A colleague was asking for suggestions for teaching a course in the comic novel. Beyond the obvious (Waugh, Wodehouse, Roth, Nabokov), I thought of:Our Man in Havana, by Graham Greene. Twain is another obvious call, except that his funny novels are also serious. The funniest non-serious thing I know of by Twain is Adam’s Diary, but that’s just a short story. We also discussed End Zone by Don DeLillo. And I’ve also heard that Gulliver’s Travels is pretty good; I’ve never read it. I also think much of The Sportswriter and Independence Day by Richard Ford are hilarious, but I don’t think they’d be classified as comic novels.
My latest thought is Little Children by Tom Perotta. It’s an excellent book but it’s not a great work of art, but that’s the point: when teaching a class, maybe it’s better to have something where the seams show a little.
P.S. See comments below. Also, Bridget Jones’s Diary. And some kids’ humor book: not something like Lemony Snicket that’s supposed to be good, but something more lowbrow such as Goosebumps or Captain Underpants, to get a sense of what people think is funny. Also, something funny but completely non-novel-like, for example Chris Rock’s book. Students can compare how the comic novels differ from the quick jokes.
May I suggest these?
* Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino,
* Short fictions from Stanislaw Lem where the main character is Ijon Tichy. This is translated to English with the name of The Star Diaries and Memoirs of a Space Traveller.
These are not, however, novels. They are short stories collections.
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa.
Little Big Man, Thomas Berger.
The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe.
And of course A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
Sologen: Your comment reminds me that at lunch I was telling this guy that something he said reminded me of a famous quote from Stanislaw Ulam. He asked if I'd read much Stanislaw Lem and I said no, not at all. But I did read Ulam's autobiography.
John: I agree that Bonfire of the Vanities is hilarious. It has a weak ending but that shouldn't eliminate my appreciation of the book. And, as a teaching tool, maybe a weak ending is good to have. I also liked Aunt Julia a lot. I wanted to mention A Confederacy of Dunces–it's such a famous comic novel–but I've never read a word of it so I thought that it wasn't my place to bring it up.
The book that I really thought was hilarious was Straight Man by Richard Russo, but I don't think it makes sense to assign to college students a book where the main character is a college teacher.
I would suggest from the golden age of detective fiction: Whose Body? by Sayers, or any of her Peter Wimsey short stories.
I also think "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" is an excellent choice.
…are we looking for novels that are intentionally funny, or unintentionally funny? And must they be classics? Must they be from cannonized authors?
For more modern, mixed genre, I would suggest "A Civil Campaign" by Lois McMaster Bujold. Or "Who is afraid of Beowulf" by Tom Holt; "red earth and pouring rain" by Vikram Chandra; "The Hobbit" by JRR Tolkein, and "The Grand Sophy" by Georgette Heyer
If you're willing to do short stories, the Gogol's "The Nose" is a classic of comedy and horror, depending on your point of view.
Someone once told me that comedy is tragedy three days later…so the obvious choice would be Murakami. I leave it to the readers to suggest which one.
Sounds like a great class – is your friend teaching it online?
The country life, Rachel Cusk
mailman by j robert lennon is pretty hilarious in places
Three Men on a Boat and Three Men on a Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome. The first one is by far the most hysterically side-splittingly funny of all comic novels I've ever read, and this coming from someone who thinks PGW walks on water.
If Bridget Jones, why not Tom? And in the same century, Tristram Shandy? Or more recently David Lodge (maybe not "literature" but you ask for "novels" not great lit), Bruce Jay Friedman (ditto), Joseph Heller, Vonnegut.
Dry by Augusten Burroughs
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Oranges Aren't the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Youth In Revolt by CD Payne
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Catch 22
The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling
Mile Zero by Thomas Sanchez
Just finished A Case of Exploding Mangoes (Muhammad Hanif). Probably fits into the funny-yet-serious category, so perhaps isn't ideal. But it has some side-splitting moments.
The Sportswriter and Independence Day have their comic elements, but there's no way they're comic novels. I recommend Straight Man, by Richard Russo, and High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby.
Two of Twain's funniest are:
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
or
The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper
Not sure how contemporary the novels need to be, so some (much) older and perhaps obvious suggestions:
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
I assume Sterne, Fielding, and Cervantes are already on the list.
I'll second the David Lodge suggestion – for example, Small World.
I also much like The Flying Sorcerers by David Gerrold and Larry Niven.
I'd definitely include Vonnegut (almost anything) but I'd add Terry Pratchett (e.g., Small Gods which depends less on knowing characters from previous books). Pratchett is important because of how well he sells. John Sladek (e.g., Tik Tok) is also a possibility.
For non genre fiction Catch 22 (though I think it is over-rated, but not a reason to exclude it). High Fidelity is an excellent example of a modern British comic novel. Bridget Jones's diary and Tales of the City might make interesting comparisons (both, I think, are newspaper serials that were later published as novels).