[pjungwir]

I will +1 Moby Dick. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's all you said and also funny. Isn't it? It's a dry kind of humor, like the kind your strange professor would drop into lectures and you'd almost miss it, but if you're attentive you'll notice. I mean he spends like 3 chapters on scrimshaw, right? Or the stuff about sharing a bed with Queequeg. It is a lot like Ulysses: huge, experimental, demanding, but full of jokes. Some of the jokes are in the style/language/writing itself.

Incidentally, another crusty old book that I've decided is also meant to be funny is the book of Jonah. That's one you can read in 10 minutes. Just read it. Here:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/r/rsv/rsv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=3...

I won't give away the punchline, but I'm pretty sure it is a punchline.