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Why is humor such an unpopular form of literature?

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Gringoamericano Wannabe Comedian from Texas Since: Aug, 2011
Wannabe Comedian
#1: Feb 11th 2012 at 8:03:31 AM

If there's one thing I enjoy, it's laughing. Every week, I either browse through netflix looking for the next comedy I want to watch, or try writing my own comedies. Yet whenever I look around the internet or at the local bookstore for a piece of fiction to laugh at, there's never anything out there. Out of every book I got that said "Dashingly funny", the only fictional book to make me laugh was "John Dies at the End". Even funny, well accomplished TV or movie writers prefer to write essays rather than pieces of fiction.

Why is it impossible to find a fictional book that is centered around humor?

if I had enough money, I would donate a bunch of coloring books to the blind.
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#2: Feb 11th 2012 at 9:35:35 AM

It isn't impossible. It's difficult, though.

soulseller Dr. Snakes Since: Dec, 2011
Dr. Snakes
#3: Feb 11th 2012 at 10:23:01 AM

Because humor isn't made for long storylines. You can have books or short sories that are humorous or written funny (example: Diskworld) but that alone isn't going to hold them up. They need plot and characters and when you have that drama, sad moments etc. will follow. The book will become a parody or maybe another genre while being humorous but it won't be only humor.
The next best thing made of pure humour could be anecdotes or long jokes. You get like 20~40 pages maximumout of a joke because it's hard to stretch out a single tale that long and keep it entertaining. Andguess what, todays book market focuses alot more on novel/whole length stories than short story collections. Unless you're a famous author your collection will not be read.
Another factor is that humour is usually alot harder to do than tragedy or semi serious works.

FreezairForALimitedTime Responsible adult from Planet Claire Since: Jan, 2001
Responsible adult
#4: Feb 11th 2012 at 10:27:45 AM

I think it might be because books are perceived as being a more "intelligent" medium, and comedy is seen as being more lowbrow. So authors shy away from writing comedies in books because maybe they think they've got to be "meaningful" or something, or that they've got to write serious dramas if they want to make an impact.

It also might be that a lot of comedy is a visual medium, and things like sight gags, funny background events, and to an extent slapstick (though it can be done) are hard to pull off in writing. So you're limited to only a few forms of comedy.

Both of which saddens me, though. I mean, when it comes to the first, people forget that comedy can be meaningful—in Dramedy, after all, the comedy often helps to contrast the drama, and serve as an example of what can be lost. Books don't always have to be brainy, because you can read for fun, not just education. And I do enjoy a lovely spate of wit-based humor.

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada
wuggles (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#5: Feb 11th 2012 at 11:08:53 AM

Cracked just had an article about this. I think also it's harder to write something that's funny than to show it. And as another poster says, the longer something is the harder it is to be funny.

zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#6: Feb 11th 2012 at 6:15:39 PM

A lot of humour comes from the atmosphere, timing or the delivery. Even just seeing something can be funny in the case of slapstick and grossout and other forms of humour.

These things are practically impossible to convey in books. How funny is it to read "Bugs Bunny hit Daffy Duck with a large mallet"?

So then there's much less to work with. Sure the writer can describe these things in full detail, but then when he or she does that, it kills the joke about as well as explaining it.

It's just not the same when you see it written on the page as it is when you see it on a screen, hear it on the radio, or experience it in real life.

MattII Since: Sep, 2009
#7: Feb 12th 2012 at 12:58:48 AM

OTOH, no medium other than the written word can portray peoples thoughts, and in no other medium can you have foot-notes either.

The only people who can't find humour in T. Pratchett are people whom regard toilet jokes and slapstick as the highest form of humour there is, or those who just don't have a sense of humour.

AirofMystery Since: Jan, 2001
#8: Feb 12th 2012 at 1:08:03 AM

The only people who can't find humour in T. Pratchett are people whom regard toilet jokes and slapstick as the highest form of humour there is, or those who just don't have a sense of humour.

Way to collapse utterly into Fan Myopia, MattII.

zerky Since: Jan, 2001
#9: Feb 12th 2012 at 6:34:31 AM

[up][up]

The footnotes, yeah, but footnotes aren't usually funny in themselves. They have to contain some sort of joke/wit/something in order to get a laugh out of anyone. Case in point, take a look at House Of Leaves. It is probably filled with more footnotes than all of Terry Pratchett's work combined, but does that mean that it's twice as funny as any Discworld book?

No.

