I was in the car a few days ago and the Beatles’ All You Need is Love came on the radio. My sons love the Beatles, so everyone was singing along, but I was giggling in my seat so much Hubby asked me what I was laughing at.
Of course, when you describe a book scene to someone who hasn’t read the book, the scene is NEVER as funny, but when I hear that song, I think of one of the final scenes of Julia Spencer-Fleming’s I Shall Not Want wherein a crew of folks, including the heroine, are driving away from a pot-smoke-filled crime scene, high as kites, singing that song. I laughed when I read it, and I laugh when I hear the song and think of that scene.
Vivid writing and dialogue stick in my memory like nothing else – especially from books. I’ve said before that if you mention the word “Gumpy” to me I will totally crack up – all due to this scene:
There was a loud bang, a flash erupted from the gun barrel, and the chicken carcass jumped on its plate.
“Holy mother of God!” my mother shrieked, leaping to her feet, knocking her chair over.
“Dang,” Grandma said, “guess I left the wrong hole empty.” She leaned forward to examine her handiwork. “Not bad for my first time with a gun. I shot that sucker right in the gumpy.”
One For the Money – Janet Evanovich
And then again –
“I shot a chicken once,” Grandma explained to Morelli. “It was an accident.”
I could see Morelli searching for a reply. “Where did you shoot it?” he finally asked.
“In the gumpy,” Grandma said. “Shot it clear off.”
Two for the Dough – Janet Evanovich
I love how scenes and words and moments in books can make me laugh long after I’ve finished them – even, sometimes, long after I’ve forgotten which book it was, but I remember the characters and what they said.
So what scenes in a book have made you laugh and laugh? Is there a word that makes you howl more than “gumpy?”
LMMB’s dinner party in A Civil Campaign is fantastic.
Laura London’s Gypsy Heiress has a scene that always makes me crack up…the rakish lord is kissing “a village wench” in the forest at May Day night trying to forget the aforementioned heiress. Of course, he realizes it’s actually the woman he’s trying to stay away from, gets angry at her for being in that situation and then has a side of raw meat thrown at him by the plucky sidekick. (She and the heroine were werewolf hunting with valium-soaked beef). He is both incredulous and scathing, in equally amusing parts.
Sugarless said
OMG! That was THE funniest book review I have ever read. In fact, I’m going to dig in the archives and read it again. I love you Sarah, but man, I miss Candy!
Meg Cabot frequently has me rolling on the floor in uncontrollable laughter but the scenes between Meena and the Vampire Slayer in her apartment in “Insatiable” set a new laughter pinnacle for me. When she’s standing behind him pantomiming “call the police” to her brother and he just says, without turning around, “Meena Harper. I can see you. Stop it.” Bwah. Bwahahaha.
And every time someone mentions fondant I can’t help thinking about “Agnes and The Hitman” and Agnes nonchalantly wiping the blood off the tubs. Priceless.
Julie said: As Forrest Gump would say “Right in the Buttocks”, is the gumpy.
Ah, now I get it—I guess I was at least in the same field of reference, sorta. This made me think of the movie Ensign Pulver in which Robert Walker, Jr. (Ensign Pulver) refers to this anatomy as “byou-tocks.”
Yes!!!! I totally forgot about that! I laughed so hard I cried when I read that!
*Goes to reread Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason*
The Crusie line that *still* cracks me up is from GETTING RID OF BRADLEY:
(say it along with me, everyone)
“Oh no! Dead dog!”
Was it in Edge of Reason where Bridget interviewed Colin Firth so…delightfully? That was funny.
Lula, on a high-protein diet, with a purse full of bacon, being chased down the road by dogs. I don’t remember anything else in that book, but that scene still makes me snort in a viscous and unattractive manner.
I get a big smile when I remember the scene in Jaid Black’s “The Empress’ New Clothes” where the empress, tired of being trying to fit into her new life, has run off to a very tough bar filled with the worst planetary riff-raff (think seven-foot ex-cons and worse). After several potent drinks, she has them all singing, and performing the moves to “Y.M.C.A.”
My husband had to come and check on me because I couldn’t stop laughing. BTW, it’s an erotic romance.
There is a scene in Pratchett’s Witches Abroad where Nanny, Granny and Magrat are floating down the river and this weird little dude paddles up to the boat and starts talking about his birthday. Granny picks up the paddle and smacks him. (She can’t be having with that!) Now, when I hear the phrase “My presciousssss” I no longer think of Tolkien…
Another Pratchett catch-phrase: “Made from apples, mostly…”
I also love Heyer’s The Grand Sophy. One of the many hilarious scenes has Sophy driving the smug, oh-so-proper Miss Wraxton down St. James past all the gentleman’s clubs after Miss W. implies that Sophy’s unwise behavior might be forgiven by society if Sophy is seen to have Miss W.‘s sanction. Sophy’s response is to immediately test this assertion in the most outrageous way possible. You’re right, Sarah, the scene loses much in the retelling, but it’s way too long to quote. TGS may not be my absolute favorite Heyer, but it is the one that I can pick up any time and know that I will laugh…and that’s having read it maybe a half dozen times already.
