Comic novel, where art thou?

While Wodehouse was the master of this genre, there have been other great modern writers who carried the torch. At the literary end we had Evelyn Waugh in the 1920s and 1930s. Then there was Kingsley Amis from the 1950s until the 1990s. At the popular end, in the 1970s there were the comedic adventures of the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser and the black humour of Tom Sharpe. In the 1980s there were huge sales for Douglas Adams comedy science fiction, adapting his radio series Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And in the 1990s the highest selling fiction author of the entire decade in Britain was Terry Pratchett and the comic fantasy of his Discworld series.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I think there are two trends that explain the current exile of the comedic novel from the high table of popular and literary fiction. The first is the decline of reading amongst teenage boys and the second the censorious social media age we live in.

The loss of teenage male readers to gaming, Tik Tok and online pornography means there is less scope for comedy writers to find an audience. In the past it tended to be young male readers that first discovered comedy novels, with the rest of the reading public following in their wake. This was certainly true of both Wodehouse and Pratchett. Would a modern Wodehouse or Pratchett even be allowed to publish enough books to find an audience today?

The second key factor is the censorious age of social media and the rise of the awful sensitivity reader. Social media is awash with phoney “concerns” for people’s feelings, which is just a cover for seeking to cancel anyone or anything that keyboard warriors happen to dislike. Policing offence is the very death of comedy. Throw in a sensitivity reader and the comic novelist is doomed.

Take the first Flashman novel, written from the point of view of a cowardly, bigoted Victorian soldier blundering around Afghanistan, lusting over any passing attractive woman. Were the manuscript of this novel to be presented to a modern sensitivity reader as a new historical novel, the reader would no doubt, after a chapter or two, run screaming from the room. They might even try to get the police to arrest the author for multiple hate crimes. Yet the Flashman Papers (the name given to novels from the conceit that the author discovered the papers) have appealed to the teenage boy sensibilities of men of all ages since they have been published, especially those men in their 30s and 40s who wanted to escape the responsibility of their work and families.  There are also many female readers who enjoy them for their humour and deep knowledge of the nineteenth century.

Flashman (The Flashman Papers)
by George MacDonald Fraser

The literary end of the comic novel is not in great shape either. The funniest book I have read, written in the last ten years, is Original Prin by Randy Boyagoda, published in 2018. To read a comic take on the modern world was such a relief, after the doom scrolling of social media. When not writing comic novels, Randy Boyagoda is a Professor of English at the University of Toronto in Canada, a perfect place to see many comic situations and unintentional comedy.

Original Prin by Randy Boyagoda

But the way I came to read this novel is telling. I was attending a literary festival at which Professor Boyagoda was speaking. His address was not primarily about his own work, but I so enjoyed his speech that I ordered his book and greatly enjoyed it. As this anecdote shows, I discovered this great comedic writer not from the newspapers, television or a podcast, let alone a bookshop, but by pure happenstance.

The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

If this article on comedy writing is a depressing one so far, there is hope. The absurdities of our age mean that someone at some point will break through the sensitivity readers and scolds on social media and a comedy masterpiece will be a hit, opening the floodgates for other comedic novels. Until this happy day arrives I would recommend readers who have not already enjoyed any of the following to give them a go: The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, Flashman at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser, Mort by Terry Pratchett and Original Prin by Randy Boyagoda. That lot should tide any reader over for a while and all the above authors have many other comedic novels you can enjoy as well, if you like the above.

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

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