Robertson Davies

 

The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, World of Wonders, by Robertson Davies.

“I first encountered the work of Robertson Davies quite by accident. My mother bought me The Deptford Trilogy on one of her garage sales expeditions; it looked rather fantastic, and was a trilogy, and as far as she knew it could be my cup of tea. On my first glance it seemed far from it: novels set in Canada, in "modern" times, in a realistic milieu. But to humor her I gave it a chance, dipping in, reading here and there, getting interested, then hooked, and eventually eagerly seeking out anything Davies had written. It turned out to be one of the best gifts my mother ever gave me.” – Power of Babel. A King Penguin book.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Novels. Trilogy. Softcover.

Robertson Davies: Man of Myth, by Judith Skelton Grant.

Having gotten into the Deptford Trilogy, I was intrigued by Davies, and after I had found this biography at Half-Price and read it, I was even more so. It made me take a further chance on his other works. “Robertson Davies (1908-1995) was born in Canada, son of a senator and newspaperman. Both his parents were avid readers. He got most of his education in Canada and finished up his college in Oxford, where some of the classes he attended were taught by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien (I have to note that as personally interesting to me; I can't say how significant it was to Davies). He majored in Drama, and throughout his life he acted, wrote and studied theatre. He returned to Canada where he got into the newspaper business with his family, and for years he wrote many books while writing and editing the paper, including essays published in the persona of his alter-ego, Samuel Marchbanks. In 1961 he became the first Master of Massey College, founded largely by members of the Massey family, of whom perhaps Raymond Massey is the most famous. During his tenure he did his best to supply the New World college with the best of the humane traditions of the Old World colleges. It was through these years he wrote his most famous works, the books of The Deptford Trilogy; also in the spirit of fun he wrote one ghost story each year to be read at the college's Christmas revels, as per the old English tradition; these stories were later published as High Spirits. Davies at his best is a marvelous mix of qualities: the feeling of wonders behind and alongside the work-a-day world, a generous, tender, and forgiving spirit, not unmixed with wry humor at human follies, the appreciation of a serious and unselfish dedication to a worthy craft. If occasionally he comes up with a howler like saying an orangutan has a tail, we can forgive him with the same generosity and humor he extends to his own characters.” – Power of Babel. Cover jacket a little tattered, and I’m not too sure about the spine of this huge book. It came out only a little while before Davies passed away.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Biography. Literature. Hardback.

 

The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, A Mixture of Frailties, by Robertson Davies.

The first series of his novels. “In the small university town of Salterton, Ontario, dreams are quietly taking shape . . . or falling apart. In Tempest-Tost, Valentine Rich, professional director of the Salterton Little Theatre Company, is tormented by the amateurish efforts of his actors. The families Vambrace and Bridgetower almost go to war over a fake notice of engagement in the local paper in Leaven of Malice. And in A Mixture of Frailties, the fortune of the late Louisa Bridgetower is lavished on an aspiring singer because there is no male heir to claim it. Tracing the lives and incidents of a small community, The Salterton Trilogy peels off the public veneer of geniality and respectability to reveal the private passions simmering beneath.” – Penguin. A wise and witty warm-up to his more Jungian novels.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Novel. Trilogy. Softcover.

The Cornish Trilogy: The Rebel Angels, What’s Bred in the Bone, The Lyre of Orpheus, by Robertson Davies.

“Woven around the pursuits of the energetic spirits and erudite scholars of the University of St. John and the Holy Ghost, this dazzling trilogy of novels lures you into a world of mysticism, historical allusion, and gothic fantasy that could only be the invention of the inimitable Robertson Davies.” – Penguin. I think this book contends with the Deptford Trilogy in my heart for first place among Davies work. In fact, I first became aware of Davies work by seeing a review of one of these books in high school in Mr. Flemings copies of Times Literary Review, where I though the cover was ridiculous. Never judge a book by its cover, I suppose. The connecting theme is how old systems of knowledge still affect modern lives.

“The story of The Rebel Angels is set in motion by the death of eccentric art patron and collector Francis Cornish. University professors Clement Hollier, Urquhart McVarish, and Simon Darcourt are the executors of Cornish's complicated will, which includes material that Hollier wants for his scholarly work in Medieval Studies. The deceased's nephew Arthur Cornish, who stands to inherit the fortune, is also a character. All three executors (and Arthur) are intrigued by Maria Theotoky, Hollier's half-Polish, half-Gypsy graduate student, while the plot revolves around John Parlabane: ex-monk, skeptic philosopher, famulus, and general mischief-maker.” – Wikipedia.