As for thoughts, zerky has seen tons of television shows that portray peoples' thoughts. Some do it on a regular basis, like Dexter or Haruhi Suzumiya. In the latter case it's extremely effective since the viewer is often not aware of whether the voiceover is thought, narration or even the viewpoint character speaking out loud. There can also be one-off incidents in television shows where the whole "thought" thing is played for laughs, like that one episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer where she temporarily gains telepathy and hears all thoughts of her friends. One character is only thinking about sex - "Wow, is that really all you think about?" Another automatically thinks of the worst possible thing - "My mother? on the hood of your car? Ugh!" and another just says exactly what is on her mind.

edited 12th Feb '12 6:36:01 AM by zerky

MrShine Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#10: Feb 12th 2012 at 6:52:40 AM

Insert mandatory Douglas Adams recommendation here. If you don't find the humour to be to your liking in fictional stories, maybe try non-fiction books where all the information is wrong? John Hodgman has 3 books out and they are probably the funniest things ever put to paper.

One of the funniest stories i've read in years was a short story by Jeff Vandermeer in City of Saints and Madmen. One of the worst cases of Footnote Fever possible, with 137 footnotes to an 87 page story, it had the sort of humour that can only be conveyed in written form, since all the humour comes from receiving the snarky, condescending thoughts put down by the story's fictional "author".

edited 12th Feb '12 6:54:48 AM by MrShine

RavenWilder Since: Apr, 2009
#11: Feb 12th 2012 at 7:53:34 AM

I'd say the major difficulty with humor in text form is pacing. I can't speak for anyone else, but, when I read, I usually zoom through the text very quickly; by the time my conscious mind has fully processed the words I've just read, I've already read the next dozen or so words. This dulls the impact of a lot of jokes; most of them require a moment or two to "get", and if you've started reading a new sentence before you "get" the joke from the previous sentence, the moment of realization that's supposed to make you laugh will get a little drowned out. On the other hand, if you read the text slowly, then it's often possible to see where a sentence is going and anticipate the sudden development before you actually read it, which also throws comedic timing out of whack.

That's not to say comedy can't work in written word form, but doing it well is much harder than in other mediums. And since one of those other mediums already has the saying "dying is easy; comedy is hard", it's no surprise that few authors are up to the task of writing a novel-length humorous story.

edited 12th Feb '12 8:03:46 AM by RavenWilder

MrShine Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Hoping Senpai notices me
#12: Feb 12th 2012 at 11:23:23 AM

A lot of really famous authors wrote humour like Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Mark Twain, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, James Joyce. Those guys are all pretty popular, and many of them were primarily known as humorists. I'm sure there's a lot more than those guys.

Yuanchosaan antic disposition from Australia Since: Jan, 2010
antic disposition
#13: Feb 12th 2012 at 7:35:23 PM

I don't think it's impossible to write humorous books at all. Might I suggest that it's because you're looking for the wrong sort of humour? Literary humour seldom translates well to the screen (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film is a recent and unfortunate example of that), and vice versa. I find that humour in books is seldom of the laugh-out-loud variety, but there are certainly many books that have made me smile in ways television and films have not. Often they rely on references, wordplay and the infinite variety of one's own mental actors. Dry humour and wit are very common. Certainly, I don't feel that literary humour is better or worse than any other form (though it does appeal to me more); it's simply different.

There are many authors, playwrights and poets who have been acclaimed for their humorous or farcical works: Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, Tom Stoppard, Kurt Vonnegut, Miguel Cervantes, Shakespeare, Alexandre Dumas (come on, The Three Musketeers was hilarious), Mark Twain Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Mikhail Bulgakov, Italo Calvino, W. S. Gilbert (although that was primarily for his operettas). For an author who was acclaimed for writing nothing but silly, humorous works, one needs only to look at P. G. Wodehouse, of whom Evelyn Waugh wrote "Mr Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in". Outside the world of classics, you have authors like the aforementioned Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, William Goldman, Neil Gaiman, Lemony Snicket and Ben Elton.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj
Gringoamericano Wannabe Comedian from Texas Since: Aug, 2011
Wannabe Comedian
#14: Feb 12th 2012 at 7:40:43 PM

I didn't know that there were that many humorous works of literature out there. I'll need to go looking again.

if I had enough money, I would donate a bunch of coloring books to the blind.
Yuanchosaan antic disposition from Australia Since: Jan, 2010
antic disposition
#15: Feb 12th 2012 at 8:11:20 PM

^You can read some of those authors I mentioned online. I'd suggest Wodehouse's Right Ho, Jeeves to start off with, if only because I'm a massive fan of Wodehouse and I wish he were more popular nowadays. Still, I'll be in good company as a Wodehouse crazy - Stephen Fry, George Orwell, Rudyard Kipling, Hugh Laurie, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rowling are or were as well.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj
Kentok Earth-Pig Born from Upper Iest Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: You can be my wingman any time
Tiamatty X-Men X-Pert from Now on Twitter Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: Brony
#17: Feb 12th 2012 at 9:40:23 PM

"How funny is it to read "Bugs Bunny hit Daffy Duck with a large mallet"?"

