The Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour brings together a diverse and entertaining collection of the best humour writing. These seventy-one distinctly Canadian selections from fifty-four extraordinary writers represent over a century’s worth of accomplishments in this unique literary genre.

Will Ferguson’s marvellous anthology features humour pieces from early twentieth-century writers such as Bob Edwards and Stephen Leacock, who defined the very essence of humour. Ferguson also includes a wide selection of writing by some of our best-known authors from throughout the twentieth century to the present: Douglas Coupland, Robertson Davies, Mavis Gallant, Thomas King, W.P. Kinsella, Stuart McLean, Paul Quarrington, and Miriam Toews, to name a few.

Introduction by Will Ferguson

Analyzing humour, it’s been said, is an awful lot like dissecting a frog. You may learn something about anatomy, but the frog itself usually dies in the process.

Fortunately, I need not wield a scalpel here, for Stephen Leacock has already achieved the near impossible: he has defined the very essence of humour. And he did so without killing a single frog. The origins of humour, Leacock explained, “lie in the deeper contrasts offered by life itself; in the strange incongruity between our aspirations and our achievements.”

It’s there, in that gap—that gap between what we assume life will bring and how things actually turn out, between what we want and what we get, between our grand plans and high expectations and what is actually accomplished—it is there that humour is fostered, is born. Once you are aware of this principle, you recognize it everywhere. Certainly all of the pieces in this anthology—with the possible exception of James Martin, who’s in a category all his own—draw upon this “strange incongruity,” this discrepancy between the ideal world and the real.

Robertson Davies took it even further. A sense of humour, he noted, is more of a curse than a blessing. Life was easier, he felt, for those who went through their day-to-day existence without seeing the essential absurdity—the humour—underlying everything.

So. When perusing a collection such as this, it is important to take each author on his or her own terms, in his or her own voice. Whether you prefer folksy humour over urban grit (or vice versa), you should approach each selection for what it is: a distinct way of looking at the world, a distinct way of dealing with that gap.

From Ray Guy in St. John’s to Jack Knox in Victoria, I have tried to throw as wide a net as possible. Some of the pieces gathered here are homespun and endearing. Others have a definite edge. Some are silly. Some are quite profound. Some are culled from alternative arts magazines, others from major literary works. All are distinctly Canadian in ways I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s like pornography; you know it when you see it—even if you can’t come up with an exact definition. Sure, I have included hockey players and Mounties, and even a glimpse or two of the Rockies, but for the most part I have chosen pieces that resonate with me simply because they feel very Canadian.

I have included selections from some of our best-known authors: Mordecai Richler, Robertson Davies, Mavis Gallant, Douglas Coupland, Miriam Toews. But I’ve also included authors who, while perhaps not as well known, deserve to be much more widely read. Authors such as Ivan E. Coyote and Mariko Tamaki.

I tried to avoid obvious choices when I made my selections. As much as I love Roch Carrier’s “The Hockey Sweater,” it’s an often-anthologized story, so I went instead with translator Sheila Fischman’s delightful recommendation, “Titties Prayer.” Similarly, although I’m a great fan of Robert Service and will prattle off a recitation of “The Cremation of Sam McGee” at the slightest provocation (I’m something of a philanthropist that way), I nevertheless wanted to avoid the predictable choice of “Dan McGrew” or the aforementioned “McGee,” and went instead with a personal favourite, “The Ballad of Pious Pete.”

This anthology is arranged alphabetically, by author, rather than along thematic or regional lines. Two reasons: First, I think collections such as these should be easy to use. Second, and more importantly, the focus must remain squarely on the authors. It is their own distinct, often skewed world views that are being celebrated here, not any overarching thesis of Canadian identity. The soothing conversational stylings of Stuart McLean couldn’t be more unlike the wild exuberance of, say, Richard J. Needham. Yet both are assuredly Canadian. It’s a Big Tent, this country.

If you do decide to read this book from start to finish in the order it is presented, be prepared to change gears wildly—an effect that can be enlivening or jarring depending on your point of view. The shift from Gary Lauten’s gentle poke at married life to the sudden serrated edge of Dany Laferrière is particularly jolting, to name just one example. At other times, the alphabet throws out interesting rapports, such as the parallel between Thomas King’s view of Indians in Canadian society and that of W.P. Kinsella’s, both of which are oddly complementary.

But you aren’t going to read this book in alphabetical order, from Bidini to White, are you? I didn’t think so. So, to help you as you jump about, here are several through-lines you can follow. Sort of “mini-anthologies” embedded in the text:

•   If you’re interested in travel writing, you should start with Dave Bidini’s hockey trip to Hong Kong and Paul Quarrington’s search for God in the Galapagos, with Jacques Poulin’s Volkswagen journey as a chaser.

•   For comedic verse, there’s the poetry of Bill Richardson and Robert Service, and the lyrics of Nancy White. (And for wonderfully bad comedic verse, there’s Paul Hiebert.)

•   For folk tales and fables, see Jacques Ferron’s short stories and Antonine Maillet’s The Tale of Don L’Orignal, which is very much in the tradition of Jonathan Swift.

•   For social satire, with a slightly surreal touch, turn to M.A.C. Farrant’s send-up of New Age “retreats,” Zsuzsi Gartner’s withering look at PowerPoint parents, and Erika Ritter’s oddly poignant encounter with Barbie’s bitter ex, Mr. Ken Doll.

•   For parody—as opposed to satire—see Dan Needles’s wonderful spoof of local history books; Paul Hiebert’s devastating slam-dunk of literary criticism; Stephen Leacock’s incisive guide to Shakespeare; and Bob Edwards’s “transcript from a debate in the Canadian House of Commons.”

