Funny, even if irrelevant, bits in a novel

Donald Westlake's happy band of crooks books usually have bits that make me laugh out loud..especially the driver and his mom when they get into deep discussions of get-away routes.

Just thought of a movie moment in Small Time Crooks as they are tunneling from bakery to vault, one guy complains he can't see. Another points out he is wearing his miner's helmet backwards, the light thrown back. The first guy explains,"It looks better like this."

I like that bit from the movie, nextone!

Please recommend some Westlakes. I've read him with pleasure in the past but don't really know that much about him.

Tartarin,
Where to begin, where to begin. Westlake makes Stephen King look blocked. Any library or bookstore should have many of his titles from the 60's through the present. The happy band of crooks is master-minded by Dortmunder, so look for this character in the blurb.
Here are a few I remember:
What's The Worst That Could Happen?
Don't Ask
Trust Me on This
Baby, Would I Lie?
Bank Shot
The Busy Body
Bank Shot

Happy reading!

Scratch second Bank Shot.

Add The Hot Rock.

Your favorite?

Hard to remember and choose over forty years. Try What's The Worst That Could Happen?

Another fine, funny writer is George Baxt...A Queer Kind of Death.

Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment

Dostoyevsky packs this novel full of the type of thing you guys have been discussing. Much of the dialogue seems to sidetrack if only for a few sentences. For instance, when Raskolnikov is asking Sonia how she found his place, a few details seem out of place. Even the description of the mysterious man overhearing the exchange seems out of place. And while most things find a way to fit into the story as a whole, some things still are left dangling. These dangling portions build throughout the whole book to an almost hysterical climax of its own. So, while there is no particular part in the book that answers your question, the whole thing does. It's a good read if you haven't yet.

I have memories of laughing reading two books that apparently don't cause any laughter in others. I read these many years ago, so I barely remember the storylines much less the particular incidents. One was Dickens' David Copperfield and the other was Beau Geste (PC Wren)..

I read both when I was 17, maybe THAT was the problem.

On Westlake, I think he has also written under other names.

I've read Bergson ("De le Rire": engl: "On Laughter"). As best as I can recall, he thought Moliere was really funny. I thought Freud had more interesting things to say about humor in "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious."

As for D'Artagnan's original question: Nicolai Gogol's "Dead Souls" has incredibly funny digressions throughout the novel. The same is the case with Joseph Heller's "Catch-22." And Laurence Stern's "Tristram Shandy" is, in truth, nothing but a comic digression.

I just bought a new translation of "Don Quixote" and I'm looking forward to that from the point of view of amusing digressions. I read it many, many years ago...