# What is your favourite funny novel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 14, 2024, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832 "2024-03-14T13:43:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/161 "2024-04-02T20:02:11Z")
Both authors that I didn’t really “get” when I first tried to read them; I only appreciated them after hearing them read their own material in their own voice. I find the best stuff of both to be quite funny; but of course they’re not always at their best. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/162 "2024-04-02T20:09:53Z")
I quite enjoyed Pride and Prejudice, but I’ll be an outlier. I am/was an English Major (you may now boo me for lack of forethought), and I enjoyed what I considered to be very understated wit and snark (see my LEET title!). But it’s absolutely not LOL funny to me. If I want that, I’ll go read something well written that creates the sort of imagery that makes my inner teen snicker, like Seanbaby talking about [MMA fights](https://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-greatest-revenge-matches-in-mma-history) (Very NSFW, language, violence, sexual _text_ and violent images). ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2024, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/163 "2024-04-02T20:17:08Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > I quite enjoyed Pride and Prejudice, but I’ll be an outlier. I am/was an English Major (you may now boo me for lack of forethought), and I enjoyed what I considered to be very understated wit and snark (see my LEET title!). I agree. I love that kind of subtlety, and it can actually make me LOL. Dickens was a master of this as well. The link above provided me with a reminder of all the stuff in that book that made me smile (believe me, I was guffawing on the inside 😄). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/164 "2024-04-03T01:33:31Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I agree. I love that kind of subtlety, and it can actually make me LOL. Dickens was a master of this as well. The link above provided me with a reminder of all the stuff in that book that made me smile (believe me, I was guffawing on the inside 😄). Actually, much as I dislike Austen, I love Dickens. There’s quite a bit of subtle and even unsubtle humor in _A Christmas Carol_ and _A Tale of Two Cities_ and is other works. Oliver Twist and David Copperfield are good, too. But there are other works of his I can’t stand – _Hard Times_, all of his other Christmas books, and _The Pickwick Papers._ This last is what made his fortune, and is supposed to be funny, but I found it unreadable. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/165 "2024-04-03T03:07:12Z")
Dickens, yes, but I don’t remember _A Tale of Two Cities_ having much humor in it. _Pickwick Papers_ is funny in parts, but it’s uneven, and pretty tedious in at least the first hundred pages, until Sam Weller shows up. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/166 "2024-04-03T04:57:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But there are other works of his I can’t stand – _Hard Times_, all of his other Christmas books, and _The Pickwick Papers._ This last is what made his fortune, and is supposed to be funny, but I found it unreadable. Haven’t read those two yet—currently working on _Little Dorrit._ I have yet to read a Dickens novel that I didn’t enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![ch51](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ch51/32/3111_2.png) [@ch51](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch51)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/167 "2024-04-03T05:38:19Z")
The Gunner Asch books (there’s 5 in all I think) by HH Kirst are funny. German Army - World War 2. They demonstrate the Incompetence of any large organization. Written in the 50s into the early 60s, though if I recall correctly the series ran out of steam at the end. Again, YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/168 "2024-04-03T06:17:35Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I _think_ that Goodreads lists like that one are arranged in the order of how many people “voted” for each book. Which means that the books near the top of the list will tend to be the most popular or widely known, not necessarily the funniest. I had a quick look at the first 150 books in that list, and it’s not clear how they’re sorted. It’s not by highest rating, and it’s not by the number of raters, either, because some of the books near the top have relatively few ratings. Anyway, even though I haven’t read most of those books, the list makes more sense to me than the NYT one, although the criteria are different and the NYT seems more focused on more recent books. As a devoted PG Wodehouse fan I was happy to see Wodehouse prominent among the Goodreads mentions, but disappointed that among the first 150, at least, all except one were the Jeeves novels, the one exception being a Psmith story. As I mentioned upthread, the Blandings novels and short stories, the Mulliner stories, and the Drones stories are at least as worthy as Jeeves and Wooster and often funnier. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/169 "2024-04-03T12:06:22Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Haven’t read those two yet _Six_ others – I also hated Dickens’ four post-_Carol_ Christmas novels – **The Chimes, Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of L:ife** , and **The Haunted Man**. . I kept hoping for something even approaching as good as \*a Christmas Carol \* was, but they all disappointed me. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/170 "2024-04-03T12:09:06Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Dickens, yes, but I don’t remember _A Tale of Two Cities_ having much humor in it. Not a lot, but there are flashes of it: > [@](#): > > …Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. (From the beginning of Chapter III) ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/171 "2024-04-03T16:35:15Z")
