories.
It is with a heavy heart that I cannot agree that the entire Wodehouse canon is worth the candle (though soooo much if it is). I’m afraid some of the latter ones are pretty staid and familiar, but to be honest, once you get a few under your belt they all become pretty familiar, which is no bad thing. But a little gem of his is the first of the Ukridge stories (which combines a fair bit of golf): Love Amongst the Chickens. I always return to the chapter ‘Scientific Golf’ whenever I need to keep the wolf the away. And, by far, Ukridge is my favorite Wodehouse character, or what passes for a ‘rogue’, in Plum’s gallery. This was my introduction to him. If you can find it … you can thank me in the next life.
I wouldn’t want anyone to think Saki is like Wodehouse. Saki is very funny, but very, very, very dark. On second thought, maybe two “verys” is sufficient.
Dave Barry’s “Big Trouble” is hilarious. Tom Wolf’s novels can be very funny – if only he’d take his editors advice. The there is “Thicke & Thin,” a tour de force.
I can only offer seconding motions. TR is entirely right about Three Men in a Boat (which I think I recommended on a podcast at one point) and I’m right there with Johnny Dubya on the talents of Nick Hornby.
When my fellow teenage girls made me watch the Titanic, I was the only one laughing.
Just finished it. It’s charming.
Didn’t split my sides – to me that qualifies as gentle humor –but I’d happily read more.
Among my favorites is “Tobermory”. For the full effect, read it once, read some of Saki’s other stories, and then come back and read it again.
Another vote for Terry Pratchett here. Wonderful funny stuff, especially the Lancre Witches stories.
P.J. O’Rourke’s “Holidays in Hell.”
“The Rape of the A*P*E*” by Allan Sherman is one of the great humor books – and is very, very hard to find. You can pick up a well-used hardcover for just over a hundred bucks, but the paperbacks seem to have disappeared completely.
A recent article in the American Spectator directed me to Black Mischief. I’m still laughing. (I believe one of its main characters has recently joined Ricochet.)
There is some wonderful humor in Patrick O’Brian’s novels.
Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones” may have set the standard for humorous picaresque tales. (It was also made into a very funny movie in the early 1960s).
You might also try “Election,” by Tom Perrotta.
For humor, I would second many of the suggestions here. I have taken great delight in the serio-comic novels of ancient Greece by Tom Holt, Goatsong and The Walled Orchard. If you like Aristophanes you shouldn’t pass these titles up. His other fiction is quite fun but can get a little old hat after a bit.
Another favorite if you like all things Irish is Flann O’Brien, his novels collected nicely in one volume are such that I have had to stop reading them from the literal pain the laughter is causing me and the fact that two rooms away Mrs. Salieri cannot sleep for hearing me.
Additionally, some of the writings of John Kendrick Bangs is a largely forgotten American humorist of the early 20th century, much of his writing are simply no longer funny, that there are few gems in his Idiot series and his two House-boat on the River Styx works are worth at least one read. He created the Bangsian Fantasy – bringing various historical or literary characters together ahistorically in an afterlife setting.
I’m a big Pratchett fans as well. I like the witches stories as well, but my favorites involve Sam Vimes and the City Watch. I also love Mort: who knew that DEATH could be so funny?
Lots and lots of great satirical and humorous writing.
Just a few suggestions.
For the academics among us (but certainly good even for the real people): most stuff by David Lodge (e.g., Changing Places, Small World), Malcolm Bradbury (Rates of Exchange, Why Come to Slaka?), Howard Jacobson (Coming from Behind). Also, Tom Sharpe…
If you can get a good translation of “The 12 Chairs” and “The Golden Calf” by Ilya Ilf and Evgeni Petrov, it doesn’t get better than this.
Also, Venedikt Yerofeev’s “Moscow to the End of the Line” – or whatever the title was given the original Москва-Петушки by the translator.
Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Šveik is a perennial favorite.
Early short stories by Chekhov, lots of O. Henry’s stuff.
Even Donald Westlake’s humorous whodunits…
Also, “1066 and All That”
Too many to mention.
PS The Confederacy of Dunces was mentioned earlier. Indeed, it’s truly excellent.
No wonder it’s not popular in New Orleans…
I recently discovered O’Brien. I’m just getting started: but it’s clear that he’s very funny. I like Tom Holt too: Expecting Someone Taller is very humorous.
I was a big fan of J. P. Donleavey, and for a madcap tale told in a peculiarly detached first person narration, The Onion Eaters is a (bawdy) blast. You see, Clayton Crawfoot Clementine of the Three Glands inherits an Irish castle and a really big dog…..
And The Unexpurgated Code: A Complete Manual of Survival and Manners is laugh-out-loud funny.
The Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser. Very funny intertwined with some good and often obscure, history.
Two contemporary novels by Martin Clark are also quite funny, Plain Heathen Mischief and The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living. He’s also written a fine and more serious book, The Legal Limit.
Anything in the Discworld series by Pratchett (this is some seriously intelligent humor) and also Good Omens (written with Neil Gaiman). Several of Neil Gaiman’s works are also very funny (Anansi Boys and the Graveyard Book). Everything that Douglas Adams wrote is funny and is worth reading. Check out his search for the most endangered animals in the world (Last Chance to See) and I would say do yourself a favor and get the audio books (the ones read by Adams himself ) you will laugh out loud. I have also read and laughed at a couple of Bill Fitzhugh books (Pest Control is a riot).
Flying Dutch is another of his I enjoyed. Actually, I had been reading his works for years. But I came across Little People and it kind of put me off his work.
Was that the one with, “Let that be a lesson to you!”?
Pratchett and Westlake for sure. They are both very re-readable, just for the language/phrasing, which is my touchstone. And Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon is both a historical novel and a comic novel, especially if you can appreciate absurdity in the asides.
Wow, what a great thread – thanks for the suggestions!
Another addition to the comic/mystery subgenre would be David Rosenfelt. His wry humor is perfect in audio as well – kind of like listening to Jack Benny solving a crime.
Oh, it’s a hard, hard book. I read his comic novels of suburban amatory mischief in college, and though they were brilliant. In the same period I read a lot of Tom Sharpe, who was dark, a bit ridiculous, and full of unsympathetic people. But very funny.
The Russian humorists should not be missed. Gogol, as already mentioned. Ilf and Petrov (also already mentioned) wrote excellent satire in Stalin’s era, and got away with it. Bulgakov was not so fortunate, but The Heart of a Dog is a hilarious satire of the New Soviet Man, while The Master and Margarita takes sharp stabs at the USSR’s determined atheism as well as their handling of dissidents. Zoshchenko’s short stories tend toward the very dry and are very enjoyable.
I have the 99-cent Kindle version, and yes, Ukridge is a gem.
I’ll put in a word for Umberto Eco. His novels are not funny (so far as I can understand them) but the collection of essays, How to Travel with a Salmon, is wonderfully funny, especially his description of his struggles with the Italian bureaucracy when he needed to replace a lost driver’s license .
Bless you for this, Mr. Rasa. Diana West and Ayaan Hirsi Ali have been giving me nightmares. Back to Wodehouse, et al.
Absolutely right. I didn’t mention Bulgakov because M&M is not only satire. But I stand corrected.
While we are on the topic, Mikhail Zoshchenko – if translated into English – is another great satirical writer.
Wodehouse, and anything by Donald E. Westlake, since I like detective stories; his comic ouvre is massive, starting with the Dortmunder series.
I’m sure I’ll think of more as well. I just have brain burnout over the last month or so.