Customer Reviews

Leaven of Malice

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The great aspect about Davies' triogies is that each component is a stand alone novel. I read Leaven of Malice and simply enjoyed it! Davies being an editor and publisher, writes with material from experience in the editing buisness. Davies stays true to a Canadian based setting and Canadian characters. He also suggests a dignified proper tone to the book through his diction. It is amusing how these proper characters can act so immature (in their dignified way) and provide so much entertainment to the reader. Davies has the art down of conveying believable characters who do and say outrageous things, and at the same time creates characters that are used in the form of satire. This book is #2 on my list after Fifth Business...this one is a definite read. You will get a lot out of it.

A Mixture of Frailties tells two complete but entwined
stories: one of Sully and his young wife who
are burdened by the 'dead hand' of Sully's mother
(they must produce a male heir or forfeit a fortune to
'little Miss Nobody, studying Japanese flower-arranging'
under the terms of her malevolent will); another of a
provincial Canadian girl, Monica, who benefits from
the absurd trust established by the will, and makes her
way to Europe to learn if she has any talent as an
opera singer. Monica has talent, though she often
confounds herself in her struggles between filial loyalty
to her coarse parents and her innappropriate love for a
composer of brilliance but no kindness. In the world of
Robertson Davies there are always happy endings. Monica
will find her heart, and her future as a singer; Sully
and his wife will find a fortune and an heir; a multitude
of the sort of people who ought to exist, but somehow
never do, will pop up along the way. But the best thing
of all? Though Robertson Davies died recently, he left
three and two-thirds trilogies which merit reading and
re-reading. The man whom The New York Times called
"The Canadian Trollope" has left a vastly entertaining
and richly humorous collection of novels, essays, and
miscellany.

Book 2 of the Salterton Trilogy. Following up on loose ends from Tempest-Tost, and immediately beginning to unravel even more. A rich plot with Dickensian characters and twists (Davies was a great Dickens scholar so no surprise here). A bit deeper than Tempest-Tost, but still obviously an early effort although showing the deft touch with dialogue and character that came to distinguish Davies as a leading novelist.