Customer Reviews

For Your Eye Alone

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It's startling how thoughtful, evocative and just plain funny a man can be in writing his regular correspondance. Makes you want to be a prolific letter-writer yourself. Makes you wish he were still alive so that you could respond to some of the more inflammatory things he says.

I don't think I'd realized quite how much Davies was concerned about the "place" of Canadian Literature in the world literature canon; it comes out so plainly here.

Judith Skelton Grant, who edited the letters, is mentioned repeatedly in them -- Davies apparently was amused, worried and sometimes just ticked off about the biography she was writing of him.

I enjoyed this book's organization, which was established by the various books Davies had written over the last part of his career. While not Canadian, and thereby somewhat in the dark regarding some of the letters' recipients, I found the editor's annotations brief but helpful. The main draw here is the author's distinctive voice, which emerges within the various letters.

I am not usually interested in reading compilations of letters. Here, however, I find a volume that constitutes a diversion from my other reading, a book which I can pick up from time to time and garner ideas for those brighter days when I re-read a Davies' novel. For this end, I found the collection worthwhile!

Robertson Davies was 82 years old when he died on 12-2-1995 from

a leaky heart and terminal pneumonia. He is one of Canada's most

famous writers of belles lettres literature having multiple nominations for the Nobel Prize.

Some of his best works are Dr. Canon's Cure, What's Bred in the Bone, Jezebel and The Merry Heart. He had 26 honorary degrees. Memorable quotations from his letters are as follows:

- " Writers are an extremely contentious group and old age

does not make them any more peaceful."

- "Sampson should have stayed away from the Barber Shop. "

- "The great leap for writers is in their 40s. They either

gain new energy or go to pot. "

- "Ye have the poor always with you. " Jesus Christ

A strength of this work is that it shows the deeply personal

side of Robertson Davies. He wrote many letters and discussed

small talk and consequential issues in most of them. The book

is well worth the price for the huge value of the letters

contained . The letters are written with considerable wit

and satire. The humor is not unlike British journalistic satire. When you've finished reading this book, it will become apparent why the author is so sorely missed.