A comic novel is a novel-length work of humorous fiction. Many well-known authors have written comic novels, including P. G. Wodehouse , Henry Fielding , Mark Twain , and John Kennedy Toole . Comic novels are often defined by the author's literary choice to make the thrust of the work—in its narration or plot—funny or satirical in orientation, regardless of the putative seriousness of the topics addressed.
12-495: The Hippopotamus (1994) is a comic novel by Stephen Fry . Written in part as an epistolary novel , it is largely narrated by the main character Edward "Ted" Wallace. Wallace is an alcoholic washed-up poet and theatre critic who, having been fired from his newspaper job, accepts a lucrative commission from his terminally ill goddaughter to investigate rumours of miracle healings at Swafford Hall, country mansion of Wallace's old friend Lord Logan. The novel's title comes from
24-442: A Foundling was a notable mid-18th century work in the genre. More contemporary British humorists are George MacDonald Fraser , Tom Sharpe , Kingsley Amis , Terry Pratchett , Richard Gordon , Rob Grant , Douglas Adams , Evelyn Waugh , Anthony Powell , Nick Hornby , Helen Fielding , Eric Sykes , Leslie Thomas , Stephen Fry , Richard Asplin , Mike Harding , Joseph Connolly , and Ben Elton . James Joyce 's Ulysses
36-447: A bathtub.) The title and epigraph imply as well one of the novel's themes: the practicality of poetry and how that helps Wallace, a poet, regard the "miracles" in the story with a sceptical eye. The "hippo" of the title (occasionally referred to as "the happy hippo" and given to wallowing in long baths) is Edward (Ted/Tedward) Lennox Wallace, an aging, lecherous, one-time hell-raising poet, reduced by diminishing poetic talent to working as
48-518: A colourful and credible back story. The story is run through with a stream of sexual practices, some more unusual than others, as Ted uncovers the means by which David delivers his 'healing'. The story contains several (spoof) poems and limericks . A film of The Hippopotamus was shot in 2015 and released in 2017. The film was directed by John Jencks and stars Roger Allam as Ted Wallace and Matthew Modine as Lord Michael Logan. Russell Tovey , Scott Chambers and Rod Glenn also star. The script
60-477: A theatre critic. The story opens with the aftermath of Ted being fired from his job on a newspaper. At the suggestion of a sick god-daughter, Jane (suffering from leukaemia ), he goes to stay at the Norfolk country house of old schoolfriend and Army colleague from National Service , Lord Michael Logan and his wife Lady Anne, to investigate unspecified mysterious goings-on. Ted reports back to Jane regularly, in
72-539: Is a satirical critique in its very origin, for example, must be understood differently than a more literal novelistic plot. One of the most notable British comic novelists is P. G. Wodehouse , whose work follows on from that of Jerome K. Jerome , George Grossmith , and Weedon Grossmith (see The Diary of a Nobody ) . Saki 's work is also significant, although his career was cut short by World War I . A. G. Macdonell and G. K. Chesterton also produced flights of whimsy. Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones,
84-451: Is by theatre director and writer Blanche McIntyre and Tom Hodgson, writer of Seve , the 2014 biopic of Seve Ballesteros . Comic novel Novels, books, plays, and many works of fiction or art can certainly contain and include passages or themes that are comic, humorous or satirical , but the defining characteristic of this genre is that comedy is the framework and baseline of the story, rather than an occasional or recurring motif. It
96-402: Is considered by some to be a comic novel. Notable American comic novelists include Mark Twain , Richard Brautigan , Philip Roth , John Kennedy Toole , James Wilcox , John Swartzwelder , Larry Doyle , Jennifer Weiner , Carl Hiaasen , Joseph Heller , Peter De Vries , Thomas Pynchon , Kurt Vonnegut , Terry Southern , and Christopher Moore . Iraj Pezeshkzad This article about
108-481: Is in the hope that he might bestow his 'talent' upon them that they have descended upon Swafford Hall. Among the assembled guests are a witty and hugely camp but rebarbative defrocked minister and TV producer, a businessman and his wife and rather gawky teenage daughter, a friend of Jane's, and Jane's mother, a woman Ted crossed paths with disastrously many years earlier. The life stories of the tycoon Logan and his family, as well as Ted's own, are intertwined to provide
120-421: Is the through-line and organizing genre for the novel's tone, orientation and sensibility. A reader is not expected to 'find' or 'discover' a humorous moment within the reality of the text, rather, humor is the ongoing mood, like a comedy movie, rather than a movie that has some comedy or laughs within it. Literary scholars distinguish textual analysis on this basis; the theory being that a story by Mark Twain that
132-509: The form of long, rambling letters, apprising her of events at Swafford Hall whilst also offering his views on numerous other issues (women, art, poetry, sex, morality and modern life being favourite topics), all the time attempting to uncover the nature of the unusual events that Jane has instructed him to look out for. Over the course of his stay it gradually becomes apparent that other house guests are ascribing healing powers to one of Logan's children, David (Ted's other godchild), and indeed it
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#1732779757122144-439: The poem of the same name by T. S. Eliot , whose first verse is quoted as the epigraph: The broad-backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us He is merely flesh and blood. The title draws comparisons between the animal as described in the poem and the main character, Ted Wallace, a slovenly man who enjoys long baths. (Hence cover designs picturing an actual hippopotamus or Fry himself in
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