Follies in Fiction

Stephen Leacock was the funniest man in the English-speaking world, and this collection proves it. Follies in Fiction gathers his most delicious literary spoofs, skewering everything from breathless melodramas to pretentious foreign novels. In "The Snoopopaths," he imagines a detective story with fifty plots collapsing into one. In "Serge the Superman," he parodies Russian literature so deadpan you'll wonder if he invented the genre. But Leacock isn't just laughing at bad fiction he's解剖ing the ridiculous machinery behind it, the formulas and clichés we swallow without thinking. His wit is surgical but never cruel, warm but never soft. A century later, these essays still hurt because the foolishness he mocked hasn't gone anywhere. If you've ever rolled your eyes at a thriller'sconvenient plot twists or a novel's insufferable protagonist, Leacock will feel like a secret friend.