Welcome back to Book Break.
In today's video, we are going to be talking about the classic books that you never knew
were so funny.
And I'm here today in a gorgeous bookshop, settled in front of a very cosy fire.
This is Jarndyce, which is a bookshop in London that specialises in 18th and 19th century
books.
I'm going to tell you a little bit more about them in a minute, but as Jarndyce is a Dickensian
reference, it's named after the central court case in Bleak House, I thought where better
to start than with Charles Dickens as a writer that you never knew was so funny.
So the first book I'm going to mention isn't obviously a comedy, it's actually a rather
sad life story, but this is David Copperfield, and if you've seen the recent film, or even
just the trailer for the film, you'll see that they have definitely brought out the
comic aspects in it.
It's got loads of comic actors, like Hugh Laurie in it, and the trailer is just a laugh
a minute.
I went to see the film, and it really is brilliant.
It manages to turn every disaster into a comic moment, while also keeping you caring so much,
and being so invested in the characters.
And one of the writers of the film pointed out that turning it into a comedy really isn't
that much of a stretch, because Dickens as a writer is genuinely very funny.
And a lot of the other adaptations of David Copperfield took out the comedy because it
doesn't particularly carry the story, but actually they think it's really valuable and
it's really what brings Dickens's writing to life.
I mean, look at the original title for David Copperfield.
The full title is actually 'The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of
David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery, which he never meant to publish on
any account.'
So that's already very tongue in cheek.
And David Copperfield is the one that has the very famous character of Betsey Trotwood,
who's this hilarious figure, based on a real friend from Dickens's own life.
In fact a lot of this book is quite autobiographical.
And Betsey Trotwood is this complete man-hater, who stormed out of the room when David was
born, because she didn't want to be godmother to a boy, but she does later take him in,
and she's always chasing donkeys off her lawn.
She's this very grumpy character but with a heart of gold.
And this is our Macmillan Collector's Library edition, but I've just been looking in the
shop at an incredible first edition but which has all the separate instalments put together
in one set, because that's how Dickens first wrote it, it was serialised.
A more obviously funny Dickens is The Pickwick Papers, which is Dickens's first novel.
So this one actually started as a series of captions.
So an illustrator called Robert Seymour created a series of engravings of sporting life, and
the 24 year old Charles Dickens was employed to write the funny, kind of slapstick captions
for them.
But increasingly, Dickens's narrative started to shape the story rather than the other way
round, and eventually, Dickens just took over the project and The Pickwick Papers was born.
And while we're talking about Dickens being funny, there's one more that I have to mention
even if it's not quite the right time of year, and that's A Christmas Carol.
The opening to this book really showcases quite how funny Dickens can be, even if the
rest of the book goes on to be pretty scary, and then very sentimental.
I re-read this book this Christmas and was laughing so much at this opening.
'Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
Mind!
I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge what there is particularly dead
about a doornail.'
And then he just rambles on about the different types of nails that might be considered more
dead than a doornail.
It's almost PG Wodehouse-esque, it really is so funny.
So basically, you don't need to be intimidated by Charles Dickens, you might find that his
writing actually takes you by surprise.
Now another new film that's been taking people by surprise that's upcoming soon is a new
adaptation of Emma by Jane Austen.
So the trailer very much calls it Jane Austen's beloved comedy, which is exactly how I've
always thought of Jane Austen's books, I really do think they are comedies, but that's not
the way a lot of people are taught to think about them at school.
But Emma is the inspiration behind the film Clueless, it's a rom com!
And Emma gets into all the same kind of hilarious scrapes that Cher does in Clueless, trying
to set up her friends who aren't right for each other, constantly misreading the situation
and just generally making everything so much worse.
And Jane Austen writes the most hilarious characters.
So in Emma alone we get Mr Woodhouse, who's Emma's father, and a hypochondriac to the
extreme.
He's scared of basically all food, and weather, and all situations, and thinks that everyone
else is just suffering through everything they claim to enjoy.
And there's also Mrs Elton, who's this completely ridiculous kind of vulgar woman who never
stops talking.
One of my favourite scenes in the book is when they go strawberry picking, and Mrs Elton's
rambling on about strawberries takes up like half a page, and you literally see her wearing
herself out with talking, it's hilarious.
And that's not even mentioning some of Jane Austen's funniest characters from other books,
like the incredibly rude Mr Palmer in Sense and Sensibility who was played by Hugh Laurie
in the film adaptation there, the very pretentious Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice.
