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whattoreadnext · 2 years

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DAVIES, Robertson

Canadian novelist, journalist and playwright (1913-1995)

The deceptively gentle, expansive tone of Davies' satires belies their extraordinary subject-matter: it is as if Jane Austen had reworked Rabelais. Davies' books are comedies of manners, many set in small university towns riven with gossip and pretension. Tempest-tost (1951) is about an amateur production of Shakespeare's The Tempest all but sabotaged by the unexpected, lacerating love of the middle-aged leading man for the girl who plays his daughter. A Mixture of Frailties (1958) describes the chain of bizarre events after a woman leaves money to educate a girl in the arts, unless and until the woman's son sires a male heir. The Deptford trilogy (1970-75) begins with the throwing of a stone-filled snowball, and spirals out to cover three 20th-century lives, interlocking in a dazzling, bizarre mosaic, involving medieval (and modern) saints, big business, Houdini, Jungian analysis, touring freak-shows and a barnstorming company of travelling actors.

THE 'CORNISH' TRILOGY (1982) The books in this trilogy, about members of the wealthy, eccentric Cornish family, are The Rebel Angels, What's Bred in the Bone and The Lyre of Orpheus. Hovering over the events, as puppeteers loom over marionettes, are guardian angels, devils and spirits of medieval mischief; we humans are not alone. Alternate chapters of The Rebel Angels are told by Father Darcourt, a professor of Biblical Greek at a small, Roman Catholic, Canadian university, and Maria Magdalene Theotoky, a research student. The university is a quiet place, dedicated to placid scholarship and barbed common-room gossip. But Ms Theotoky is researching Rabelais, and the plot suddenly erupts with priceless manuscripts, bizarre lusts, devil worship, scatology, and a storm of passion and deceit against which no grove of academe could stand unbowed. What's Bred in the Bone is the life-story of Francis Cornish, art expert, multi-millionaire, wartime spy and loner, whose search for himself, and for love, is hampered by his guardian devil Maimas. The Lyre of Orpheus tells of the recreation, in 20th-century Canadian academe, of a lost Arthurian opera by the devil-inspired 19th-century romantic composer E.T.A. Hoffman. The style in all three books is urbane, placid narrative, but the contents are sown with mines. If Jane Austen rules the tone of Davies' early trilogies, in this one Rabelais keeps blowing raspberries.

The books in The Deptford Trilogy are Fifth Business, The Manticore and World of Wonders. Davies' other novels include Murther and Walking Spirits and a third trilogy, in a similarly urbane and hilarious vein, set in a small Ontario university town, The Salterton Trilogy. The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks and Marchbanks' Almanac are collections of humorous journalism, and Davies' plays include A Jig for the Gipsy, Hunting Stuart and the political satire Question Time. Happy Alchem is a posthumous collection of his engaging, erudite writings on theatre.

READ ON

Robertson Davies, A Leaven of Malice

To The Rebel Angels : Anthony Burgess, Enderby's Dark Lady David Lodge, Small World

To What's Bred in the Bone : Richard Condon, Any God Will Do Thomas Mann, The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man

To The Lyre of Orpheus : D.J. Enright, Academic Year Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution

To Davies' work in general : Peter Ackroyd, English Music John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany Aritha Van Herk, No Fixed Address

more :Tags Pathways Themes & Places

#AUTHORS #DAVIES_Robertson #ACKROYD_Peter #BURGESS_Anthony #CONDON_Richard #ENRIGHT_DJ #IRVING_John #JARRELL_Randall #LODGE_David #MANN_Thomas #VAN_HERK_Aritha

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whattoreadnext · 2 years

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Ben Hur

Lew Wallace, Ben Hur

(Christian and pagan antagonism in ancient Rome)

Bible Old Testament

Jeanette Winterson, Boating for Beginners (Noah"s flood)

Joseph Heller, God Knows ("memoirs" of King David)

Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers (seen as allegory of 1930s fascist Europe)

Joseph, Mary and Jesus

Severia Hure, I, Mary, Daughter of Israel (Mary)

Michelle Roberts, The Wild Girl (Gospel according to Mary Magdalene)

Robert Graves, King Jesus (fulfilment of all Old Testament prophecy)

Pasquale Festa Campanile, For Love, Only for Love (Joseph)

The First Christians

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis? (first Christian converts, first martyrs)

Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe (effects on Roman centurion and others whi inherit Christ"s robe as crucifixion)

Par Lagerkvist, Barabbas (before, during and after Christ"s crucifixion)

Frank Slaughter, The Shoes of the Fisherman (Peter)

Anthony Burgess, The Kingdom of the Wicked (missionary journeys of Paul, Luke and Barnabas)

George Moore, The Brook Kerith (Joseph of Arimathea)

#PATHWAYS #WALLACE_Lew #BEN HUR #BURGESS_Anthony #DOUGLAS_Lloyd #FESTA_CAMPANILE_Pasquale #GRAVES_Robert #HELLER_Joseph #HURE_Severia #LAGERKVIST_Par #MANN_Thomas #MOORE_George #ROBERTS_Michelle #SIENKIEWICZ_Henryk #SLAUGHTER_Frank #WINTERSON_Jeanette

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whattoreadnext · 2 years

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David Copperfield

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

(dark childhood, miserable growing-up and eventual happiness in 19th-century London)

"Dickensian" Novels: Bleak Side of Life (the battle for existence fought - and lost)

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1820s France: honest man convicted to gallets escapes and rebuilds his life)

Anthony Trollope, The Last Chronicle of Barset (1860s England: honest man wrongly accused of theft; student making his way in London)

Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (1880s New York heiress rejects ways of society to "be herself")

James Baldwin, Go, Tell It on the Mountain (1950s Harlem: son of slum family learns about sex, racism and born-again Christian love)

John O"Hara, The Lockwood Concern (1930s Pennsylvania family becomes wealthy by violence, destroys itself)

J.B. Priestley, Angel Pavement (1920s London firm taken over, developed and ruined by confidence-trickster)

"Dickensian" Novels: Cheerful Side of Life (life maybe a struggle, but it can still be fun)

David Cook, Sunrising (1830s England: three children rescued from degradation in rural and urban slums)

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1860s Mississippi: boy"s adolescence on river and in riverside communities)

H.G. Wells, The History of Mr Polly (1890s England: middle-aged "drop-out" has many adventures, finds happiness)

Thomas Mann, The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man (1900s Europe: confidence-man"s cheerful, amoral adventures among the bourgeoisie)

Angus Wilson, The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot (1950s widow travels world I search of happiness)

Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March (1930s Chicago: zestful account of slum boy using his wits to make his way)

Learning How to Be Grown-up (adolescence as a quest, with adulthood as the glittering prize)

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage (1890s London school days, Paris student life and eventual happiness of lonely young man)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister (1790s Europe: young man runs away to be an actor, esperiences real life, "finds" himself)

André Gide, The Counterfeiters (1920s Paris: young people growing up, initiated into life and love)

Lisa Alther, Kinflicks (1960s USA: young woman learns about sex, love, feminism, protest-politics and "dropping out")

Mordechai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1930s Montreal: young man moves from rags to riches, loses his soul)

William Makepeace Thackeray, Pendennis (1840s London: after many escapades, young man finds literary success)

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