Witty and Sarcastic Writers

Oliverdog

Early Tom Sharpe - Riotous Assembly, Indecent Exposure, and my favourite Porterhouse Blue.
Clive James' autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, and his collections of TV Criticism when he wrote for the Guardian contain some real gems, although becoming a bit dated if you are too young to remember the programmes he was reviewing. I don't have that problem ! :rolleyes:

Morlar

Dorothy Parker is worth a read. Hunter S thompson (particularly his early 1970's journalism articles) could also be extremely witty.

IgnatiusJ

As my username might suggest, I'm a big believer in A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Hilarious book with a fascinating back story.

On Heller, I find him very funny but Catch-22 is too much hard work. Plenty of laugh out loud moments, but without doubt the most over-written book of all time. His Good As Gold is far easier to read and just as funny.

David Lodge is also worth reading, particularly his work from the '70s and '80s.

Lady von Purple

[QUOTE=IgnatiusJOn Heller, I find him very funny but Catch-22 is too much hard work. Plenty of laugh out loud moments, but without doubt the most over-written book of all time. His Good As Gold is far easier to read and just as funny.
[/QUOTE]

Completely disagree! I think the language makes Catch 22 incredibly challenging but I thought it was completely worth it. The detail was just amazing. I think it's really well-written.
One major problem (arguably) with it is that you can't just stop reading and start again a while later, like you can with most books.
You try that with Catch 22 and you end up going "damn, what the hell happened here?" so, imo, you have to read it all in virtually one go.

But still I think it's fantastically written and, while hard work, completely worth the effort.

Sorry for rambling, it's just I think it's the greatest novel I've ever read.

IgnatiusJ

Lady von Purple wrote: »

Completely disagree! I think the language makes Catch 22 incredibly challenging but I thought it was completely worth it. The detail was just amazing. I think it's really well-written.
One major problem (arguably) with it is that you can't just stop reading and start again a while later, like you can with most books.
You try that with Catch 22 and you end up going "damn, what the hell happened here?" so, imo, you have to read it all in virtually one go.

But still I think it's fantastically written and, while hard work, completely worth the effort.

Sorry for rambling, it's just I think it's the greatest novel I've ever read.

Certain parts of it are absolutely brilliant but I always thought there was a lot of room for editing the bits in between. Each chapter is basically a mini-biography of a new character. Some are hilarious, others not so much.

Then again, it's sold several million more copies than anything I've written, so maybe I've called this one wrong.

Lady von Purple

IgnatiusJ wrote: »

Then again, it's sold several million more copies than anything I've written, so maybe I've called this one wrong.

It's a matter of personal taste though, it's not like your opinion is wrong, I just get defensive of that novel.

...Sorry.

Some people I know have tried to read it, couldn't get through it and just written it off as a bad book. Now that's wrong!

chasmcb

Anthony Cronin's 'Life of Riley' about 1950s' Dublin bohemia is very funny and a more recent Irish comic novel that has great laugh-out-loud moments is Julian Gough's 'Jude Level 1'

I'd also add recommendations for Kinglsey Amis's Lucky Jim and the American novelist Percival Everett is very smart & funny; check out 'Erasure' & 'American Desert'