/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23098352]

What is the funniest book you have ever read, /lit/?

A book that made you actually laugh or at least smile.

[Anonymous No.23098362]

>>23098352
lucky jim made me laugh or at least smile

[Anonymous No.23098457]

The funniest thing I've ever actually read is the scene at the end of Henry V where Fluellen makes Pistol eat his leek while whacking him with a club. I howled reading it for some reason, which is funny because I generally don't expect outright knee-slappers from Shakespeare.

[Anonymous No.23098526]

I don't think any book has made me laugh as hard as Against the Day has.

[Anonymous No.23098529]

>>23098352
I don't know. Something by P. G. Wodehouse.

[Anonymous No.23098577]

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Vargas Llosa was funny as hell. Anything by Bukowsky is usally pretty funny too and I.B. Singer got some funny short stories. If you want something simpler/more underground checkout Paasilinnas Charming Mass Suicide. If you don't mind learning Swedish or Finnish you can read Tikkanen's Brändövägen 8 Brändö. Tel 35.

[Anonymouṡ No.23098580]

>>23098352


Only a rank sucker will think of taking two peeks at Dave the Dude's doll, because while Dave may stand for the first peek, figuring it is a mistake, it is a sure thing he will get sored up at the second peek, and Dave the Dude is certainly not a man to have sored up at you.

But this Waldo Winchester is one hundred per cent. sucker, which is why he takes quite a number of peeks at Dave's doll. And what is more, she takes quite a number of peeks right back at him. And there you are. When a guy and a doll get to taking peeks back and forth at each other, why, there you are indeed.

— Damon Runyon, ‘Romance in the Roaring Forties’


--


At that time Ohio State University had one of the best football teams in the country, and Bolenciecwcz was one of its outstanding stars. In order to be eligible to play it was necessary for him to keep up in his studies, a very difficult matter, for while he was not dumber than an ox he was not any smarter.

— James Thurber, 'My Life and Hard Times'


--


Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting one half at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it.

— Mark Twain, 'The Awful German Language' [Appendix, 'A Tramp Abroad']


--


GHOUL, n. A demon addicted to the reprehensible habit of devouring the dead. [...] As late as the beginning of the fourteenth century a ghoul was cornered in the crypt of the cathedral at Amiens and the whole population surrounded the place. Twenty armed men with a priest at their head, bearing a crucifix, entered and captured the ghoul, which, thinking to escape by the stratagem, had transformed itself to the semblance of a well known citizen, but was nevertheless hanged, drawn and quartered in the midst of hideous popular orgies. The citizen whose shape the demon had assumed was so affected by the sinister occurrence that he never again showed himself in Amiens and his fate remains a mystery.

— Ambrose Bierce, 'Devil's Dictionary'

[Anonymous No.23098581]

>>23098529

[Anonymous No.23098590]

>>23098352
american psycho, behead all satans, tainted turd, confederacy of dunces, jaihoo return to the future (audiobook)

[Anonymous No.23098594]

>>23098352
Asterix and Obelix

[Anonymous No.23098595]

[Anonymous No.23098667]

>>23098352
Apathy and Other Small Victories
A Plague of Tics by David Sedaris

[Anonymous No.23098673]

>>23098580
>Mark Twain, 'The Awful German Language'
seconded. hilarious book. especially after you start learning german.

[Anonymous No.23098879]

The Toothbrush by Díaz.
>I will name myself Maria!
>And I will park it on the opposite direction!
>What are you talking about?
>My parapeligic grandpa.

[Anonymous No.23098883]

>>23098352
Confederacy of Dunces, Gargantua and Pantagruel, Code of the Woosters (and Wodehouse more generally).

>>23098580
kek

[Anonymous No.23098887]

>>23098883
P.S.- "Three Men in a Boat" doesn't add up to much but there's some hilarious Wodehousian material in there.

[Anonymous No.23099084]

>>23098580
I don't understand the first one.
The Devil's Dictionary is full of gems.

[Anonymous No.23100021]

>>23098590
>jaihoo return to the future
wtf there's an audiobook?

[Anonymous No.23100116]

tristram shandy

[Anonymous No.23100130]

Sot Weed Factor is fucking hilarious.
1 - the aristotlian book seller
2 - John Smith making crazy dick paste to fuck the hell out of pocahontas.
3 - George Washingtons weed farm

[Anonymous No.23100198]

>>23100130
John Barth is 93 goddamn years old
still alive
meaning...it's possible we could get a sequel

[Anonymous No.23100233]

>>23098352
A lot of the Harrogate parts in Suttree are really funny. Riddley Walker is really funny in parts too. The part in Don Quixote when the throw up in each other's mouths made me laugh. Slow Horses by Mick Herron make me laugh a few times. I don't think I've ever read a comedic book that made me laugh though.

[Anonymous No.23100243]

Suttree

[Anonymous No.23100268]

>>23098352
Mein Kampf

[Anonymous No.23100284]

Evelyn Waugh is pretty funny when she starts in on the Welsh

[Anonymous No.23100294]

>>23100198
Lelno.
He's been consistently writing for years tho but I haven't really like much other than Sot Weed. Giles Goat Boy annoyed the hell out of me.

[Anonymous No.23100458]

>>23100294
apparently the original 1960 version had a page count at around 800
just imagine all the stuff Barth cut...or his publisher cut. right?
it's realistic to think there are b-sides to Sot-Weed somewhere, my fren

[Anonymous No.23100653]

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

[Anonymous No.23100891]

>>23098352
hardest I've ever laughed at a book was in American Psycho when he feeds her the urinal cake

[Anonymous No.23100907]

My Lunches with Orson

[Anonymous No.23100941]

>>23100284

Waugh is great, too bad that she's a bit of a racist, and therefore buried and forgotten.

