What's So Funny?
Posted on Sunday August 6, 2006 at 6:51pm.
In the fall I'll be teaching a new course I'm creating for the University of Pennsylvania called "What's So Funny?" It's a critical writing course that focuses on understanding humorous writing. Students will be reading essays, articles, reviews, plays, stories, maybe a couple of novels, Internet sites, whatever else I can find, and then discussing the use of humor and writing papers analyzing the whole thing. Maybe we'll also view a couple of good standup routines or sitcoms. Toward the end of the semester I might give students a chance to do a little creative writing and construct their own short humor pieces (which is what we do for the entire term in the Writing Humor and Comedy course I started at Drexel University, named one of the "Ten Best Things about Drexel" in the book Drexel University Off the Record).
I mention all of this because I am working on the "What's So Funny?" syllabus and wouldn't mind help from millions of strangers. I'm in that stage of developing the course that might lead a weaker man to panic. Fifteen weeks to fill and some of the nation's most intellectually aggressive students expecting to be challenged and enlightened every second could intimidate some people. But compared to the pressure of waiting to have a new novel released in a few months and not knowing what to write my next novel about, this is cake. Really moist cake, with icing, probably chocolate.
Cake aside, I would welcome suggestions about what to include on the reading list. Feel free to comment on this blog entry with as many suggestions as you have of funny poems, stories, novels, sites, essays or essay collections, anything that might fit what I describe above. Any kind of humor could work for the course, from the most sophisticated, meaningful satire to the silliest just-for-laughs comedy sketch. No choice is too obvious. After all, somehow I never got around to reading P.G. Wodehouse until this year.
Although the course will not focus on partisan political humor that is mostly only funny to people who share the source's perspective, including some of it is probably inevitable. Given that, I hope to have some balance in that aspect of the course, since it is not my goal to indoctrinate students in any one view. Other included humor might have political implications even if it isn't specific or partisan, and I hope for some balance there as well. Still, my main goal is not balance in all things, but to have the students look at the best and most interesting material I can find. And, as I said, political humor isn't going to dominate the course.
If I use your suggestion, I will give you absolutely no credit, but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you have added in your own special way to some Ivy Leaguers' educations. I know, payment enough. And used or not, your suggestion will add to the list that might be a good resource for my blog's visitors looking for a funny read, so consider it public service. The really important kind. I'll be busy researching this for the next few weeks and will probably end up having to photocopy excerpts and essays from a bunch of different sources and make one of those wirecomb books to use as a text since, despite my offer to edit one for a hefty fee and substantial royalties, no textbook publisher has yet produced an appropriate anthology.
Finally, if you are a blogger, please consider posting a link to this post so more people will be able to make suggestions.
I mention all of this because I am working on the "What's So Funny?" syllabus and wouldn't mind help from millions of strangers. I'm in that stage of developing the course that might lead a weaker man to panic. Fifteen weeks to fill and some of the nation's most intellectually aggressive students expecting to be challenged and enlightened every second could intimidate some people. But compared to the pressure of waiting to have a new novel released in a few months and not knowing what to write my next novel about, this is cake. Really moist cake, with icing, probably chocolate.
Cake aside, I would welcome suggestions about what to include on the reading list. Feel free to comment on this blog entry with as many suggestions as you have of funny poems, stories, novels, sites, essays or essay collections, anything that might fit what I describe above. Any kind of humor could work for the course, from the most sophisticated, meaningful satire to the silliest just-for-laughs comedy sketch. No choice is too obvious. After all, somehow I never got around to reading P.G. Wodehouse until this year.
Although the course will not focus on partisan political humor that is mostly only funny to people who share the source's perspective, including some of it is probably inevitable. Given that, I hope to have some balance in that aspect of the course, since it is not my goal to indoctrinate students in any one view. Other included humor might have political implications even if it isn't specific or partisan, and I hope for some balance there as well. Still, my main goal is not balance in all things, but to have the students look at the best and most interesting material I can find. And, as I said, political humor isn't going to dominate the course.
If I use your suggestion, I will give you absolutely no credit, but you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you have added in your own special way to some Ivy Leaguers' educations. I know, payment enough. And used or not, your suggestion will add to the list that might be a good resource for my blog's visitors looking for a funny read, so consider it public service. The really important kind. I'll be busy researching this for the next few weeks and will probably end up having to photocopy excerpts and essays from a bunch of different sources and make one of those wirecomb books to use as a text since, despite my offer to edit one for a hefty fee and substantial royalties, no textbook publisher has yet produced an appropriate anthology.
