Frenzied Fiction

by Stephen Leacock

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Genres: Humor, Short Stories, Fiction, Canada, Canadian Literature

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1917

About the author

Stephen P. H. Butler Leacock, FRSC, was a Canadian teacher, political scientist, writer, and humorist. Between the years 1915 and 1925, he was the best-known English-speaking humorist in the world. He is known for his light humour along with criticisms of people's follies. The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour was named in his honour.

Wikipedia article.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I love about Stephen Leacock is how apologetically over-the-top his humour is. His comic exaggerations are so ridiculously and outrageously bizarre that laughter is forced out of you like a blow to the jugular induces a coughing fit. There is nothing subtle about it.

In many people the very name “Spy” excites a shudder of apprehension; we Spies, in fact, get quite used to being shuddered at. None of us Spies mind it at all. Whenever I enter a hotel and register myself as a Spy I am quite accustomed to see a thrill of fear run round the clerks, or clerk, behind the desk.

Us Spies or We Spies—for we call ourselves both—are thus a race apart. None know us. All fear us. Where do we live? Nowhere. Where are we? Everywhere. Frequently we don’t know ourselves where we are. The secret orders that we receive come from so high up that it is often forbidden to us even to ask where we are. A friend of mine, or at least a Fellow Spy—us Spies have no friends—one of the most brilliant men in the Hungarian Secret Service, once spent a month in New York under the impression that he was in Winnipeg. If this happened to the most brilliant, think of the others.

This is how Frenzied Fiction begins - quite aptly for a tome published in the midst of the First World War. This book of humorous sketches has a few pieces like this, directly influenced by the carnage going on across the globe, proving that for the pen of the comedian, even tragedy has laughter hidden inside.

In The Prophet in Our Midst, we are introduced to a gentleman who has all the answers how the war should be conducted and how it could be resolved - provided one can decipher his cryptic statements. (I have heard many such "experts", solving everything from the Energy Crisis to Global Warming.) In Father Knickerbocker: A Fantasy, a New York absorbed in itself in the midst of a global tragedy is satirised (the author returns to this city again in Lost in New York). In Back from the Land, we witness the naivete of city-dwellers trying to stop the war by becoming self-sufficient in food, by "going back to the land".

Leacock's satire is not limited to the war-front, however. He mocks journalism, education, health fads, back-to-nature enthusiasts... whoever he can spear with his caustic pen. I must warn you that some of his views are dated and rather conservative - but his self-deprecatory humour more than absolves him. You can't help but laugh.

My favourite pieces in this collection are The Errors of Santa Claus - a savage disembowelment of childishness in adults which prevents them from seeing their precocious children learning the "facts of life" rather early - and the absolute gem, The Sorrows of a Summer Guest - an introvert's lament about a society bent on socialising:

For many years it had been a principle of my life to visit nobody. I had long since learned that visiting only brings misery. If I got a card or telegram that said, “Won’t you run up to the Adirondacks and spend the week-end with us?” I sent back word: “No, not unless the Adirondacks can run faster than I can,” or words to that effect. If the owner of a country house wrote to me: “Our man will meet you with a trap any afternoon that you care to name,” I answered, in spirit at least: “No, he won’t, not unless he has a bear-trap or one of those traps in which they catch wild antelope.” If any fashionable lady friend wrote to me in the peculiar jargon that they use: “Can you give us from July the twelfth at half-after-three till the fourteenth at four?” I replied: “Madam, take the whole month, take a year, but leave me in peace.”

Such at least was the spirit of my answers to invitations. In practice I used to find it sufficient to send a telegram that read: “Crushed with work impossible to get away,” and then stroll back into the reading-room of the club and fall asleep again.

When such a man gets caught in a house full of boisterous summer people, tragedy is the inevitable outcome - of course, in this case, it gets transformed into riotous comedy.

All of Stephen Leacock's output is available for free on the net. Please read him! It's the best medicine for these gloomy days.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope, cannot keep going with this one.

I enjoyed the first Stephen Leacock title I read in 2015, Nonsense Novels. Always meant to go back for more but didn't until April 2021 when I read Winsome Winnie And Other New Nonsense Novels. That was okay, just not as funny to me as the first one.

But I still wanted to have this author for my Literary Birthday challenge this year. At least until I gave up on the challenge itself after October. I didn't feel like reading my chosen November author and also did not feel like searching for a replacement. So I decided I would just read my December author now and call the challenge finished. After all, this turned out to be not an official challenge so I can do whatever I want, right? Right.

Except this collection of short essays and sketches was not at all as amusing as either of the other titles. Stephen Leacock was supposed to be the most well known humorist of his time and with Nonsense Novels especially he was hilarious. But here I struggled with dated material and what felt like forced humor.

