Leaven of Malice- Canadian Literature

Leaven of Malice, by Robertson Davies, was written in 1954, before he became famous with the publication of Fifth Business, the book he's best known for, in Canada at least. The Leacock Award for Literary Humour goes annually to the best humorous book written by a Canadian. In 1954, it went to Leaven of Malice, which seems appropriate, as the spirit of Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a Small Town infuses Davies' work. Don't look here for potty or vulgar humour, except where Davies invites you to laugh at that type of humour. If you read this book after reading his serious and significant works (What's Bred in the Bone, The Cunning Man, Murther and Walking Spirits), you can almost see Davies flexing his serious muscles, while busily entertaining you with sharp satire.


Leaven of Malice as a story, seems perched on the narrowest of ledges. The Salterton Evening Bellman, in the classified section, announces the engagement of Solomon Bridgetower and Pearl Vambrace, to take place on November 31st. Only problem is that Pearl and Solomon aren't getting married. They aren't engaged. It's a joke. "So what?" I can hear you thinking. "Who cares". Remember, it's 1954, this is small-town Ontario, and people still care about improprieties, at least on the surface. Especially Professor Vambrace, Pearl's father. The Professor sees this announcement as an assault on his good name, and is certain that this Solomon Bridgetower, son of the man who years ago deprived him of the job of Head of the Classics department at Waverly University, is part of a cabal determined to bring him down. The Professor is pretty much a loon, with delusions of grandeur and a paranoid personality that would probably have him put away were he not safely out of society's view, in academia.

Although the Professor takes this joke most personally, others in this small town are affected as well. Gloster Ridley, middle-aged editor of the Evening Bellman, is inclined to dismiss the false advertisement with a corrective notice the next day. He is aware, however, that there are forces at work to get him removed as editor, and that this mistake could cost him his job if he's not careful. Gloster is an odd duck, and occasionally a figure of fun to many. He lives alone, tended by Constant Reader, his cleaning lady, and cooks his own lunch on a hotplate in his office. His pride and joy is his work with Waverly University in developing a journalism program, and the possibility of receiving an honorary doctorate.

The people most affected by this joke are not introduced until well into the novel, and under amusing circumstances. Solomon Bridgetower and Pearl Vambrace react rather well to the news that they're engaged, all things considered. They are both decent people, and don't want to raise a fuss, demanding retractions, etc because they don't want to give the impression that the other is unworthy of being proposed to, or unworthy of proposing. A correction notice would be fine.

But the Professor has other ideas, and his anger is not to be denied. The search for the practical joker, and the confrontation between all interested parties in Gloster Ridley's office manages to make suspenseful something that, in today's society, would be laughed off by most people. Robertson Davies looks at small-town life with a sharper eye than Stephen Leacock would have. Where Leacock's satire was gentle in the extreme, and subtle, Davies' pen is sharper, and some characters come in for a rough go. His descriptions of his characters are leisurely and thorough. A former newspaperman himself, he follows our hero, Gloster Ridley through morning rituals at the paper, reading all other newspapers to come up with witty apercus with which to pepper his editorial page, reading letters to the editor (some of which are hilarious), and meeting with various loony staff members.

Several characters do stand out from the story. Mr. Snelgrove, a self-important lawyer for instance. Davies describes his lawyerly affectations, now so ingrained into his character that Snelgrove has perfectly assumed the character of a movie-lawyer. He sucks the end of his glasses, polishes them, clears his throat authoritatively, and does a dozen other things that mark him a movie lawyer. His comeuppance is particularly satisfying.

Why I like this book so much

Davies, although sharp with his words occasionally, is gentle here. There's an air of silliness that pervades much of Leaven of Malice, and that's refreshing after reading other Davies' books, enjoyable but very serious. Davies was a mere stripling of 41 when he wrote Leaven of Malice, and it's interesting to see his writing before his enthusiasm for certain topics began to affect his writing. Alchemy, for instance, an underlying theme in many of his later novels, is not mentioned once here. Leaven of Malice is a farce without completely improbable situations or very much slapstick comedy.

Davies wrote many books with humorous intent. His earliest novels, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, and Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks poke fun at a lot that is provincial in our smaller Ontario towns. There's a thread of that sort of humour in Leaven of Malice as well, but it is, I stress, humour of a very gentle sort.

And sometimes I need that kind of humour. Leaven of Malice is a book I've turned to many times over the years, when I want to read about the kind of town that my Grandparents came from. For anyone still living in small towns, it might still be relevant today.

Highly recommended- I first read it in highschool decades ago and I remember it fondly.