And even the 'good' characters get made fun of.
Noone is safe from Jane Austen's scathing wit.
Now a book with a title that's become almost more famous than the book itself is Catch
22 by Joseph Heller.
This is a very long book, and it's set during WW2, which might put off some people who are
intimidated by classics.
But that is only because they don't yet know how darkly funny this book is.
The whole book is a satire of the politics of war, using increasingly ridiculous and
exaggerated rules and policies, encountered by our main character Captain John Yossarian,
whose main mission throughout the book is just to stay alive.
And the Catch 22 of the novel is this policy where the only way to get out of flying with
the air force is if you are crazy, and therefore it's unsafe.
But if you declare yourself crazy and unsafe to fly, you're demonstrating a rational mind
and therefore you're not crazy, and have to fly.
Catch 22.
And then a book that was initially a parody, but has actually outlived the books that it
was making fun of and become funny in its own right, is Cold Comfort Farm by Stella
Gibbons.
So this was written in the 30s, and is a parody of the very romanticised accounts of rural
life that were very popular at that time.
So our heroine here is Flora Poste, who decides to take advantage of the fact that there are
no societal rules about how much you are and aren't allowed to impose on your own relatives,
and so she sets off to stay with her relatives on Cold Comfort Farm in Sussex.
And of course, each of the farm's inhabitants have their own deep emotional problems, and
the farm is really badly run, so Flora has to come in with her 20th century values and
modern sensibilities, and fix all of their problems.
And you don't have to have read or even know anything about the type of books that this
one is making fun of, the weird and wonderful characters are just fun on their own.
Now Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith was described by Evelyn Waugh as
'the funniest book in the world', and seeing as I find Evelyn Waugh's books some of the
funniest in the world, that is very high praise.
So Diary of a Nobody chronicles just over a year in the life of Charles Pooter, who
is this middle aged, middle class clerk in the City of London, who considers himself
above almost everyone else around him.
And Pooter's totally unself-aware arrogance, and quite how seriously he takes himself,
is the basis for just how funny this book is.
As well as the frequent times that his delusions about himself are punctured by various embarrassing
social gaffes.
And then, as I mentioned Evelyn Waugh, his book Vile Bodies is one of my favourite funny
classics.
Though again, like a lot of the other books on this list, it can be very sad.
So it's set in the period between the wars, though interestingly it was written before
World War 2 started, and yet it predicts that another war is coming.
And it satirises the Bright Young Things who were very popular, partying in London during
that time, as well as the press who reported on their every move.
And the first half is much more light hearted, much more in keeping with the style of Waugh's
previous book Decline and Fall.
Whereas the second half has this notable shift to be much more depressing.
And Evelyn Waugh said that was due to the fact that his marriage broke down while he
was writing it, and you really can see the shift.
And yet the book keeps this dark humour going the whole way through.
And Vile Bodies is funny on so many levels.
So you've got these completely ridiculous characters and situations, you've got Evelyn
Waugh's fantastic turn of phrase and way of describing people, but also a lot of the humour
comes from quite how short and sharp he is.
So some of the saddest moments in the book are told in this really jarringly matter of
fact way, which kind of makes you laugh in surprise at them.
And finally, back to a very old classic, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
So everyone's heard of these, but might not know anything about them, especially the fact
that a lot of them are very funny, and quite raunchy.
So The Miller's Tale for example is a completely ridiculous story, involving lots of fart jokes
and bare bottoms hanging out of windows.
And The Summoner's Tale is basically one long fart jokes.
I think that's pretty much what they found funny in the Middle Ages.
So I'd love to know your favourite funny classics, especially the books that you weren't expecting
to make you laugh when you went into them.
Do leave a comment below and let us know your recommendations.
And then do definitely come and pay Jarndyce a visit.
This is this really incredible bookshop, with a huge range of books for classics-lovers
and collectors, from really valuable first editions to much more affordable ones, and
even facsimiles of first editions.
And it's just, if you love classics, or even if you are just getting started with loving
classics, it's just such a beautiful shop to browse around, I've been having such a
nice time here this morning.
So leave a book emoji in the comments to let us know you're going to come and visit, and
also do hit that subscribe button below for new videos every week.
Coming up next week, we're talking about our favourite steamy books, so get excited for
that.
And in the meantime you can always go over and follow us on Instagram @bookbreakuk.
See you next time.