Some bits were better than others, naturally. I thought My Revelations As A Spy, the first entry, was okay, at least in the early stages:
Us Spies or We Spies—for we call ourselves both—are thus a race apart. None know us. All fear us. Where do we live? Nowhere. Where are we? Everywhere. Frequently we don’t know ourselves where we are. The secret orders that we receive come from so high up that it is often forbidden to us even to ask where we are. A friend of mine, or at least a Fellow Spy—us Spies have no friends—one of the most brilliant men in the Hungarian Secret Service, once spent a month in New York under the impression that he was in Winnipeg. If this happened to the most brilliant, think of the others.

But after that paragraph, I lost interest pretty quickly in the tale of our SL the Spy kept the world from going to war. Until he went on vacation. I ended up skimming through all the other essays and deciding that I needed to call this a DNF and give up. I guess Leacock's Nonsense Novels, in which he poked fun at various genres of literature, caught me at the right moment to tickle my funny bone.

Nothing here managed to do that.

[Janelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frenzied Fiction was rather a mixed bag of stories, some rating four stars and others barely scraping in at two. Most of the stories were satires of different genres of humour, with varying degrees of success. The book was published in 1917, so there were a number of references to the war, as well as to prohibition, which must have been very topical at the time.
The final story was quite a divergence from Leacock's usual emphasis on humour, and it really brought home to me the feelings of those who lived through the Great War. This final story deserves fives stars for it's creative depiction of loss and hope to a war worn audience.
I listened to the Librivox audiobook. The reader was good, although the sound quality was lacking.

[Thom Swennes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essential a nonsensical work presumably written as a means to cheer up a world reeling from a World War, Frenzied Fiction by Stephen Leacock is a collection of unconnected sketches ranging from politics to all points south. The book was generally amusing but sometimes hard to comprehend. Many of the subjects and views were dated (it is ninety-six years old) but some of the stories hold true even today. I had the feeling as I was reading it that stories pertaining to the United States were being approached from the outside and only after reading it discovered that the author was an immigrant Englishman, living in Canada. My feelings proved correct. This is another easily forgettable work that only inspires a smile and the occasional chuckle.

[Jill Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hilarious and often poignant read, which proves that human beings have always believed in a Golden Age of Innocence which came to an end just before they were born, or at some point in their early childhood. This Grumpy Old Man - one of the great comic writers of his day - bemoans the fast pace of modern life, its impersonal nature, its crazy educational initiatives, the lack of connection between people and the earth, leading them to long for some kind of Return to Nature... and it was first published in 1918!

[George Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading on my Droid, also reading an history of the Marx Bros. Groucho supposedly loved this guy and would sit and read his books and laugh. Comedy is contemporary, it's funny in some spots but you have to know many of the WW1 cultural references, and I don't.
Having read the whole book I can see where a lot of Groucho's humor came from. Not as much fun to read as it would have been to see performed

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to the "Errors of Santa Claus," the tenth story in this collection, on Classic Tales Podcast. Adults play with the presents they purchased for the children and vice-versa, including Grandpa drinking the bourbon he bought for his son, while all profess to absolutely believe in Santa Claus.

[Clivemichael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sardonic at it's best, outdated in his style I found the prose to be somewhat entertaining but hardly hilarious. Granted it wasn't all meant to be funny but our perceptions and even language have changed dramatically from the time he wrote till now. And similar issues continue to get copy although nowadays the wit seems more acerbic, biting and heavily sarcastic.

[William Bibliomane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Leacock's fictions aren't exactly frenzied, but they do in more than one place take a surprisingly modern tone. Not bad, all things being equal, for a writer working almost one hundred years ago.

Full review here: https://bibliomaneblog.wordpress.com/...

[Christopher Roth]

Late Leacock, 1940s, after he had lost his youthful edge. There are some flashes of brilliance here, but also a lot of dull stretches, plus some maudlin, sentimental essays about the war effort that make me cringe.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sought out this book because my favorite author Robertson Davies (aka "My Literary God") speaks so positively of him.
Mildly enjoyed some of these humorous essays, and I think I would have adored them if I'd read them as a teenager, when I was greatly amused by Robert Benchley's humor.

[Sara]

really hard to get into. i had to stop reading this because it didn't make any sense to me. i put it as "read" but I didn't read much of it at all

[Viktor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another winner from Leacock. This is a book of short pieces -- perfect for dipping into at any time.

[Angie Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

The absolute best comedy writer!

[Daniy ♠ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really wish he wrote more books books, he really has the whole douglas adams vibe I love

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing how a book written over a century ago can still be so laugh-out-loud funny

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting, fun read.