•   For quick, lighter reads, I have included a healthy selection from Canadian humour columnists. The newspaper column is an exacting art form, one with strict word counts requiring an economy of language and a single strong focus. You’ll find Arthur Black on sailing, Chuck Brown on fixing a roof, Marsha Boulton on raising turkeys.

•   Finally, there is a certain, unmistakably Canadian style of humour—playful, pithy, disarming, and at times touching—that can only be described as “Leacockian.” You can see it Joey Slinger’s advice on how to stay out of the gutter; in Brian O’Connell’s visit from an imaginary friend; in Eric Nicol’s experiences on Broadway; in all of Stuart Trueman’s selections; and, of course, in the work of Stephen Leacock (who would, I’m sure, get a kick out of having his writing described as “Leacockian”).

Regrets? Several. I was sorely limited in my choice of francophone writing. People would gush things like “What about Yvon Deschamps? You have to include Yvon Deschamps! He’s hilarious.” Deschamps, who famously described what Quebeckers really want as “Un Québec indépendent dans un Canada uni!” is indeed a sharp and witty fellow. I gladly would have included him if I could have found anything available in translation. (A good deal of French-Canadian literature is translated every year, but very little of it is humour. This may be part of the problem.)

The good news? The francophone writing that is included is very strong. Roch Carrier, Jacques Ferron, Dany Laferrière, Antonine Maillet, and Jacques Poulin provide some of the best pieces in this collection.

I desperately wanted to include a selection from Michel Tremblay’s play Les Belles Soeurs (where fourteen women in a working-class Quebec neighbourhood gather in a kitchen to paste trading stamps into booklets for a contest), which would have dovetailed nicely with Tomson Highway’s The Rez Sisters (a play about seven women from a Cree-Ojibway reserve in Ontario who are determined to beat the odds by travelling to Toronto to take part in—and the term is always given in caps—the biggest bingo in the world). But something happens when you lay down a play onto the page. It just sits there. It loses its vitality. Plays are meant to be heard, to be seen. They are not meant to be read in the way one might read a novel. So, to the poor typesetter who stayed up late resetting pages of text into proper play format, adjusting the margins and changing the indents—only to have it all taken out—I give a sincere and heartfelt, “Sorry, eh?”

Two other selections were also typeset and formatted before being yanked, with much anguish on my part. Yves Beauchemin’s novel Le Matou (translated into English as The Alley Cat) and Edward Riche’s novel Rare Birds defeated me. Both are terrifically funny books. Both were impossible to excerpt. I spent weeks wrestling with them, to no avail.

Beauchemin’s The Alley Cat is a sprawling, satirical novel that has sold over one million copies worldwide and has been translated into fifteen languages. It’s a Dickensian tale with multiple characters and interwoven storylines, and I never could figure out how to do it justice.

Riche’s Rare Birds, set in Newfoundland and later adapted into a film, is the tale of a despondent chef, his relentlessly supportive neighbour, a mysterious and possibly sinister science experiment, a large bag of cocaine, and a grand hoax that quickly runs out of control. I tried again and again to excerpt this novel, isolating different aspects of the story, stringing disparate passages together with only a disingenuous ellipse between them—but no matter what I did, it ended up sounding like a thin-gruel Reader’s Digest summary. (In a strange coincidence, both Riche’s and Beauchemin’s novels revolve around the inner workings of restaurants. So perhaps it was a mental block from my own days slinging hash as a line cook that kept tripping me up.)

When I read the final typeset pages, I came to the sad realization that these selections had to go. So, to fans of Tomson Highway, Michel Tremblay, Yves Beauchemin, and Edward Riche: You’re right. They should have been included. But they weren’t.

In a different vein, two other authors were removed at the last minute solely because neither the publisher nor myself could track down the owners of their estates. Maggie Grant and Robert Thomas Allen were both in the final Table of Contents, their pieces proofread and ready to go, but in both cases we could not locate the copyright holder and were thus unable to arrange permissions. This was especially surprising in the case of Allen, who was a very well-known humorist. He passed away in 1990, having won the Leacock Medal for Humour twice. But, like Maggie Grant, he thwarted the best efforts of Google and our editorial sleuthing.

It was a long process. Oftentimes I would disappear behind towering stacks of books for days on end, reappearing only for air and the occasional Timbit tossed into my mouth from the top of the stairs by a worried spouse. “Why are you down there laughing like that? Alone?” I was dishevelled, unshaven—but happy. (Good therapy, that: editing humour books.) It’s been fun and, if not exhaustive, it has certainly been exhausting.

I do hope you enjoy this collection of Canadian humour. If you have any queries, concerns, or corrections, I really don’t want to hear about it. Errors and oversights should be ascribed to gremlins and late-night eye fatigue, not editorial intent. And please, please don’t send me emails demanding to know “Why wasn’t X or Y included? And what about Z? How can you possibly have an anthology that doesn’t include Z???” Listen. X wasn’t included because X isn’t funny. Y wasn’t included because I just plain don’t like Y—she breathes through her nose when she eats and always adds sideways smiley faces at the end of her emails no matter how inappropriate. I mean, really. “Our thoughts are with you in your time of loss :-)” Who the hell does something like that? And don’t even get me started about Z, that bastard.

Okay. So maybe editing a humour anthology is not the best form of therapy available. But reading one surely is. And that’s where I shall leave it, while there is still life in the ol’ amphibian yet. Happy reading!

—Will Ferguson, en route to a nap

"A delicious smorgasbord that ranges from the standard to the surprising."
—The Globe and Mail

"The Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour is an essential newcomer to our national book scene ... a must-have for the Canadian reader’s library."
—The Tribune

"You don’t merely read this book, you immerse yourself in it, spend an entire day just leafing through its pages. A wonderful, wonderful anthology."
—The Chronicle-Herald

"A lot of fun."
—Times Colonist