“What's Bred in the Bone is the life story of Francis Cornish, whose death and will were the subject of The Rebel Angels. His was a full life, and we follow him through his childhood as a wealthy and precocious misfit in a small Ontario town, his education in Toronto (in which we meet Dunstan Ramsay from the Deptford Trilogy) and Oxford, his unusual apprenticeship as a restorer and painter in Nazi Germany, his wartime experiences in England, and his later career as a collector and a patron of the arts in Toronto. Cornish's life story develops as related by Cornish's daemon, a Mercurial influence who intervenes at crucial moments to ensure that Cornish becomes a great man, although that may be seen only after his death.” – Ibid.

“In The Lyre of Orpheus, Simon Darcourt, Arthur Cornish, and Maria Cornish find themselves at the head of the "Cornish Foundation" and are called upon to decide what projects deserve funding. Their first assay into the world of humanist patronage is to support a precocious composer in completing an unfinished opera by E.T.A. Hoffmann entitled Arthur of Britain, or the Magnanimous Cuckold, and then bringing it to the stage at Stratford, Ontario. The novel follows the course of this project from inception to completion. At the same time, the archetypes in the opera are reflected in the personal lives of those involved: Arthur and Maria as the central "ruling" couple, Arthur's best friend Geraint Powell, a Welsh actor-turned-director as Lancelot, Simon Darcourt as the household cleric and writer, and so on. In this final novel, archetypes tie together the three levels of Arthurian, Romantic, and modern characters.” – Ibid.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Novels. Trilogy. Softcover.

The Cunning Man, and Murther and Walking Spirits, by Robertson Davies.

These were going to be part of another trilogy, but Davies passed away before he could write the third book. In “The Cunning Man”, Dr. Jonathan Hullah reviews not only his life as a medical man with specialized insight learned from unorthodox teachers but seeks to reveal the mystery around the death of Father Hobbes, a reputed saint. A cast of characters including the mystical curate Charlie Iredale and the artistic Pansy Todhunter (his landlady) make this an involved and interesting process. In “Murther and Walking Spirits”, Hullah’s godson Connor Gilmartin is killed by his wife’s lover in the heat of the moment, and must undergo a review of his life, including the lives of the ancestors who contributed to the person he was. Meanwhile he watches the sudden blossoming of his wife’s career in the wake of his death, and the shattering of the (undiscovered) but guilt-ridden murderer’s psyche. I understand the third book was going to be something along the line of the wife and Hullah getting together. Penguin.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Novels. Softcovers.

High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories, by Robertson Davies.

As Master of Massey College, Davies tried to give it a set of traditions like those he experienced when he went to Oxford. One of those traditions he initiated was writing a ghost story for the annual Christmas party – its Gaudy Night – and reading it aloud. Many of them have a literary or collegiate theme. After he retired the stories were collected and printed in this book. I can’t say I can point to any favorite tale, although ‘Dickens Digested’ and ‘The Cat Who Went to Trinity’ do stand out. Penguin.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Selected Plays, by Robertson Davies.

Selected Plays, by Robertson Davies.

It is hard for me to properly evaluate these plays without seeing them performed; simply cold reading them as text is not the best way to judge. Apparently, they were presented with some success. But they are Davies, and I find them sporadically attractive. Penguin.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Plays. Selected. Softcover.

The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks, by Robertson Davies.

“The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks, … constitutes a collection of the writings of Samuel Marchbanks, a character created in 1944 by Canadian novelist and journalist Robertson Davies when he was editor of the Peterborough Examiner newspaper in the small city of Peterborough, Ontario, northeast of Toronto. The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks is drawn from The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947) and The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949) as well as selections from Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack, published in 1967. This book is presented as a "scholarly edition" of Marchbanks' writings, presented and edited by his "friend", Robertson Davies.” – Wikipedia. I found this copy when John took me to a San Marcos library sale, where I was must fortunate to find it. Humorous, satirical look at life in Canada in the mid-20^th century.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Humor. Collected Columns. Hardback.

