a meme (yes, it's marking season) from fjm

[woolymonkey]

I know very little about some of the people on my friends list. Some people I know relatively well. But here's a thought: why not take this opportunity to tell me a little something about yourself. Any old thing at all. Just so the next time I see your name I can say: "Ah, there's Parker ...she likes money and cereal." I'd love it if everyone who's friended me did this. (Yes, even you people who I know really well.) Then post this in your own journal. In return, ask me anything you'd like to know about me and I'll give you an answer.

Comments

[doubtingmichael.livejournal.com]

When I was seventeen, I found a copy of R A Lafferty's Fourth Mansions in a charity bookshop in a seaside town in Devon. When I got to the end, I felt as if my mind had been reorganised.

Random question: who do you think is the best writer of humour?

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

I don't know about 'best' because they feel too different to measure against each other but the ones I keep coming back to are
Terry Pratchett for combining wit, parody, and wisdom
P G Woodhouse for escapism and great turns of phrase
Sellar and Yeatman's !066 and All That, probably because so much of my life has been concerned with assessment: my own, my students', my kids'...
Am I allowed TV shows? The Thick of It is brilliantly written and I suppose I just like nasty satirical humour aimed at human stupidity. Monty Python and Black Adder, of course (the Shakespeare parody of BA season 1 is under-appreciated and I especially like the logical paradox lines in Python: "We are all individuals." "I'm not."). And the best bit of Buffy and Joss Whedon in general.

[doubtingmichael.livejournal.com]

That is an excellent selection. Personally, I'd add Jasper Fforde, Robert Sheckley and probably Douglas Adams. But everyone on your list would be on mine too.

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

Douglas Adams, yes. He could easily have been on my list. But I've not read the other two. Where would you suggest starting?

[doubtingmichael.livejournal.com]

Jasper Fforde started off excellent, and if anything, got a little stale in later books. So begin at the beginning, with the Eyre Affair.

Sheckley, who was a big influence on Adams, was at his best in short stories. There must be lots of second hand collections around, say at conventions, and that's probably the best place to start. There are some free online at http://www.freesfonline.de/authors/Robert_Sheckley.html, but I think they are all early work, before he became so funny - I think he was quite liberated by the 1960s counterculture.

And I maybe should have mentioned Georgette Heyer as well. Her comic romances don't have the linguistic fireworks of Wodehouse, but apart from that, I think she's his equal. A would happily lend you a few to try.

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

They're going on my reading list. I confess I didn't realise Georgette Heyer was funny so would never have tried her if you hadn't enlightened me.

I want to add Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm to my list. It wasn't on my mental shortlist because I only recently discovered it - saw it in a charity shop and remembered my dad used to love it. Very funny and pushes my parody button as well as my Sussex childhood and never-quite-got-Jane-Austen buttons.