Ah, Grandma Mazur gets all the best lines. Although I must say that sometimes Ranger can make me spit out my tea with a well-timed, “Babe.”
My fav. scene is from Julia Quinn – the Bridgerton brothers are always hilarious. I particularly love how Colin’s always eating. Too funny. But what takes the cake in the whole series is Anthony in and Kate in “The Viscount Who Loved Me.” The scene where Kate’s dog leads them on a merry chase ultimately ending in Anthony soaking wet thanks to Kate. Those two were hilarious. It was also sexy as hell. You can’t make it easy for the man. Honestly! 😀
There are so many, but here’s a few of my favourites (or at least the ones I can think of right now anyway)
The Watertower in Jenny Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation
Kate’s disastrous dates in Crusie’s Manhunting
and, definitely the turkey scene in All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgins
One of my all time Favs (and which I found here on the bitchery) Lord of Scoundrels:
Jim Butcher has so many LOL moments that it’s hard to pick just one, but I was re-reading Dead Beat last night and the scene with Harry riding the zombie dinosaur through downtown Chicago made me laugh so hard that I woke up my hubby.
Of course, with Colin Firth playing Mark Darcy they couldn’t put it in the film (which IMO was no way as funny as the book) BUT if you get the DVD they shot it as an extra scene. Bridget interviewing Colin Firth, asking him repeatedly about the wet shirt moment. Brilliant.
In “An Ice Cold Grave” by Charlaine Harris there is a scene where Tolliver and Harper are having sex and she offers to go down on him. In her mind she is thinking, about how men are so happy to just have sex that even basic cable sex is good to them. Then she thinks that she is premium cable. As she begins to pleasure him she looks up at him and says “Just think of me as HBO baby”. It is not nearly as funny written out here, but now every time someone mentions they want premium cable or have premium cable I burst out into howling laughter completely confusing them.
Another post has reminded me that I have had some real gut busters reading Shelley Laurenston’s books, in particular Here Kitty Kitty and anything involving bears. She is just all kinds of bawdy good fun.
One scene that always makes me laugh in K.A.Mitchell’s Collision Course (yay for M/M) is one where one of the main character’s has his sister come visit after a fight with the other love interest.
I just found that line amazingly hilarious when I first read it.
Everytime I read the word “coochie” in any book I get the giggles like a 10-year old schoolboy. The first time I saw it in print was in a Joshilyn Jackson novel (not sure which one).
The “Fucking her ass; saving her life.” line was priceless though. That review was one of the funniest things I’ve ever read in my life!
And as I’m reading the lastest Temeraire book. Everytime little Emily Roland hits Lawrence in the face with the facts of life, I just giggle like a girl.
LMcB’s Civil Campaign is always snort-worthy.
There’s a scene in Stella Riley’s Marigold Chain where the hero and the heroine go to a Grand Banquet and Masque in celebration of the King’s Restoration and Birthday. It involves a meal of distressingly many courses, followed by a play with diabolically bad verse, caterwauling muses, a limp masted ship and a tree stuck in the scenery. Not to mention the free range doves of peace. And the pikes.
It made me howl the first time I read it and even now, god knows how many rereadings later, despite much anticipation of the best lines, it still gets me, every time.
“Damn skippy” is one of my most overused phrases and it comes straight from Stephanie Plum.
T. Pratchett is my favorite author of all time bar none no exceptions, b/c he is so funny and so deep at the same time. In one of books featuring Moist Von Lipwig – it might be the one about making money – he says of a female character “she was content to let self-regard do the work of self-respect.” One of the best lines ever, and I’ve known quite a few women (and men) it applies to.
I hesitate to read Pratchett or Christopher Moore in public because I laugh out loud every other page or so.
I have numerous Terry Pratchett “maniacal laughter moments.” A favorite is from (I think) Lords and Ladies.
Nanny has taken Casanunda up for a ride on her broom. They pass over a “standing stones” monument, and Casanunda is shocked at what they look like from the air.
Nanny chides him that he had to know that rock formations like that meant something, and Casanunda replies,
“Yes, but I didn’t think they meant ‘I have a great big tonker.’”
Just thinking the word tonker makes me giggle.
Just about any scene with Crowley in Pratchett and Gaiman’s Good Omens. And roughly the last third of Heyer’s Devil’s Cub reduces me to hysterical giggling every single time.
Oh! And any scene with Bouncer in The Reluctant Widow (also Heyer).
I have to agree with Donna about Shelley Laurenston.
In her latest, Beast Behaving Badly, I nearly stayed up all night, giggling madly. Between vindictive badgers attacking Blayne in New York City, and Blayne tormenting Dee, I was a happy camper.