**The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float** By Farley Mowat A classic sailing yarn about two middle aged men who go up Newfoundland and revitalize an old fishing vessel for a private cruise in the 70’s. Things go awry before it even starts. Gun to my head, “What book do you know that will make me laugh?” is what I would say if I had no idea who was asking this. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/172 "2024-04-03T20:08:54Z")
All my funny English books have been mentioned except William Kotzwinkle’s _Fan Man_. I found it hilarious in a delirious sense, perhaps he was better known in Germany? It’s been quite a while, can’t find it anymore. And in Spanish, for the benefit of @Frodo and other Spanish-reading dopers, I must recommend Eduardo Mendoza, particularly _El misterio de la cripta embrujada_, _El laberinto de las aceitunas_ and the rest of the saga about a detective whose name was never mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2024, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/173 "2024-04-04T21:08:25Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I had to read read _Pride and Prejudice_ for a college elective on humor. I found it to be torture. > [@ParallelLines](#): > > I quite enjoyed Pride and Prejudice, but I’ll be an outlier. I’ve always been surprised that Austen is such a polarizing writer. Count me as one who finds the drily ironic humor entertaining. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Here, for anyone who cares, is what some people find funny in _Pride and Prejudice_: One they missed at the link, from Lady Catherine de Bourgh (bolding mine): > “What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.” > > “We are speaking of music, madam,” said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply. > > "Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music. **There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.** And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully… One of Austen’s funniest novels is one of the least known, _Northanger Abbey_. The heroine is convinced she is experiencing all the tropes of the Gothic novel as she finds romance with the scion of the eponymous abbey. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2024, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/174 "2024-04-04T21:44:23Z")
> [@peccavi](#): > > I’ve always been surprised that Austen is such a polarizing writer. She polarized me! When I first read _Emma_ in college, I found it dull and trivial. Didn’t care for it at all. About ten years later, when Emma Thompson’s film of _Sense and Sensibility_ came out, I really enjoyed it, and thought that maybe there was more to Austen than I had realized. I don’t remember if I read _S&S_ next or _Emma,_ but whichever it was, I was instantly hooked, and inhaled all six novels. I was thoroughly entranced by the wonderful use of language, the brilliant characterizations, and the delightfully dry humor. And completely puzzled and chagrined that I had somehow totally missed all that when I read _Emma_ the first time. 🤦 ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2024, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/175 "2024-04-04T21:52:37Z")
I had the same reaction to _Moby Dick_. Reading it for a class was a tedious chore. Years later, I bought a copy on a whim, and thoroughly enjoyed it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2024, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/176 "2024-04-05T11:48:26Z")
Now, you see, I _loved_ Moby Dick when I first read it, details on whaling, symbolism, and all. I couldn’t understand why people found it dull and tedious. Unfortunately, I haven’t had that sense of enjoyment from Melville’s other works. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2024, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/177 "2024-04-05T19:18:18Z")
Not to mention his extensive and equally hilarious collection of short stories based around the game of golf. > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > _The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared_ by Jonas Jonasson. I was struggling to think of a comic novel written in this century I’ve read and enjoyed (more a comment on my reading habits than the state of the genre) - great example. Since several older and non-fiction books have been mentioned, I’ll add _Parkinson’s Law_ - incredibly dated today but also still relevant and hilarious. And probably the funniest book I’ve ever read is Gerald Durrell’s _The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium_, a collection of embellished but true short stories from throughout his colourful life. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/178 "2024-04-09T15:19:49Z")
When I was the same age, I read ‘Onions in the Stew’, also by Betty McDonald! Over and over and over… Life with teenage girls on Vashon Island during WWII. Not hilarious, but it had its moments. Another surprisingly amusing book was non-fiction by Shirley Jackson (who wrote The Haunting of Hill House and other creepy novels) about her home life with her kids. Kind of Addams-family-ish. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/179 "2024-04-09T15:50:32Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. Reaper Man for me. Followed by Hogfather. I’ve read a number of funny novels including others mentioned here but those are the most memorable for me. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2024, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832/180 "2024-04-09T15:56:06Z")
_The Tin Men_ by Michael Frayn. A series of incidents about a robotic research facility in the UK that is filled with greater pandemonium because of an Upcoming visit by the Queen. I especially love the scenes where one of the he scientists is trying to write a novel. And the ones where the they try to create a robot with a moral sense. Frayn later won a Pulitzer for _Copenhagen._ This was his first novel. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favourite-funny-novel/998832.md?page=10)