Robertson Davies

I'm still depressed that, after sending a letter of praise his way, to receive a letter in return signed by his secretary, but c'est la vie.

I find his third trilogy to be the best (The Cornish Trilogy), although it's not as tightly wound as the Deptford Trilogy.

Davies breadth of knowledge, and how well his understanding assimilates into his work is one of the things I love most about his writing. I was talking with a professor recently about Margaret Atwood (can't stand her), and we came to the conclusion that in Atwood's novels it's fairly obvious when she does 'research'; when she goes and looks up things she doesn't really care that much about because it fits with her novel. Her 'knowledge' is cold, because it's obviously just there on the most basic intellectual level. With Davies everything he includes feels like it's a deep-felt, and deeply-understood passion. You and I may not know or understand the nuances of his references and subjects, but unlike Atwood, you can be sure that Davies *does*.

I am reading The Manticore right now, having just read Fifth Business. The opening of The Manticore makes not reading the entire first chapter pretty much impossible.

Wow - I believe that might be my first post ever on ILX up there. I read the Cornish Trilogy in Nov/Dec last year for the first time, thoroughly and completely lost myself in it.

What's with some of these clip art covers? I guess it is a picture of RD himself, but still kind of cheesy.

I acted in a production of Hunting Stuart about 20 years ago; it was surprising how lively his dialogue was onstage, even with amateur actors, when it seems so baroque on the page.

robertson davies trilogies

The whiff of 'the stage' and what the Greeks called 'the smell of the lamp' does pervade his books. My early life as a high school theater nerd and subsequent rejection of that niche probably accounts for my general lack of delight in his otherwise very well devised novels. When I read him, I can see what a good writer and storyteller he is, but what ought to excite me about him fails to connect on any visceral level and on the intellectual level I resist him.

I like his essays much better.

Not to mention the roar of the greasepaint.

Hah! V pleased w/ this revive - just yesterday I was literally blowing the dust off a pile of books and on top, requiring a wet wipe, was my (unread) copy of the The Cornish Trilogy and I was thinking, "Am I ever going to read this fucking thing? Does anybody in the world give a shit about Robertson Davies now?'

I think I have it because Burgess included it in his mad 99 Novels list, where he concludes that RD is 'prime Nobel Prize material'! But now I want to read him after looking through this thread

I loved the Cornish and Deptford trilogies. I came to Davies through 99 Novels as well, was led to a lot of good reading by that book.

Yeah, that is a lot of fun, 99 Novels.