Customer Reviews

The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I took a break from Davies fiction this month to read this collection of non-fiction, culled from over thirty years of essays, and grouped into three broad categories: Characters, Books, and Robertson Davies. I say broad because Davies was not thinking of these categories as he wrote these essays. Instead, these were written to fill his column at the Peterborough Examiner ("A Writer's Diary") or book reviews for various American publications such as Harper's, The Washington Post, or The Atlantic Monthly. Characters, however, tends to be about "lives"--either the lives of authors (including Wodehouse and Freud), literary creations (mehitabel), or theater figures (Emma Calve and Melli Nelba). Okay, I'll admit it--I didn't know who Calve and Nelba were either, but that's because I'm a book person, not a theater person. Even so, some of the authors and books covered here do stretch even my prodigious reading (not to mention my memory), partly due to the age of some of these essays (some as early as 1942) and partly due to Davies quite eclectic interests. That's why I like him, however. Eclecticism is the mark of someone not afraid of change.

The Books section is just as varied, covering Graves' King Jesus and Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. What was interesting for me is his comment on the Mervyn Peake's fantasy classic, The Gormenghast Trilogy, which I have tried to read several times and never found it to catch my interest. I must have another go at it sometime in the near future. In this section of book reviews, it is interesting to note the progression (the articles are arranged in chronological order) of how the writer views the writing of his forebears and his peers, especially in the light of the wonderful writer Davies himself was becoming. The essay that hits closest to home is his essay on Joyce Cary's novels and their inventive method of retelling tales using the same characters, which Davies was to modify for his three trilogies.

Finally, the section entitled Robertson Davies gives you a personal glimpse into the writer at work, as well as the curmudgeon at play. The essay entitled "A Chat with a Great Reader" alone is worth the price of the book. In it, Davies recalls a conversation with a fellow at a party who claims to be a "Great Reader" and is delighted to meet Davies, a "Critic." The distinctions are quite telling, and an indictment on those who play at the game of knowledge and entertainment. While not everything here is as funny or insightful, these two to five page essays are the perfect compliment to your bedstand or reading chair, as bon bons to your main meal of words.

Robertson Davies lives up to his reputation as Canada's distinguished man of letters of the twentieth century. In addition to establishing his abilities as a novelist and a playwright, he reveals in the showcased selections in "The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies" how talented and perceptive a reviewer he was, covering a wide variety of writers and books.

Davies' superb economy of expression shines as the reader is treated to pristine vignettes about Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, James Agate, P.G. Woodehouse, Somerset Maugham, D.H. Lawrence and many others. His wit sparkles and he effectively and succinctly pinpoints the elements which made these writers succeed.

For the reader who has yet to read any Robertson Davies, this book is a great place to start. It is informative, easy reading that will frequently make you laugh. It is 364 pages long, but most entries are 3 to 5 pages in length, so that it is an easy book to pick up, read, and put down again (e.g., during, coffee breaks, lunch breaks, bedtime reading, etc.)

The book is broken up into three sections, "characters," "books," and what might be thought of as a 'miscellaneous' section. Judith Skelton Grant's six page introduction is enough to get the reader oriented and short enough to keep from sounding like a mini-dissertation. Her description of some of the writings that make up this book reveals what wide-ranging interests Davies had. Davies wrote about "circuses, saints, psychology, music, magic, religion, handwriting, book collecting, drama, social history. His taste in literature ranged widely too, from Chaucer to Mervyn Peake, from Shakespeare to Don Marquis."

The "characters" section of "The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies" is mostly about writers, including books they wrote, while the "books" section is mostly book reviews, while mentioning the writers. In other words, in the first section, the emphasis is more upon the authors (P.G. Wodehouse, Sydney Smith, Havelock Ellis, William Hazlitt, etc.) while the second is more about the works the authors produced (The Canterbury Tales, Origins, Lolita, Corsets and Crinolines, etc.), though each section has both.

The last section was, for me, the most entertaining section, one that comes closer to simulating a conversation. Some of them were indeed placed in a conversational style, such as "A Chat with a Great Reader," which by itself is reason enough to purchase this book. Davies was not absolutely sure he had ever met a great reader. He himself was "just a Persistent Reader." And what is a great reader? "Somebody who reads greatly. Somebody who gives his whole attention to what he is reading. Somebody who brings to a book a curiosity and a sympathy which matches the intention of the auther. Somebody who gives himself wholly to a book."

There are a few entries which give a week's worth of "diary" entries. This consists of generally a half to 3/4 of a page given over to what might be called "literary musings," though written in a light and frequently humorous style. These were some of the funniest entries in the book, many written with tongue clearly planted in cheek. An entry from "The Writer's Week" gives a sample. "Sunday: Lay on my back most of the day, reading, sleeping, and day-dreaming. Very literary. Some women, however, resent it, so young writers should choose their wives with care. Many a promising career has been wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman. The right sort of woman can distinguish between Creative Lassitude and plain shiftlessness."

Or this from the entry "Haiku and Englyn": "I have been much troubled by the hubbub about diet in the papers, and I see no hope. If I eat the high-protein diet to grow slim and thwart thrombosis, I am silting up my veins with cholesterol, and may burst like a clogged water-main. If I eat the cholesterol-free diet, I am stuffed wth starch, and insurance companies threaten me with rapid transport to the Hereafter by the Fat Route. Only women have the answer, and I sat in a restaurant today watching them eat lettuce and scraps of vegetable with lemon-juice dressing. Yeats' splendid lines flashed through my mind - 'It's certain that fine women eat, A crazy salad with their meat, Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.' I murmured this while emptying a big bottle of cholesterol over my fatty lamb chops."

This book is not only entertaining to read but also education. I underlined many sections and have found that in his good-natured way, Robertson Davies was stimulating to both the imagination and the critical faculty. In short, "The Enthusiams of Robertson Davies" is a book I have returned to many times over the years and easily repays the investment of reading it.

Mr. Davies was a wise, interesting man. Much of his book is devoted to reviews of other author's books, but if you're curious about Mr. Davies himself, there is plenty of insight into his character. The essays are all intelligent, wise, and intriguing. Mr. Davies believed that most books are too long and could be shortened without affecting the quality of story. All these essays were written for a newspaper - Mr. Davies had a lot to say and very little room to say it. It is the economy of his words that carry the day. It's always a pleasure for someone to practice what they preach. Bravo.

Usually, there is nothing more dead than someone's old newspaper columns. A quick take on the passing parade is normally gone as soon as said parade is. This collection of Robertson Davies' bread and butter writing newspaper writing is anything but stale.

Davies' old Sunday columns from various Canadian newspapers date back nearly half a century from the time of this book's publication. As he limits himself mostly to great literature and writers, the pieces have aged well. Davies comes across as a rather avuncular feuilleton, serving up tidy little takes on Dickens, James Agate, the Welsh verse form known as the englyn, and a slew of other famous and once-famous figures.

Don't misunderstand: this is not the most timeless stuff Davies ever wrote. But it is a good collection of his marginalia, which has the rare virtue of never being trivial.