Leacock on Life

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

We generally think of Stephen Leacock as a man possessing two very
different, seemingly incompatible gifts. He was a professor of political
economy at McGill who published serious books on economics and politics,
yet also simultaneously created a wide audience as one of the most
successful humorous writers of his generation.

Professor Gerald Lynch, however, reveals interesting connections
between these two sides of a complex writer. He has had the brilliant
idea of compiling an anthology drawn from the whole scope of Leacock’s
writing, arranged thematically according to such subjects as
“Canada,” “Critics,” “Economics,” “Food and Drink,”
“Humour,” “Love,” “Politics,” “Professors,” “Social
Justice,” “Women,” “Writing,” and many more.

What this reveals is the wit and poise that grace his “serious”
writings, and the insights and wisdom that buttress his “comic”
productions. For example: “You can’t learn a little Greek; it
won’t divide; it’s like a billiard ball. Half of it is no good.”
This comes from one of his least-known volumes entitled Too Much
College, or Education Eating Up Life: With Kindred Essays on Education
and Humour (1939). Even the admittedly clumsy title itself demonstrates
Leacock’s insistence on uniting the serious and the comic.

Or take this extract from “What Is Left of Adam Smith?” published
in the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science: “This
socialism, this communism, would work only in Heaven, where they don’t
need it, or in Hell, where they already have it.” It takes a lively
mind combined with considerable courage and originality to subvert
Thomas Carlyle’s quip about economics as “the dismal science.”

Lynch knows his Leacock inside out (as that last citation from an
uncollected and relatively obscure source demonstrates). He has
succeeded in producing a book that is at once informative on a scholarly
level yet entertaining and inviting to the intelligent reading public.
This is no small feat in 2002. He is to be congratulated on a worthwhile
project carried through with consummate success.