Desperately Seeking Humour

[rhythmaning]

I was in a quandry this evening. I was very close to finishing the book I have been reading for the past day or so - the very brilliant Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I think it is a work of genius - truly - a very powerful, affecting book, that has had me laughing and crying.

But it is also - well, kind of traumatic. I shall write more about it later, but take it from me, brilliant though it might be, it is isn't light.

And here I was close to finishing it, knowing that I would have a whole lot more reading time this evening in between concerts and on the tube and stuff, and I was wondering how to fill it.

So I went into Foyles on the South Bank, since that was where I happened to be. I wanted somethnig fun, light - frothy even. A quick kind of throwaway book, something to make me smile, not too deep.

I looked for the humour section. There wasn't one. I looked for the table of three-for-two offers - usually full of that kind of stuff. Not a sign.

I trawled the fiction section - and could see nothing that grabbed. Many non-funny, serious, even suicidal volumes; these were jumping out at me, but no! Not for me, not tonight.

f4f3 and white_hart have both been raving about the Princess Bride, in both celluloid and print versions; I asked at the desk, but they didn't have it. (And the woman behind the desk raved about it, too.)

Someone was going on about Terry Pratchett - but they didn't Small Gods, which seems to be the usual recommendation. I even looked at the Neil Gaiman, but again, none of the books they had were ones people had tried to get me to read.

I settled on a book about Italy by Tim Parks - and so far it is just what I wanted.

All this took me a lot longer than I had expected; such that the time I was looking to fill had been filled, and I had to go to my concert. So I needn't have bought a book anyway...

Comments

[white_hart]

In terms of Pratchett, I wouldn't actually recommend Small Gods to start with. I would say either Mort, Wyrd Sisters, or Moving Pictures. Good Omens is a good introduction to both Pratchett and Gaiman at one fell swoop.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

This is going to be an unpopular comment, but you just need to read the one Pratchett, because they're pretty much all the same in terms of what's funny. Mort, Wyrd Sisters or Small Gods will do fine.

[white_hart]

Well, yes and no. You only need to read the one to decide whether or not you like that sort of funny, but if you do then you can read all the rest. If you dislike one, there's certainly no point reading any of the others.

There is a difference between the earlier and later books; around 1996 he seems to have got very angry about the state of the world, and there are several rather difficult books before he managed to integrate that properly, and the most recent ones are far more obviously satirical than the early ones.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of his recent output.

It wasn't that I didn't find him amusing when I read his books; it was just that after a while, I realised the things that made them funny were pretty much exactly the same from book to book - and I started to find it a bit tedious. But he's a nice guy (met him briefly at a con once) and I dig that he makes people smile :)

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

"after a while, I realised the things that made them funny were pretty much exactly the same from book to book "

I can get that - sounds like a description of PG Wodehouse, and my collection is starting to get a bit out of hand..

My favourite of the books is Night Watch, which is as close to grim and gritty as Diskworld gets, sort of a Vimes: Year One.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any PGW, though I might quite like to.

Amused by description of Night Watch as Vimes: Year One!

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

You'll have to stay at my cottage then and raid the bookshelves - worked for Frankie...

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

*g* That's a very kind offer, thank you.

Note to self: must remember to book holiday in Scotland.

[unblinkered.livejournal.com]

Guards Guards! is the one that got me hooked, but that's entirely to blame on the giggling fit I had after reading the Watch's motto: Fabricati diem, puncus.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Have you read any of Christopher Brookmyres' output? Don't be put off by the "Tartan Noir" strapline, they are very, very funny - two favourites are "Not the End Of The World" and "One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night". Perfect for plane flights.

I was also laughing out loud re-reading Cryptonomicon, but that might just be my sense of humour.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I think I have Brookmyre pretty well covered - though they do all seem to merge together in my mind! I particularly liked "the Fine Art of Stealing" - and "Be My Enemy" sticks in my mind for gruesomeness - I shall never, ever eat ostrich...

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought the self-decapitation in Be My Enemy was particularly fine. The more autobiographical novels stick out in my head most, since we seem to have identical lives up until we left Uni - A Tale Told in Blood and Hard Black Pencil sums up my Catholic school years quite nicely, with the advantage that it's set in Barrhead, a town I know well enough.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I can't think that I have even seen those titles. I'll look out for them.

He must end up blowing up the school, though - doesn't he?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

No - not in that one :-)

Actually, there are two books dealing with surviving schooling, both of them dealing with his fictionalised Barrhead, although one of them is mostly set on the Cromarty Firth - One Fine Day in The Middle of the Night is a school reunion story in which very many things (and people) are blown up - it has my favourite use of an angle grinder in fiction - and "A Tale Told In Blood And Hard Pencil" is relatively bloodless - just a couple of murders which relate back to the childhood of the characters.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Yup - I've read "One Fine Day..." - very entertaining. I'll bet he wrote that just to think of ways to exterminate the others kids from school - and of course to get off with the school beauty!