Finally, if you are a blogger, please consider posting a link to this post so more people will be able to make suggestions.
Richard Russo, Straight Man
Mil Millington, Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About*
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
J. Maarten Troost, The Sex Lives of Cannibals
*He also has a web site and mailing list that are very funny, if you want shorter stuff.
I tought a college expository writing class 12 years ago where one of the assignments was on humor, but nothing even remotely as interesting as this.
My suggestions, off the top of my head:
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. It's a tough read but worth it. The book is a 999-line Robert-Frost-like poem with commentary and annotation written by a guy who believes that the poem is about himself and his experiences as the exiled king of Zembla.
Poetry -- Ogden Nash
Comic strips -- Calvin and Hobbes
Plays -- The Foreigner, by Larry Shue
TV Shows -- old SNL stuff, surely
Movies -- Defending Your Life, hands down
Good luck! If I think of others, I'll post again!
A Sub-Treasury of American Humor, eds. E.B. White and Katharine S. White
The Far Side Gallery 3, by Gary Larson
Forever, Erma, by Erma Bombeck
Dave Barry is Not Taking This Sitting Down, by Dave Barry
Yeah, I Said It, by Wanda Sykes
Oh, the Things I Know! by Al Franken
Holidays in Hell, by P.J. O’Rourke
Pure Drivel, by Steve Martin
David Letterman’s Book of Top Ten Lists and Zesty Lo-Cal Chicken Recipes, by David Letterman and the Late Show writers
Nothing’s Sacred, by Lewis Black
The Rants, by Dennis Miller
I’m also looking through a few books from my own collection:
The Best of Modern Humor, ed. Mordecai Richler
Best American Humorous Short Stories, ed. Robert N. Linscott
The Essential Calvin and Hobbes and Weirdos from Another Planet, by Bill Watterson
Napalm and Silly Putty, by George Carlin
More Letters from a Nut, by Ted L. Nancy
Our Dumb Century, by the Onion
Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris
When Falls the Coliseum: a journal of American culture (or lack thereof), eds. Scott Stein and C.P. Kaiser (This book is based on my old web-zine, which I ran back before blogging was big. It has lots of essays and short humor pieces by 26 unknown authors.)
DVD: Saturday Night Live’s Best of the Commercial Parodies
For novels and fiction, lots of titles I already have might qualify, but here are the ones I think are most obvious (if I missed any, let me know):
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide, by Douglas Adams
Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories and Stories and Satires, by Sholem Aleichem
Big Trouble, by Dave Barry
Was It Something I Said? by Valerie Block
Jane Austen in Boca, by Paula Marantz Cohen
Mrs. Ted Bliss, by Stanley Elkin
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
The British Museum is Falling Down, by David Lodge
Lost and Mean Martin Manning, by Scott Stein (that’s me)
Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy O’Toole
Candide, by Voltaire
Code of the Woosters and How Right You Are, Jeeves and Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse
I know that plenty of other novels I own have funny moments, and that some of the story collections I own have a humorous story or a story with funny moments, but the books above are the ones I think are focused on this. I might have missed a few. Anyway, I won’t be assigning more than a couple of novels to be read by the entire class (which would you suggest?), but maybe I can excerpt from a few for our discussions and I might assign students to choose a novel and present it to the rest of us.
Below are some of the suggestions I received a while back in another forum:
Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them is pretty funny but I wouldn't want Anne Coulter to show up at Upenn and kick you in the balls. America by Jon Stewart is damn hilarious too. …. Howard Stern's Private Parts.
I would recommend Carl Hiassen -- Not straight humor, but very wacky. I read Hoot- more of kids book, and I am reading Sick Puppy now...good stuff. Another one would be Jimmy Buffett's fiction work are pretty humorous as well-Where's Joe Merchant, Salty Piece of Land. … If we are talking political./social books…then my old friend Bill Maher's New Rules is damn good humor. Its not all political either.
I've always thought that the playwright Tom Stoppard was wildly funny, with Arcadia being his best work. Of course, there's more to him than humor. Also, A Confederacy of Dunces was funny. Somehow Ignatius Reilly seemed like someone we might know. Is Hunter S. Thompson eligible?
Woody Allen wrote a couple of funny books I remember, quite dark and cutting.
Every Christopher Moore novel is very funny. Most Carl Hiassen books are funny. Vonnegut and Twain are obvious choices. I always found The Three Musketeers to be very funny and Baudolino (sp?) by Umberto Ecco was very funny.
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil was a very funny book that came out last year. It also only takes about two-hours to read so you can enjoy it quickly.
You're probably familiar with Martin Amis. He's one of the few authors that makes me laugh out loud, though obviously some of his books are better than others. My favorites are Money and The Rachel Papers, in that order.
The Arts &Letters Daily website is a great source for literature, essays, book reviews etc.: http://www.aldaily.com/
Also, don't overlook comic strips and illustrated novels. I bought a Calvin and Hobbes anthology once and it had me rolling.
Are you familiar with vodcasting? Similar to a blog but video is used instead of words. Check this site out: www.rocketboom.com it is hillarious, serious and interesting and boring. It could work for you and your class. At the very least your students will think you are on the edge of technology and education.
And in the ENC Press forum there are more suggestions.
So, given all of the above, keep the suggestions coming. Thanks.
I'm still laughing. I stumbled across this on the "FREE BOOKS" counter in the executive offices of B&N in NYC. I spent three days reading, not working, but don't tell anyone.
Lynne AKA The Wicked Witch of Publishing
Pratchett/Gaiman - Good Omens
any of Peter De Vries, for example Reuben, Reuben
Scott, I did link here but as I noted on our site the most humorous things I have read recently were not intended to be funny, and probably ought not to be used.
Have you considered Steve Martin? Pure Drivel had me in stitches.
I found the first two Janet Evanovich books funny (the rest decresingly so so that now I can't even read them).
The book that made me laugh the most in the past 5 years was one called "e" by Matthew Beaumont (I think) -- the story was told entirely by emails. However, it is a one-off joke and may by now be dated and trite. Certainly his follow=ups did not tickle my funny bone. But the original made me shake with laughter.
Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
The Third Policeman - Flann O'Brien
At Swim Two Birds - Flann O'Brien
The Poor Mouth - Flann O'Brien
Fwiw, my own "to be read" list of "comedy classics" that I've assigned myself for the coming months is: Rabelais (Gargantua and Pentagruel), Cervantes (Don Quixote), and Sterne (Tristram Shandy). Wish me luck.
Very funny. I do have one of my own pieces, a satire attempt after Congress decided to get involved in the steroids-baseball issue:
Congress tackles performance-enhancing drugs in music
WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE? Jonathan Ames
CRAZY IN THE KITCHEN, by Louise DeSalvo
A GIRL LIKE CHE, by Teresa de la Caridad Doval
FABULOUS SMALL JEWS, by Joseph Epstein
HEADLONG, by Michael Frayn
THE LIAR, by Stephen Fry
WHAT WAS SHE THINKING? by Zoe Heller
MAIL, by Mameve Medwed
LOVE IN A COLD CLIMATE, Nancy Mitford
MATING, by Norman Rush
DRESS YOUR FAMILY..., by David Sedaris
THE DANGEROUS HUSBAND, by Jane Shapiro
THE RUSSIAN DEBUTANTE'S HANDBOOK, by Gary Shteyngart
I'M LOSING YOU, by Bruce Wagner
A MASSIVE SWELLING, Cintra Wilson
This is a link to the the list of top 100 comic books complied by Washington Post's Michael Dirda. You can get a copy from his Readings collection.
S.J Perelman and Thurber's humor writing have influenced a lot of writers.
I STUDY english literature &for one of my course (oral reproduction of stories) have some problem I must read CONFESSION OF GALLOMANIAC that written by FRANK MOORE COLBY &to reperesent this story I must determine any irony consist verbal irony....and if this story is plot or yes if this story is interpretation or escape and whats the tone and the atmosphre of this story please help me if you have enough time so thanks for your forward assitance
May I suggest my own book, How to Write Funny, in which I interviewed Roy Blount Jr., John Dufresne, Sherman Alexie, Andrei Codrescu, Lee K. Abbott, Lois Ann Yamanaka, Melissa Bank, Bill Bryson, Denise Duhamel, and others about humor writing?