About book Sunshine Sketches Of A Little Town (2006)
Only in Canada could Stephen Leacock become a renowned humorist.That’s not entirely true – Leacock was supposedly one of the most popular humorists in the English-speaking world way back in the early 1900s – but that Leacock is, to this day, considered one of the foremost Canadian humorists does not speak well of Canadian literature. As a footnote in Canadian history, I could understand Leacock, but as the paterfamilias of Canadian comedy with the most prominent national comedy award named after him? God no.It shouldn’t be surprising though. You would be hard-pressed to find a book more quintessentially Canadian than Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, a collection of vignettes which follow daily life among the citizens of Mariposa, a fictional Northern Ontario town. Bland, milquetoast, uneffacing and as biting as a sea urchin, to call Leacock’s humor understated would be an understatement. There is essentially one joke in the entirety of Sunshine Sketches. That joke, in its many variations, can be summed up as the narrator’s hyperbolic overstatements on Mariposa and its citizens being at odds with the idyllic banality of the town itself and the irritating ignorance of the inhabitants therein.So, for instance, the narrator will state that the hotel proprietor’s promise to keep his money-losing establishment open is completely trustworthy, only to then say that the proprietor put the restaurant up for renovations and that it’s still under renovation to this day.Or the narrator will say that a couple of love-struck adults found that their writing was entirely identical, except that of the boy was messy and slanted and that of the girl was neat and straight.Or the narrator will say that the Mariposa Judge was the most fair and wise Judge you’d ever meet, and then detail some instance where the Judge made a “fair and wise” judgment which kept himself on the bench for another prolonged period of time. Every joke – and I don’t say “every” figuratively – follows this same formula. The narrator says one thing, and the truth is the opposite. If the narrator were to say a terrible tragedy happened to rival the destruction of Pompeii, it would actually be a kid stubbing his toe. If the narrator were to say that a character is a learned scholar, it would be because he got his multiplication table correct on his first try back in elementary school. If the narrator were to say a man is a sexual dynamo, then he’d be so skilled that he finishes in all of ten seconds. This is a very lame type of humor. Nothing funny actually happens; the supposed comedy is all in the telling, but the formula is repeated to the point where you can almost predict the punchlines before Leacock even sets the joke up. The rancid cherry on top is the sickening nostalgia that permeates the whole of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town. Beneath all the sarcastic pronouncements on the grandiosity of Mariposa is the lingering suggestion that there’s actually something endearing about this small town and the people that live in it. In truth, the town sucks and the people in it suck even more. Nothing happens in Mariposa, and it’s a sad day when my boring-ass daily life is actually more eventful than an entire year in a town. The characters are all belligerent shameless morons with no redeeming qualities, and there’s nothing the least bit endearing about any of their despicable antics. Their cheating, lying, swindling, complete idiocy, mean-spiritedness and self-absorption transcend the bounds of endearing quirkiness. It’s actually a bit disturbing to see the gulf between Leacock’s nostalgia-tinted lens and the repulsive antics being played out. Leacock was apparently an admirer of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, and there is certainly something of their style and sense of humor in his writing. It’s easy to see with Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers the type of bumbling, lighthearted comedy Leacock was attempting. However, the absurdity and stupidity of Pickwick and his gang was tempered by their goodhearted intentions, whereas Leacock’s Mr. Smith seems almost sociopathic in comparison. The entire town of Mariposa seems like some strange microcosm of everything that is wrong in the world. It’s some bizarre Canadian version of Hell, where everyone is blandly repulsive and politely insidious.
