Funniest literature?

File: Beckett_Watt.jpg (20KB, 220x331px) Image search: [Google]

20KB, 220x331px

Yes
Or were you asking for more?

>>8628799
what is it

>>8628803
the good soldier Svejk. A satirical look at the absurdity that was the Austrian army through one of its subject's eyes.

>>8628256
Catch-22 was funny as fuck, but not in the "haha" sense but because the shit was so absurd. Even better reading it as a conscript.

>>8628799
this

>>8628840
this

>>8628256
The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen - Raspe

File: 1437723988016.png (270KB, 653x486px) Image search: [Google]

270KB, 653x486px

>>8629003

>>8629003
wow, reddit can be so epic

The Third Policeman
J R

File: ha jin.jpg (26KB, 308x475px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 308x475px

To be sure, it's funny like Kafka (cf. Bandanna Mememan's piece on this)
I'm also 90% sure that, when in pic related the sound of a murder of crows is compared to 'starving ghosts', it is an allusion to Kafka's Letters to Milena, where he writes that it is as if 'starving ghosts (Geister)' drink up all the emotions he puts in his letters or something like that, so I'm fairly certain that Ha Jin has read this as well because I've never seen that phrasing anywhere else without it being an allusion

File: file.png (157KB, 323x499px) Image search: [Google]

157KB, 323x499px

Laughs guaranteed

File: image.jpg (36KB, 361x606px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 361x606px

This is it for me. Sombrero Fallout I also got a good laugh from, and it's short enough to be read in one little session.

>>8628803
catch 22 but less funny. I mean, it's as funny at first but feels like the same joke over and over. everyone admits that with a good editor the book could've became even more influential.

other funny books off the top of my head

catch 22
puckoon
confederacy of dunces
don quixote

>>8629197
"Hungry ghost" sounds rather familiar to me, though that's not saying it couldn't have come from kafka too...-- actually, looking up?:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_ghost

>>8629324
all those books you mentioned needed a better editor desu

>>8629809
maybe. but nowhere near as bad as good soldier svejk

>>8629305
My man

The clouds
Its literally an autist getting mad that Socrates is smarter than him so he wrote a play about it

>>8628256
Rational wiki

>>8628256
why is this getting shilled so hard?

will i be fucked if i try to read the original?

>>8629324
i haven't read catch22 but for some reason (i met some bits of it after all here and there) i doubt it's funnier than the good soldier; but then, i checked an english translation of the good soldier and it was pretty meh

>>8630436
that's an adorable play, he also laughed at poetry too there as well as at philosophy:

>O, then I declare, you can't be aware
>that 'tis these who the sophists protect,
>Prophets sent beyond sea, quacks of every degree,
>fops signet-and-jewel-bedecked,
>Astrological knaves, and fools who their staves
>of dithyrambs proudly rehearse —
>'Tis the Clouds who all these support at their ease,
>because they exalt them in verse.

>'Tis for this then they write of " the on-rushin' might
>o' the light-stappin' rain-drappin' Cloud,"
>And the " thousand black curls whilk the Tempestlord whirls,"
>and the " thunder-blast stormy an' loud,"
>And " birds o' the sky floatin' upwards on high,"
>and " air-water leddies " which " droon
>Wi' their saft falling dew the gran' Ether sae blue,"
>and then in return they gulp doon
>Huge gobbets o' fishes an' bountifu' dishes
>o' mavises prime in their season.

>>8630511
>why is this getting shilled so hard?
ffs this is (together with Montaigne) the major piece of french lit in the whole late medieval & renaissance period up to at least the 18th century, it's not like it's some obscure lucian knock-off some kids have decided to meme here in their spare time
>will i be fucked if i try to read the original?
the original is middle french, if your native language is english and you can't fluently read middle english, don't try

>>8630583
my native language is english but my french is fine. middle french is close enough to modern french for me to grasp as long as the modern french version is side by side so i dont have to look up so many words

The Man who was Thursday

Pilgrim's Progress

First chapter has the main character plugging his ears as he hollers "LIFE! ETERNAL LIFE!" leaving his children and wife behind to go on an adventure.

>>8629324
catch 22 is the reddit response to the good soldier

File: 220px-Pnin.jpg (26KB, 220x339px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 220x339px

>>8628256
Pnin. Pnin. Pnin. :DDD

>>8629369
Well it's not 'hungry ghosts' in the book, it's 'flocks of crows took off from the trees, flapping away in every direction and cawing like starved ghosts', so I'm sure it's also a play on folkloric storytelling just like the book's opening: 'Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu', but I'd still maintain that 'starved/starving ghosts' points to Kafka

>>8628805
This desu
Ilf&Petrov are godlike

>>8632055
>The Chinese term egui (餓鬼), literally "starving ghost"
I know how seductive it can be to think you've found an obscure allusion, but really, one option is overwhelmingly more likely than the other here.

>>8632431
It doesn't have to be paranoia, anything written by Kafka isn't that obscure, and Ha Jin obviously had an option between 'hungry' and 'starved'. On Wikipedia it's referred to as both, and you shouldn't take it literally when Wikipedia writes 'literally'. Meanwhile, the Chinese term seems to be known only under 'hungry ghosts' when searching library databases for academic pieces on the matter.
Ha Jin has also written a book on The Writer as Migrant in which he refers to Kafka, but I guess in the end it's something we'll never find out

>>8631221
iirc i think joseph heller wrote an intro to one edition of good soldier talking about how it inspired some of catch 22.

I don't know what a reddit response is.

>>8631221
this is only correct if you read svejk in czech

>>8630615
if you do, don't worry too much about identifying all the words, especially in lists, since some aren't exactly french but rather norman, breton, poitevin, gascon... I think there are even a couple deformed dutch and scottish words here and there