Funniest novel you have ever read?

[Frobby]

I started to make the thread title "funniest book you have ever read?" but decided to limit this to novels only, for now. Here are some of my favorites, and they include some books that didn't go 100% for humor but contain parts that are hysterical:

The World According to Garp, by John Irving
The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
The Great American Novel, by Phillip Roth
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

In each of these cases, I have read multiple books by each author, and they are are very gifted at humor and satire when they bend that way.

[Lucky Jim]

I started to make the thread title "funniest book you have ever read?" but decided to limit this to novels only, for now. Here are some of my favorites, and they include some books that didn't go 100% for humor but contain parts that are hysterical:

The World According to Garp, by John Irving
The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
The Great American Novel, by Phillip Roth
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

In each of these cases, I have read multiple books by each author, and they are are very gifted at humor and satire when they bend that way.

My screenname is my vote (Russo is legitimately funny, too. As is Martin Amis.)

[BaltimoreTerp]

I started to make the thread title "funniest book you have ever read?" but decided to limit this to novels only, for now. Here are some of my favorites, and they include some books that didn't go 100% for humor but contain parts that are hysterical:

The World According to Garp, by John Irving
The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe
Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
The Great American Novel, by Phillip Roth
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

In each of these cases, I have read multiple books by each author, and they are are very gifted at humor and satire when they bend that way.

The only one of those I've read through is Hitchhiker's Guide, and that's one of the funniest I've read. I've tried twice but haven't been able to make it through The Great American novel, though.

[Skeletor]

I'm still a fan of Catch 22.

[Capn Vivi]

John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces.

[Scrat1]

The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury
Angels by Denis Johnson
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson (more of a story collection, but still hilarious)
Pastoralia by George Saunders (also stories)
Norwood by Charles Portis

Faulkner can be really funny too. His story, "Two Soldiers," cracks me up. I wasn't big on the novel as a whole, but there's an absolutely hilarious set piece in Roth's The Human Stain where a vietnam veteran support group goes to a chinese restaurant.

[Remember The Alomar]

I'm still a fan of Catch 22.

Ha, I'm writing my senior project on Catch 22. More specifically, I'm grappling with Heller and his absurdist technique through the lens of New Historicism.

As for the funniest novel I've ever read...hmm....I'd have to say Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson. Very dark, but hilarious.

[Frobby]

John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces.

I'm still a fan of Catch 22.

I've read both, and those are both very good suggestions. I will have to go read some of the books on Scrat1's list, none of which I've read.

[Lucky Jim]

The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury
Angels by Denis Johnson
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson (more of a story collection, but still hilarious)
Pastoralia by George Saunders (also stories)
Norwood by Charles Portis

Faulkner can be really funny too. His story, "Two Soldiers," cracks me up. I wasn't big on the novel as a whole, but there's an absolutely hilarious set piece in Roth's The Human Stain where a vietnam veteran support group goes to a chinese restaurant.

I've read both, and those are both very good suggestions. I will have to go read some of the books on Scrat1's list, none of which I've read.

Denis Johnson is in among the handful of most talented living fiction writers - though his output is admittedly inconsistent. Jesus Son is pretty much a seminal work of American short fiction - just brilliant, and I've rarely met a working American fiction writer who didn't kind of bow down before it. It's definitely funny - blackly, despondently, oddly, naively, stupidly funny. A fascinating guy - I've had the opportunity to socialize with him on a couple of occasions - he's lived an out-sized life befitting a man of his out-sized talents.

[Nigel Tufnel]

There's also Nick Hornby. About a Boy and High Fidelity are both really funny (and Fever Pitch, too, but it's nonfiction).

[Frobby]

There's also Nick Hornby. About a Boy and High Fidelity are both really funny (and Fever Pitch, too, but it's nonfiction).

I asked my brother what he thought, and (in addition to several books already mentioned, including Lucky Jim), he mentioned anything by Nick Hornby, Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiassen, and also Dan Jenkins' Semi-Tough. All good choices. Semi-Tough would be hard to beat for funniest sports novel, though I already named The Great American Novel as a nominee.

[Lucky Jim]

No Barry Hannah mentions yet? I'd include him. Also, some David Foster Wallace was pretty funny.

[Can_of_corn]

The Space Merchants by Pohl and Kornbluth. Then again I like pretty much everything Cryil wrote.

[scOtt]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

[Whatss]

Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Monster by A. Lee Martinez
Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore