Leacock's Best (mostly)

J.B. Priestley, ed. The Best of Leacock (1958) Just what the title says. I would have included about 2/3rds if the pieces that Priestley chose. He kindly provides an Introduction explaining his choices, which shows that his taste does not include parody, his sense of the absurd is definitely English and not Canadian, and he doesn’t get the rage in Leacock’s satire of the Idle Rich. I think that may be because it’s the one book in which Leacock’s economic insights shape the satire. In some of his shorter pieces, Leacock hints that economics is a social science, and that human motives matter more than the numbers.
     Priestley wants to think of Leacock as the humourous uncle who tells his funny stories with a twinkle in his eye, and doesn’t really mean to be mean to the targets of his satire. This is, I think , a common misreading of Leacock. Under the veneer of absurdity, Acadian Adventures Among the Idle Rich is an angry and precise skewering of the selfishness and greed of what Veblen called the Leisure Class. Leacock goes a step further than Veblen’s careful dissection of the social meaning of conspicuous consumption: He demonstrates that too much money empties the brains of whatever sense and ethics their owners had, leaving behind a vapid desire for social status and the low cunning required to maintain the income-producing enterprises that pay for the pastimes of the idlers. The chapter on the merger of St Asaph and St Osoph is one of the most skillful illuminations of self-delusion and manipulation of ethics in the service of greed that I’ve read. The more serious and verbose attempts of, say, Sinclair Lewis don’t, I think, achieve the same suavely savage effect, certainly not as economically as in Leacock’s satire.
     I enjoyed rereading my favourites, but I skipped a few of the selections. This anthology serves well as an introduction to Leacock, whose work, sadly, has become an acquired taste. I suppose that’s the inevitable fate of humourous and satiric writing, which depends on allusions to a shared popular culture. But if you can find a copy in some second-hand bookshop, it’s worth buying. ***