Made me think of The Simpsons, with Bart reading a novelization of the Itchy & Scratchy Movie.

But yeah, written humour tends to be a little more dry. Reading about a football to the groin just isn't the same as seeing a football to the groin, so that means writers need to try a different approach to the comedy.

X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.
DoktorvonEurotrash Lex et Veritas from Not a place of honour (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#18: Feb 13th 2012 at 2:05:18 AM

As someone who's tried her hand at writing comedy in both script and prose form, I can say that neither is impossible, but they're very different methods.

I've read stories by people who have extremely funny ideas, but try to write them as you would see them on a TV screen, which makes the comedy fall flat. Cutaway Gag, for example, doesn't work remotely as well in prose.

edited 13th Feb '12 2:05:33 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

FreezairForALimitedTime Responsible adult from Planet Claire Since: Jan, 2001
Responsible adult
#19: Feb 13th 2012 at 11:50:37 AM

Although a Gilligan Cut can.

Not to mention, there's always room for puns! tongue

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada
TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#20: Feb 14th 2012 at 2:03:45 PM

I have never read a Pratchett book. That makes me a bad person I suppose. I have read Adam's stuff but never saw the point. Funny books for me in my childhood and later were ones by Sven Hassel. I was not even the peripheral demographic at the start but the humour flourishing amidst the blood and chaos of war was sweet and it took me out of a life that was frankly a lot of the times rotten. That they also contained some of the most visceral scenes of combat ever in literature was a bonus.

HersheleOstropoler You gotta get yourself some marble columns from BK.NY.US Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Less than three
You gotta get yourself some marble columns
#21: Feb 14th 2012 at 6:18:59 PM

I like wit: Peter Devries, John Cheever, Jonathan Ames. Pterry's stuff is also witty, though in a different way.

edited 14th Feb '12 6:19:15 PM by HersheleOstropoler

The child is father to the man —Oedipus
cityofmist turning and turning from Meanwhile City Since: Dec, 2010
turning and turning
#22: Feb 15th 2012 at 2:54:17 AM

I have never read a Pratchett book. That makes me a bad person I suppose.

What? No, it doesn't! The majority of the literary world is not as dominated by fantasy as this site. Most people haven't read Terry Pratchett. He has a niche audience, and it's just that a lot of that niche audience happens to be here.

[down]Perhaps that was too much of a generalisation. I'm sixteen, and he's been writing since the eighties, so I shouldn't have assumed that I know much about his popularity. I can say categorically that he's not popular among UK teenagers.

edited 16th Feb '12 1:53:42 AM by cityofmist

Scepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom. - Clarence Darrow
HersheleOstropoler You gotta get yourself some marble columns from BK.NY.US Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Less than three
You gotta get yourself some marble columns
#23: Feb 15th 2012 at 8:49:33 AM

At one point 1% of all books sold in the UK were by Terry Pratchett.

Still doesn't mean not reading him is the sign of a bad person. Chacun a son goût and all. And not in the sense of "... but my taste is right"

edited 15th Feb '12 8:49:53 AM by HersheleOstropoler

The child is father to the man —Oedipus
frumfrum from Germany Since: Oct, 2011
#24: Feb 15th 2012 at 5:22:20 PM

[up][up] Getting so many novels printed is enough to make him note worthy. And he got knighted for his writing, remember that too. You don`t have to like him or even read him but he has some noteworthyness.

edited 15th Feb '12 5:22:28 PM by frumfrum

AndrewGPaul Since: Oct, 2009
#25: Feb 20th 2012 at 3:57:37 AM

There's also the fact that not everyone finds the same things funny. I like pratchett, but many do not. From that Cracked article, I would second Lamb by Christopher Moore, as well as Dirty Jobs, the Vampires in San Franssco trilogy and basically everything else he's written. Carl Hiassen and Christopher Brookmyre write humorous crime fiction, although both can be quite dark humour.


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