P. G. Wodehouse & James Thurber
There are two authors I’d like to talk about as I close Agonson’s Top Ten. My father would read each of them to me as a child, and together we’d laugh hysterically. These two have to be the funniest writers to ever live. Wodehouse, I fear, is the better known, though more so it is his work which is better known; His characters of Jeeves and Wooster had a very popular television show, but my friends who love the show often have never heard of the original author. You just about can’t go wrong with a Wodehouse novel. Thurber, as well, had a great genius for humor. My father would read My Life in Hard Times, a memoir of sorts chronicling the insanity of Thurber’s childhood (The Night the Ghost Got In is one of my favorites). Both had a great influence on me, though that influence was at such an early stage of development that it is hard to quantify. Some of my happiest memories are of sitting down as my father would read one of these two great humorists; we would sometimes laugh so hard we wouldn’t be able to go on. I hope one day to share similar memories with someone.
Tale Told 