A similar, even more buried, anglo-catholic writer that I loled at recently is Mackenzie. Whisky Galore was not particularly funny, quality allegory, decent story, just lacking laughs, then I found a copy of Water on the Brain and it's hilarious from the start. Parts regarding certain mineral water at Scotish Hydro resort had me roftling. I'd call it underrated, but it's practically unknown.

[Anonymous No.23100960]

>>23100941
Waugh isn't buried or forgotten.

[Anonymous No.23101002]

>>23100960
Have you ever heard anyone mention any of his African novels, or discuss his criticism of zinosm in Unconditional Surrender?

[Anonymous No.23101011]

>>23098352
Don quixote is really funny.

[Anonymous No.23101021]

/lit/ humor thread?

[Anonymous No.23101029]

>>23098352
Don Quixote made me laugh out loud audibly. Out of all the translations I've read (Ormsby, Rutherford, Grossman, Lathrop), Rutherford brought out the humor best.

[Anonymous No.23101524]

>>23098590
>>23098883
I just finished (and enjoyed) Confederacy of Dunces and couldn't laugh. It's a really good book just i dont understand what it makes people laugh. it kinda depressing but uplifting way.
i read it too fast now have nothing to read but my soap opera mindless type books

[Anonymous No.23101584]

Stars and Bars by William Boyd (1985)
A Horse’s Head by Evan Hunter (1967)

[Anonymous No.23101598]

>>23098352
Motorman

[Anonymous No.23101804]

Mark Twain had me gasping for air on a trip to Mexico once. People must've been wondering why I was dying on the plane.
>In this connection I wish to say one word about Michael Angelo Buonarotti. I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo--that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture--great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast--for luncheon--for dinner--for tea--for supper--for between meals. I like a change, occasionally. In Genoa, he designed every thing; in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In Florence, he painted every thing, designed every thing, nearly, and what he did not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone. In Pisa he designed every thing but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But, here--here it is frightful. He designed St. Peter's; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope's soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima--the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it! Dan said the other day to the guide, "Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!"

I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead.
I still maintain Gaddis' JR has a joke on nearly every page, and some of them had me roaring with laughter much more than "Merry Christmas, the man threatened." from TR.

[Anonymous No.23101809]

Death on the Installment Plan
Gravity's Rainbow
Journey to the end of the Night

[Anonymous No.23101819]

>>23100284
>>23100941
>she
I bet you guys think George Eliot was dude.

[Anonymous No.23101826]

>>23101819
Am I taking the bait or are you?

[Anonymous No.23101974]

>>23101804

[Anonymous No.23101982]

In Confederacy of Dunces when Ignatius writes the long-winded rant against the professor in crayon and signs it "--ZORRO"

In Don Quixote when Quixote makes the "magic balm" that makes him and Sancho vomit uncontrollably.

[Anonymous No.23102034]

>>23098352
Genuinely hilarious

[Anonymous No.23102036]

>>23101002
I learned about Black Mischief from Bronze Age Pervert's podcast. It's really funny and super racist.

[Anonymous No.23102060]

Gravity's Rainbow:
>Down the toilet, lookit me,
>What a silly thing ta do!
>Hope nobody takes a pee,
>Yippy dippy dippy doo . . .
I was laughing for like 10 minutes at this. I think I was mostly laughing at the fact that those lines are in what is widely considered one of the most important novels ever written.

[Anonymous No.23102176]

>>23100284
Christ man, you really defiled that poor paragraph. Just use brackets or something.

[Anonymous No.23102267]

>>23098352
picrel would be so much funnier if it was only the first four lines.

[Anonymous No.23102309]

Pedo book but there's a funny part about 3/4 of the way through.

[Anonymous No.23102486]

ITT: one sensible chuckle and a brief, polite smirk

[Anonymous No.23102696]

>>23098529
Could you please explain the joke?
I mean, i get the base idea of inversion of worries.
Suppose its the police precint and are relieved that it was a white worker instead of a nigger robber, but why exactly is correlated to poland and jews? is it a reference to some detail about anne frank or something else specific ?

[Anonymous No.23102705]

>>23098352
All of Kafka

[Anonymous No.23102844]

>>23101002
This is different from Waugh being "buried and forgotten."

[Anonymous No.23102850]

>>23102696
The joke is that all the Jews are relieved that a Jewish girl was killed because, if the decedent had been Christian, the local Christians would have blamed them and gone on a pogrom.

[Anonymous No.23103216]

>>23098352
Anguished English by Richard Lederer I thought was entertaining, especially since it has so many things that wouldn't fly today ("she's entering her minstrel period").

[Anonymous No.23104643]

infinite jest

[Anonymous No.23104647]

>>23098352
"Excelsior" by Lars-Olof Bengtsson

[Anonymous No.23105436]

>>23098352

[Anonymous No.23105442]

>>23102696
Jews lived in paranoia of being falsely accused because they knew the law would be harsher.

[Anonymous No.23105481]

What's the name of that funny book whose author was a based retard who lived around American colonial times? There was a meme of his book with it's ridiculous prose ("georg washenton") and a dog. I also remember that in the second edition, the author addressed his critics of there not being enough punctuation, so he added an extra chapter at the end full of just periods or commas.

[Anonymous No.23105492]

>>23105481
Timothy Dexter

[Anonymous No.23105527]

>>23098529
I jsut love w's and r's in italics of Baskerville.

[Anonymous No.23105531]

>>23105492
thanks

[Anonymous No.23106016]

>>23101819
To be fair there's so much gay fujo BL shit in Brideshead Revisited that I'd think it was written by a woman too.