Wonderful. There's something about the writing of this book that's just infused with joy. Something akin to Robertson Davies or Mark Twain. Leacock manages to turn everyday people's everyday lives to adventures. It's one of those books that should be completely boring but isn't. It's the type of book I wish was ten times longer than it is.It's told in an episodic nature, and each episode focuses on a different character, yet all of the characters recur throughout the book and they're all highly memorable. Even in the brief time you spend with them, you begin to feel like you know the town. And if you've ever lived in a small town you probably do.If you're Canadian, you owe it to yourself to read this book. If you've ever lived in a small town--Canadian or not--this book will probably resonate with you. And, oh lawdy, the last chapter is probably the most touching thing ever written on small town life. I've never been one for patriotism, but it makes me proud to be Canadian. Leacock also seems to be the wittiest writer this side of Oscar Wilde. If you don't believe me, here's a typical passage out of the book (excuse the extended excerpt):Suicide is a thing that ought not to be committed without very careful thought. It often involves serious consequences, and in some cases brings pain to others than oneself.I don't say that there is no justification for it. There often is. Anybody who has listened to certain kinds of music, or read certain kinds of poetry, or heard certain kinds of performances upon the concertina, will admit that there are some lives which ought not to be continued, and that even suicide has its brighter aspects.But to commit suicide on grounds of love is at the best a very dubious experiment. I know that in this I am expressing an opinion contrary to that of most true lovers who embrace suicide on the slightest provocation as the only honourable termination of an existence that never ought to have begun.I quite admit that there is a glamour and a sensation about the thing which has its charm, and that there is nothing like it for causing a girl to realize the value of the heart that she has broken and which breathed forgiveness upon her at the very moment when it held in its hand the half-pint of prussic acid that was to terminate its beating for ever.But apart from the general merits of the question, I suppose there are few people, outside of lovers, who know what it is to commit suicide four times in five weeks. If you want a lighthearted introduction to Canlit, look no further. It's only some 150 pages, so even if you don't like it it's not much of a loss. It's a truly timeless piece of literature.P.S. I just realized that 2012 is the 100th aniversary of this book. That's pretty cool.
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This 1912 comic novel is available for free download in many electronic formats. Search by the title and the word “ebook”.Everything I know about normal life I learn from mass media. For example, if I am to believe my TV, normal friends drop by with cake and gossip. My friends, by comparison, recommend that I read Important Modern Novels (IMNs) that, being modern and important, are filled with madness, adultery, Nazis, animal cruelty, violent death, and so forth. They never bring cake.I flatter myself that I can stand, noggin to noggin, with the brainiest readers of IMNs, but sometimes even I grow weary of madness, adultery, and so on. I yearn for a pleasant description of a simpler time. So, I took a break from IMNs to read this book, touted by the late lamented Common Reader catalog (Autumn 2002) as a laugh-out-loud depiction of rural life in Canada.I must report only an occasional wry smile cracking my joyless, IMN-influenced mug. Certain portraits, like that of a blustering amoral illiterate who becomes the much-respected head of a conservative political party, probably seemed daring at the time, but now read like a documentary description of a routine occurance. Similarly, a story in which clergy engage in insurance fraud was probably an outrageous knee-slapper 100 years ago, but considering the unfortunate hi-jinks of today's men of the cloth, insurance fraud seems a quaintly old-fashioned vice, like buggy-racing after overindulging in mead. Still, the book is a calmingly pleasant read and our cousins in the Great White North can take pride in having this home-grown talent in their canon. Me? I've got an appointment with some Nazis.
—David
Going through some papers, and found some scraps worth sharing before they hit the recycle bin. The first are some notes I took in the summer of 2005 when I was contemplating a return to school. I have since gone back and completed the long sought-after degree.Stephen Leacock, Canadian humourist extraordinaire, continues to amaze even 60-some years after his passing. No wonder our award for work in funny, capital L literature bears his name.Two bits of brilliance from the preface of Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, the main text of which is largely considered to be his magnum opus:"I was what is called a distinguished graduate, and, as such, I took to school teaching as the only trade I could find that needs neither experience nor intellect.""Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, i would sooner have written 'Alice in Wonderland' than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica"
—Jason
This is now one of my favourite non-depressing/uplifting pieces of literature!Leacock's satire is remarkable because it completely ridicules the people in it, but at the same time, it does so with fondness and with an uplifting sense of humour. Sketch III, "The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias" is brilliant...that juxtaposition between the tragic and the trivial. Just getting into it, I was indignant, it took me some time to piece it together and I was laughing hysterically by the time it ended. Sunshine Sketches ends beautifully...there's a plutocrat passing through Mariposa on a train, feeling fondness for the experience that is uniquely Mariposa only to hear and feel the small town fade away.Furthermore, this book is ridiculously readable! I finished it in a few sittings and I'm definitely going to search up some other Leacock works. I feel proud to be Canadian!
—Zheng Tao
