THIS week I want to look at humorous novels.

In truth there are relatively few literary examples of these. First to come to mind are the works of PG Wodehouse – especially the Jeeves and Wooster stories; Evelyn Waugh’s novels; Dickens’ Pickwick Papers; Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. There are many comic scenes and comic characters in English fiction (eg in Pride and Prejudice, A Room with a View) but most of the books themselves aren’t wholly comical.

Two late Victorian works that have remained popular and been an influence on later writers are Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (1889); and Diary of a Nobody (1892) by George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith. But both are ‘one-offs’. Who now reads or performs Jerome’s plays, or has ever heard of his novel Paul Kelver? While the Grossmith brothers published nothing else.

Kingsley Amis’ first novel Lucky Jim (1954) is a modern classic, with some hilarious scenes. Amis wrote a number of other comic novels though I don’t think any quite match up to this first one.

The American writer Joseph Heller’s best-selling Catch 22 (1961) is a dark comedy. I tried reading it many years ago, but gave up, not it finding it funny. However I really enjoyed last year’s TV adaptation.

Interestingly screen and radio adaptations of humorous novels often work really well. There have been many versions of Three Men in a Boat; the PG Wodehouse novels have been adapted several times, with Ian Carmichael playing Wooster in the 1960s, and Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie memorable as Jeeves and Wooster in the 1990s. Ian Carmichael also played the lead in the 1957 film of Lucky Jim.

My favourite contemporary comic novelist is David Lodge. His first two books, Ginger, You’re Barmy (1962), about National Service; and The British Museum is Falling Down (1965), a day in the life of a PhD student, both stand the test of time. But it is what has become known as his Campus Trilogy: Changing Places, Small World and Nice Work that I find I return to, and especially the first of these.

Changing Places (1975) is both a satire and a farce about university life. It recounts what happens when two professors of English, one American and one British, swap posts under an exchange programme. Set in 1969 amid student protests at both campuses (thinly disguised Birmingham and Berkeley, California) the novel observes the two academics responding to the very different cultures they encounter.

Changing Places was published when I was an undergraduate studying English. I first read it then and it had an obvious appeal at that time. But I have returned to it since and read it once again only last week. I found it as funny as ever.

I would love to hear from readers about the funniest novel they have ever read, or what they consider to be the funniest scene in English literature.

Lance Christopher

PS Following last week's first column, the Gazette was contacted by Wiltshire library service to point out that although books can indeed be bought as paper copies, or as eBooks via Kindle, they can also be borrowed digitially and, once the coronavirus lockdown has passed, as print copies, from Wiltshire libraries.

Free RBdigital eBooks, eAudio and eMagazines are available from Wiltshire libraries, who have over 2,500 eBooks, over 1,000 eAudiobooks and 38 eMagazines available.

All you need to access them is a Wiltshire library card and an email address so that you can register with RBdigital. If you don’t have a library card, you can join online by completing a form and then receiving an email with your library card number.

More information about this service and a link to the joining form can be found at http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/libraries-ebooks