There are a lot of awesomely funny scenes in books (Terry Pratchett and Jennifer Crusie always make me laugh, even when I don’t love the book), but for words, sometimes when people are talking about spice racks I start to laugh hysterically.
In Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta, one of the boy characters tells the four girls “We call you Bitch Spice, Stupid Spice, Butch Spice, and Slut Spice” and they spend three pages debating who is who. The whole thing is amazingly funny, but the best line is when one girl (who it was decided was Slut Spice) says when one of the other girls offers to take that name, “No. Not possible. Because what would that make me? I’m not stupid, nor am I bitchy” and the other girl says “Siobhan, you’re the whole spice rack as far as some people are concerned.”
I’ve probably reread that thing seventy times and I still laugh my ass off each time.
I pretty much can’t look at a porsche cayenne without thinking of Ranger.
And the word Orangina always makes me think of Meg Cabot books.
I just wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone who has recommended Lord of Scoundrels. I bought it today to read on the train on the way home from work. It’s fantastic.
This! Yes! I’ve read most of Bujold’s superlative Vorkosigan series more than once, but this scene still has me sitting with laff/tears pouring down my face because it’s so Vor-massively funny!
Delurking for the first time:
I was re-reading volume 1 of Sharing Knife on the bus home today and kept having to bite my tongue for the whole four pages or so where Dag tries to answer Fawn’s questions about sex. Probably the funniest lines: ‘And now his arousal had grown to serious physical discomfort. Atop a horse, of all things. There were many things not to try on a horse, even one as good-natured as this mare. He couldn’t avoid remembering several of them, which didn’t help.’
There are two other scenes I’ve read recently which actually did make me laugh out loud (fortunately when I was at home alone). In Kushiel’s Chosen, very near the end: ‘“She would have given her heart to you, would you have accepted it, but you chose your own course instead.”
“I didn’t know,” Joscelin whispered, paling slightly. For all that I loved him, he could be a bit of an idiot about some things.’
And in Cotillion, I think every scene where Freddy talks to his father, but this line takes the cake: ‘Mr Standen thought this over, and came to the conclusion that there was only one way in which his unfortunate relative could be helped. “If you’re hatching a scheme to poison Aunt Augusta, I won’t have anything to do with it!” he said.’
Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul by Douglas Adams is the funniest book – the scene with the decapitated head on the record player spinning around with music playing . . . Oh, oh, and the kid in the attic that the hero tries to talk to so he unplugs the TV to get the kid’s attention only to get a bloody nose -AND he tells the cops to not turn off the TV . . . But of course they do . . . Man, I DID pee my pants a little I was laughing so hard. OH – and the whole Zen method of navigating the car, just too funny and also explains so much about men’s thing about asking directions.
I also buy all Donald E. Westlake’s Dortmunder books and his earlier books like Help I’m being held Prisoner about what happens to a practical joker when he’s sentenced to prison for a public prank (two mannikins in an explicit sexual position by the side if the freeway during morning rush hour and resulting in a pile up) who tries to clean up his act only to get blamed for things he didn’t do.
forgot – the prisoner in question traces his thing with practical jokes back to his parents not changing their surname when they immigrated from Germany – Kuntz with an umlaut.ROTFLOL!
OK, just remembered this one from Michelle Kasey “Remember to eat your peas.”
Someone’s already mentioned Crowley in “Good Omens”—it took me forever to finish that book because I would laugh so hard I couldn’t see the pages. Dorothy L. Sayers has a scene in “Busman’s Honeymoon” where the unflappable Bunter is overcome with horror because a case of port has been shaken into undrinkability. And any time William Dunford appears in a Bridgerton book, I’m caught between laughing and swooning.
There’s a scene in Judith Merkle Riley’s “The Master of All Desires” where the heroine is trying to catch a head (the kind that isn’t attached to the body, not the other kind) that’s rolling around the floor and swearing in fury at the indignity…for some reason, I found that scene hilarious.
The world is filled with great writers, but the latest funniest author I’ve read is Ilona Andrews on her Kate Daniels series. Kate’s well-timed, “Why me?” is on par with Ranger’s “Babe”, if not above.
Basically every time I read a Kate Daniels book, I can expect to have a good time. A scene that sticks out more than the rest was on book 3, about The Games. Kate was calling Saiman to register their ragtag team as a participant in the Games, and Saiman asked for a team name.
Everybody pitched in with names driven by delusions of grandeur, until Doc Doolittle said, “Fools.”
Kate said, “Fools.”
Saiman asked, “Fools?” and I proceeded to laugh so hard I almost broke a rib.
“The Accidental Demon Slayer” by Angie Fox. The part where Lizzie wants to have hot motel sex with Dimitri but he keeps trying to stop her to talk about their feelings, even as she is unzipping his blue jeans with her teeth. It’s such a gender role reversal and her frustration is hilarious to me.
Also, I always crack up when I reread “Bet Me” by Jennifer Crusie. The fact that the universe is trying desperatly to hurt them when they try to stay away from each other is so funny to me.