FRENZIED FICTION. (1918). Stephen Leacock. ***.tLeacock (1809-1944) was born in England, but moved to Canada with his family at a young age. He was a professional writer, but became popular for his humorous pieces. He was considered one of the best wits around during his hayday, and had a significant influence on the humor of Groucho Marx and Jack Benny. It was said that more people knew of Stephen Leacock than knew of Canada. Be all that a it may, I don’t think he is read very widely today. When I was very young, I remember reading several of his ‘nonsense’ books and liking them. When I found several of his books available on Kindle, I thought I’d try some others. This volume is a collection of short pieces that were previously published in a variety of magazines and then brought together under this title. Leacock covered a variety of subjects using his personal brand of humor, including spydom, reflections on Washington Irving’s Father Knickerbocker, the politically-based know-it-all, spiritualism, etc. Some of the pieces brought a smile to my face, while others actually made me laugh out loud. His satires managed to go right to the heart of his subjects and to find the hanging points we all have usually found for ourselves at some time or another. I’d recommend that you dig into some Leacock when you can. You can probably pick pieces at random to get an idea of his sense of humor. I have no idea how well he wrote his ‘serious’ pieces, but I’ll probably get around to some of them.