Conversations with Robertson Davies, Edited by J. Madison Davis.

Collected interviews and articles from conversations with Davies gathered together in one book. Another chance to hear him imparting his wisdom and opinions through the great decades of his writing.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Interviews. Literature. Softcover.

The Quotable Robertson Davies, Selected by James Channing Shaw.

“The Wit and Wisdom of the Master”. ““From the time of discovery of Robertson Davies’s writing, some of my greatest pleasures in reading Davies’s work have come from his quotable aphorisms, opinions, and general advice for living. The quotations, usually no more than one sentence in length, address women, art, literature, life itself. Some quotation-worthy phrases are mere descriptions beautifully composed, or opinions about Canadian life, or a humorously irreverent insult. In Davies’s novels and plays there is an abundance of these passages, with many more in his critical writing and in the Samuel Marchbanks books. This collection of approximately eight hundred quotations was selected from Davies’s written works. Those expressed in the spoken words of Davies’s characters are labelled with the character’s name in parentheses. Some are identified as the thoughts of the narrator. The quotations from Samuel Marchbanks, the fictional alter ego of Robertson Davies, are labelled by book title. All are quintessential Robertson Davies.” – from the Preface.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Quotations. Collected. Hardback.

One Half of Robertson Davies (Paperback); A Voice from the Attic: Essays on the Art of Reading, Revised Edition (Softcover); The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies, Edited by Judith Skelton Grant (Softcover), by Robertson Davies.

These Penguin books are of course collections of Davies’ essays and articles. They are the most engaging reading. It would be inaccurate to say he is a complete conservative, but he is a traditionalist, a gardener who will prune the tree and encourage new growth rather than just tearing down the tree. He always has something interesting to say and can invoke enthusiasms for things which you had no idea even existed. Browsers for ‘rakes at reading’.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Essays. Articles. Literature.

The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books; and Happy Alchemy: On the Pleasures of Music and Theatre, by Robertson Davies.

The Merry Heart: “This rich and varied collection of Robertson Davies’s writings on the world of books and the miracle of language captures his inimitable voice and sustains his presence among us. Coming almost entirely from Davies’ own files of unpublished material, these twenty-four essays and lectures range over themes from "The Novelist and Magic" to "Literature and Technology," from "Painting, Fiction, and Faking," to "Can a Doctor Be a Humanist?" and "Creativity in Old Age." For devotees of Davies and all lovers of literature and language, here is the "urbanity, wit, and high seriousness mixed by a master chef" (Cleveland Plain Dealer) vintage delights from an exquisite literary menu. Davies himself says merely: "Lucky writers. . .like wine, die rich in fruitiness and delicious aftertaste, so that their works survive them." – Amazon.

Happy Alchemy: “One of Canada's--and the world's--most beloved authors, Robertson Davies was also a devoted fan of opera and the theater. In this follow-up to his first posthumous collection, A Merry Heart, Davies ruminates on these lifelong passions, offering a diverse sampling of personal reflections on everything from the ancient Greeks to Lewis Carroll, Scottish folklore to Laurence Olivier, the sins of Verdi to the virtues of melodrama. The combined effect of these thirty-three essays, lectures, plays, and librettos-- edited by his widow and daughter--is true alchemy, as "readers . . . come away with a renewed appreciation of the ease with which Davies routinely transformed his sometimes erudite passions into delightful entertainments" (The New York Times Book Review).” – Amazon.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Collected Essays. Hardbacks.

Discoveries: Early Letters 1938 -1975, by Robertson Davies (Selected and Edited by Judith Skelton Grant); For Your Eye Alone: The Letters of Robertson Davies 1976 - 1995, by Robertson Davies (Edited by Judith Skelton Grant).

Once having read the life of a great man, you also feel an interest in the letters. And these collections are a fine batch, written in an age when writing letters was a craft in itself. Davies talks about his personal life, his writing, publishing adventures, and his work at Massey College in so a lively manner you often wish that you were the person he was writing to. He has a magpie-eye for bright and interesting things, and sometimes you can see where he wove them as adornments into his novels. ‘Discoveries’ is an ex-library book and has suffered the transition a little roughly. There is another book, ‘A Celtic Temperament’, that is extracts from his diaries that would go well with these books.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Collected Letters. Biography. Hardbacks.