Trevor Cole’s Favorite Novels
THE BOOKS I REMEMBER and come back to again and again are the novels that manage to combine humor with something serious. In other words, they recognize that the world we live in is a strange mixture of the weird, appalling, beautiful, and hilarious.
Here are five seriously funny novels that influenced my own writing:
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The language is rich and smart. The panorama is vast. The book’s treatment of its subject—society’s hunger for the quick score and the easy fix—enriches our understanding of our world. And it is hugely entertaining. It manages the miracle of treating its characters with enormous empathy and yet also as objects of fun.
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Rushdie’s masterpiece tackles a big and serious subject—the birth of a tragic nation—and so it could have been weighty and self-important. But it is written in a boisterous, informal style that accentuates the absurdities at every turn.
Whale Music by Paul Quarrington
This Canadian novel, about a washed-up, mentally unstable musician named Des Howell who is clearly modeled on the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, combined a deep understanding of human nature and scenes of farcical comedy. As you read Des’s story you laugh at him, but you never stop caring about him. That was very much on my mind as I was writing my first novel Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life.
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
Here’s the story of a teenage boy who may have just massacred sixteen students in his high school, Columbine-style. How can that be funny? Most people would be appalled at the idea. But Vernon God Little, which won the Man Booker prize in 2003, is very funny. The title page includes a subtitle: “A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death.” And if you think about it, it’s when we’re closest to death that we may need laughter the most.
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
This story, about a loser named Quoyle searching for a place to hide or belong, is full of melancholy, and yet it also ripples with humor. Proulx’s imagery is famously poetic, but she mines the setting of Newfoundland for funny character names (Jack Buggit, Diddy Shovel) and colorful language. And she finds ways to make ordinary things sound absurd: “He fell into newspapering by dawdling over greasy saucisson and a piece of bread.”