Oddball@large

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

This collection of some 60 short pieces culled from Bill Richardson’s
columns in Vancouver papers will delight those who appreciate oddities,
whimsy, and irony. Richardson is the genial host of Richardson’s
Roundup on CBC Radio. One of his earlier books of wit and wisdom,
Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast (1993), won the Stephen Leacock
Medal for Humour.

In his introduction, Richardson describes these pieces as small,
personal essays that are largely inward-looking. They were inspired, he
writes, “by conversations overheard on public transit; by
neighbourhood anomalies (a spate of abandoned shopping carts, the
mysterious appearance of speed bumps behind a Buddhist temple); by
chance encounters with urban wildlife; by the proclivities of pets; and
by the vagaries of close relationships and minor family eruptions.”
Richardson locates himself “on the roster of the little leagues of
literature” and takes comfort from Max Beerbohm’s remark that many
“charming talents” are ruined by the urge to make an important
statement.

These delightful essays are evidence that Richardson has no such urges,
although from time to time a serious—even tragic—streak emerges. In
these pieces, the humorist’s affection for words is unmistakable.
Three avocados and three peaches set him thinking about language: “For
one thing, they reminded me of punctuation: the peaches like periods,
the avocados like apostrophes, ready and waiting in some eccentric
printer’s tray.”

Like dessert, oddball@large should be sampled in small portions. One or
two pieces should send you to sleep with a smile, or recharge your
energies for a fresh encounter with life’s little difficulties.