"A Land of Hope and Sunshine"

Piano Old Brewery Bay Orillia

"In the preface [Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town] Leacock made the patently false claim that he had not done 'anything so ridiculously easy as writing about a real place and real people.'  He could not have done otherwise.  He was mistakenly convinced that he had the power to create lifelike characters. At the same time he admitted that 'I have no notion as to how to make things happen.'  What he did have was an abundant ability to transfer the genuine article from life to the printed page in compressed form." 
~ Stephen Leacock A biography, David M. Legate, Doubleday Canada Limited, 1970.

In the preface of Sunshine Sketches Leacock claims that his imaginary little town of Mariposa is not a real town ~ that it is about seventy or eighty of them ~ that the inspiration of the book comes from "a land of hope and sunshine where little towns spread their square streets and their trim maple trees beside placid lakes."  However, it took people in Orillia, Ontario, a while to get over the perception that many of the characters were exaggerations of townsfolk they knew.

Dining Room Old Brewery Bay

" '...it was a fascinating business to watch them [the sketches] developing in the telling.'*  Typically, Leacock acted them with appropriate gestures, great gusto and evident self-appreciation.  Here was the raconteur in action.  Guests at the frequent dinner parties, over which Trix presided as a gracious hostess, remember how the host's chair was placed well back from the end of the table so that he could rise at any moment to walk up and down while making a point, as though he were in the classroom.
"In fact, this was the test to which he subjected most of his short bits and pieces.  He would read them aloud in his study or in the dining room to whatever audience he could assemble.  at Old Brewery Bay his favourite audience was his brother George, who was a well-known wit himself and the source of some of Stephen's material.  The two of them would go over the material, tossing ideas back and forth, laughing all the while, until Stephen felt that they had hit on the best possible form."

*editor B. K. Sandwell
~ David M. Legate, STEPHEN LEACOCK, A biography, 1970. Doubleday Canada Limited.

Kitchen Leacock's Summer Home, Orillia

"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...
"...but to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between."

Preface to Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, Stephen Leacock, McGill University, June, 1912.

Oral Tradition ~

The Old Brewery Bay Leacock's Home Orillia

"The most striking aspect of Leacock's style is the illusion of a speaking voice, which is so strong in all his works.  Like his masters, Dickens and Mark Twain, Leacock was a great lecturer and raconteur, and many of his pieces must be read aloud or recited for their full effect.  North American humour has always been rooted in the oral tradition...
"Much of the humour of his best pieces comes from their modesty of tone.  They seem to be recounted, as simply and straightforwardly as possible, by someone who is not intending to amuse us and would probably find our amusement puzzling."

~ The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature 2nd ed., Eugene Benson & Wm. Toye, 1997. Oxford University Press Canada.
(Leacock photos:  lbwalker)

Knowledge ~

Knowledge ~ Our readers know that The Neat L'l Bookshop blog consists of a daily thought gained from picking up a book.  Within reach in a library are any number of books where one can discover a new thought, a worthwhile tidbit of knowledge or simply stumble upon an illustration or a picture of something beautiful.  Does an e-reader afford us this same luxury?  I don't know.  Certainly the computer gives us instant results on any subject.  It just doesn't feel the same as being surrounded by a private library.

*One of the libraries in Canadian author Stephen Leacock's summer home in Orillia.

     

Smile for Today ~

We all know the feeling of love and anticipation when a child runs up to us and from their hand to ours presents us with a special bouquet of flowers ~ Nature hands us a bouquet everyday.

Reminder:  Today, 1:30 p.m., our guest is Jill Marshall, author of  To the Arctic and Home Again.