/lit/ - Literature

>>23212489
Start with Gargantua and Pantagruel

PG Motherfucking Wodehouse

>>23212656
Based. jokes about shit piss and vomit are high IQ and Rabelais was a genius.

"CHAPTER XIII: How Gargantua's wonderful understanding became known to his father Grangousier, by the invention of a torchecul or wipebreech."

https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Gargantua/Chapter_XIII

>>23212656
I'm picking this up next week.
Can't wait!

>>23212489
Terry Pratchett is pretty funny IMO

> Some might have taken him for a mere apprentice enchanter who had run away from his master out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for heterosexuality.

from The Color of Magic

>>23212489
John Swartzwelder funnily enough is what got me into reading again after I binged classic Simpsons a few years ago after having never actually watched more than a few seconds of it in passing. Anyway his work is very good, he mostly writes stories centered around this bumbling protagonist, Frank Burley who is a bit like Homer Simpson but not that much. It’s hard to describe him cause Swartzwelder doesn’t provide much physical description besides multiple iterations of “he’s fat” but he reacts to situations similarly to Homer, id say atleast. I haven’t read all his books but every one I have has me laughing and hollering every few pages. Unfortunately I don’t know that many comedic books or authors besides him. Ulysses and moby dick are hilarious but they aren’t comedy books, I’m also just not incredibly well read, but you won’t go wrong with Swartzwelder start with “The Time Machine Did It” or “Double Wonderful” his books are only 15 bucks each so you won’t be out much of you want to try him out

>>23212489
I don't think literature should ever be based around humour, I've never read a "funny" book that wasn't shit

>>23213737
Ive read a few of his novels and they are great. Absolutely obscene joke to word ratio.
>>23212659
I'm on a Wodehouse binge right now. I rate him so highly as a writer it is unreal

Also, I recommend Spike Milligans war memoirs, The first few are very funny. Also, Norm MacDonalds book was brilliant.

>>23213904
I also recommend my favorite novel, The Pickwick Papers.

>>23213904
Guess I’ll have to checkout Wodehouse. Still haven’t read norms book though am interested because his YouTube clips from late night appearances and weekend update are great, and dirty work was pretty hilarious. >>23213907
I’ll have to check this out, I’ve only read David Copperfield from dickens so far

>>23213918
Wodehouse is great. Try anything from his big three series (Wooster & Jeeves, Psmith, Blanding Castle) I usually recommend the Wooster and Jeeves short stories. They are a good way to test the water.

As a Norm MacDonald fan, his book is the funniest thing he ever did, in my opinion.

I am not a huge Dickens fan, but I love The Pickwick Papers. It is a very un-Dickens novel, because it was his first and he was still under restrictions from the publishers on what he could write. It doesnt have the usual Dickens melancholy and sentimentality. The publishers wanted a comedy and that is what he wrote.

>>23213935
I getchu, yeah from reading DC I really couldn’t see dickens as a comedy writer, or atleast being inclined to be one as DC is not without some humor. But it’s pretty easy to see your point about the influence of his publishers for his first work, still I’ll check it out eventually, though next on my list from him is either great expectations or our mutual friend. I’ll check out the Wodehouse stuff next time I go to the library if I remember, thank you anonerino.

I wish there were more just straight comedy or humor books, there probably are many but I don’t know them. Id hardly call mark twain funny, though I do appreciate some of his work even despite his proto-redditorism

>>23213958
Yah, no worries. Just as a finishing thought, I remember a criticism made about Dickens, where he is expansive with expansive emotions, like humour and happiness, but he is also expansive on more private inward emotions, like sadness and regret.

>>23212489
Christopher Moore and Tom Robbins were the first two genuinely funny novelists I read. Not Confederacy of Dunces tier, but they know how to set up a good joke and keep from wearing out the humor with weaker wit, most of the time.

Ambrose Bierce has his moments if you want things dark. His idea of a joke usually starts with a funeral and wraps up in a page or two with a murder.

Try Three Men in a Boat

>>23212489
Christopher Hitchens, despite being a cringey shitlib of atheism and kikery. He was funny.

Flannery O’Connor, R.A. Lafferty, and G.K. Chesterton. Catholics are pretty fun desu

>>23212489
>confederacy of dunces
it's like an underground comix written by Cervantes
>A History of New York
written by Washington Irving (author of legend of sleepy hollow and rip van wrinkle) its a comedic take on the history of New York (who knew?) I was cackling when reading when diertch knickerbocker (the narrator of the story) wanted to exterminate the Indians.
>tristrim shandy
very funny but can get sentimental
>tom jones
its delightful, same as above but there some neat essays on theater
>humphry clinker
its like the family vacation movies but set in the 18th century and more gross and dark
>John Dies at the End series
as a young teen, I remember quite enjoying the audio books when I to bed. I only listened to the first two books and remember them being funny. like a sardonic edgelord kind of funny
>Sartor Resartus
I don't quite understand it But
>Mencken's chrestomathy
he's not really a comedian but he has great some great one liners salt and peppered in his line of work

>>23212489
Moliere
Aristophanes
Envy by Yuri Olesha
Kafka

>>23212489
The more Swartzwelder I read, the more I think he's responsible for what I like so much about The Simpsons. The comic sensibilities and tone are very similar.
I like this bit from The Time Machine Did It - someone is trying to kill the hardboiled detective hero, and he realizes they've sabotaged his car:
>Somebody had been doing some major league tampering to my car. The brake lines were cut. The tires were on fire. There was carbon monoxide coming out of everything. And the radio was tuned to a station I didn’t like. I had to tip my booby-trapped hat to whoever tampered with this car.

>>23217250
Fuck I wish I still had this book, I lent it to my friend but I remember that part thank you. He really was the real genius behind a lot of great jokes seemingly from writing credits and what’s said in the commentaries of those Simpsons dvds. My favorite joke from the book that I can remember was the bit about getting the little sign on his desk “do it tomorrow” on clearance cause it’s bad advice.

>>23217250
>>23217334
Sorry to samefag but I just remembered this one great joke on the Simpsons where on one of the cereal boxes barts grabbing he added to put on the box, “the only thing with more sugar, is sugar

>>23217334
>getting the little sign on his desk “do it tomorrow” on clearance cause it’s bad advice.
Thats so ridiculously hilarious. I will have to take a look at some of his books.

>>23212489
Woody Allen was a funny lil dude back in the day
>>23213935
based Pickwick fan. first time I’ve seen it mentioned here. there’s a charm to the characters, and a lightness about it that Dickens might not have ever repeated… although I’m still making it through his works… about half way :)

>>23217593
arg
how could I forget my dude?

>>23217597
daisy chain
scatter brain
I remember really liking picrel back in the day, too, but can hardly remember a detail about it.
aaaaaaand,
some of Mark Twain’s humour holds up to a laugh-out-loud level