Books that have made you laugh out loud like a retard in public

Notes From The Underground's first act is funny as hell. I remember being on the metro and just laughing autistically at this remarks about how people with toothache start moaning differently after a couple of days.

The Sound and the Fury

I laughed out loud while reading Don Quixote and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, to the point of tears. But I wasn't in public.

Yea, that was brilliant. I always remember the toothache, as if they enjoy having the pain just so they can complain etc.

Post bitch

Oh I'm not saying any of it's actually good; it probably isn't. But I'm pretty vain, and love reading my own writing. Here's an example:

When I was 16 I was one week late turning in an essay for my elective film class. One night I took adderall and wrote the essay, and then wrote a facetious letter to my teacher arguing that I shouldn't have any points taken off. The tone of the letter was very pompous and arrogant; I remember a lot of the argument having to do with my being an exceptional student to whom the rules do not apply. Throughout the letter there were footnotes written by an exhausted "editor", myself of course, basically contradicting everything I was writing. Looking back the whole thing was a brand of narcissism that can only manifest in a somewhat intelligent teenager, but at the time it was the most amusing thing I'd ever read.

Oh, and I'm currently writing a post-apocalyptic novella set in a war-torn United States wherein travel outside of small villages has been rendered virtually impossible due to the fact that their are leftover landmines practically ever. The protagonist is a landmine defusing prodigy who pursues a string of conspiracy theories culminating in a belief that most of the landmines are actually fake and filled with banana pudding (instead of the booster charge in pic related).

*practically everywhere
forgot pic

>that plot
I sense a small drop of Gravities Rainbow influence

This might be unbelievable, but I actually came up with the idea before having ever read Pynchon, but having now read him I can see where you're coming from. Its good and bad. On the one hand if I ever get published people will think I'm unoriginal. On the other hand publishers might be more inclined to publish me because I appear to be imitating a popular, established author.

Best Seller by Fontanarrosa
I read it in high school during breaks and it annoyed the fuck out of everyone (this includes people in other floors as well) because of how loud I laughed.

Sounds a bit weird to laugh that hard in public tbqh.

There were apparently incidents where Kafka would laugh so hard at what he was writing that the neighbors would place noise complaints

this is the funniest thing i have ever read

and the most it got out of me were small chuckles.

is there anything someone can recommend that will make me crack up like a dipshit? i just cant seem to laugh at literature.

>kafka
i cant even find an english translation. is there one?

I tried to read Candide on the bus but would be constantly on the verge of bursting into hysterics. It invited a lot unwelcome attention. Voltaire is a god.

There are many English translations for Kafka's works.

>and the most it got out of me were small chuckles
If the distinction matters to you, "funny" literature is humorous, rather than funny. Something about the way it's consumed pretty much forbids laugh-out-loud moments. And I don't think it's as simple as reading text somehow interfering with the timing and "flow" that are necessary for a good punchline, as I find myself cracking up about half a dozen times per day at stuff I read on this site. Idk, maybe something that could be explored further? Why the medium isn't conducive to anything more than "small chuckles".

Consider for a second that slapstick humor is pretty much impossible to write, and also that slapstick is pretty much the most universally accessible form of humor (and so maybe is the kernel of humor). Why did I laugh the first time I ever saw webm related, and why do fucking infants of all people (if they really are people) laugh at peek-a-boo? I think there's something going on here that is 1) pretty informative as to the basic essence of laugh-out-loud funny and 2) near impossible to capture in literature.

Also, read Catch-22 if you haven't.

Ulysses

Not funny at all.

Funniest book ever.

you know what i mean, you dipshit

this is a more thoughtful reply i could have asked for. all i can say is...

ill read catch 22

lol Catch-22 and Confederacy of Dunces are my favorite books to read. I have attention problems and despite the strange narration and weird plot structures I don't get frustrated with disruptions like I do with other books. I don't mind having to re-read a page when there's good probability that I'll get a chuckle.

Yeah, you definitely should, it's hilarious. It's great. It's also a bit heartbreaking at times. Basically the "I laughed, I cried..." of literature, or at least of the literature that I've read. I first read it about 10 years ago when I was a wee lad in secondary school, and I've spent about the last 4 years trying to find and read a "better", more "artistic" novel to call my favorite in public, and I've succeeded there, but in private Catch-22 is still my favorite book.
I wonder if anyone wants to say why Catch-22 is so damn funny, or just comment on the mechanics of that book in general. I read somewhere (probably wikipedia) that Heller often reveals the punchline before giving the premise of the joke, and that the same punchline is often prefaced by a variety of premises/scenes, and also that the same scene gives rise to a few different types of punchlines.

No, I really don't.