Robertson Davies turned me lame!

REMEMBER:
1. I'm not a genius, I just like books.
2. I can be a bit off-task at times.
3. I'm not exactly topical.
4. I never claimed to have good task.

Thanks, Robertson Davies! You’ve changed my life. I’ve turned a corner; I can now be the high-living, ever-quaffing, WASPy, bourgeois bastard that I’ve always aspired to be. You’ve shown me the way. If I were to drunkenly stagger into the clubhouse of any country club across this great land I would now know how to fit in. Why, I could discuss Anglican church politics like a pro! I could regale the swells with stories about my boarding school days, over “bumpers of first class scotch!” I could be grimly earnest about the importance of finding good help.

What I’m getting at, simply, is this: reading a Robertson Davies novel is about the most un-apologetically Caucasian sensation most normal human beings can ever hope to experience, it’s like watching Mr. Rogers and Barbara Bush dance to Pat Boone’s Tutti Frutti. I have recently concluded reading four Robertson Davies novels (The Cunning Man, Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders, the latter three making up what is known, for no really good reason, as The Deptford Trilogy) and I feel as though I’ve been bleached several shades paler. Davies writes about men (and that’s not a chauvinistic slip; I do mean men, no female plays any more significant a role in these novels than to occasionally narrate what the men are up to) who one supposes must leap out of bed in the morning already in their well-tailored three-piece suits, hoisting “bumpers of first class scotch,” and spouting witticisms.

And, what can I say? I enjoyed every minute of it.

I am, you see, a square. I’d rather have dinner with Brubeck than Miles Davis, I like chess and pipes and I love love looooooove a nice sweater. I hate hate haaaaate it when people are too familiar too soon (isn’t it better to be coldly polite to new acquaintances for two or three months just to show ‘em?). My favorite founding father is John Adams (the great great granddaddy of prickly squares everywhere) and I firmly believe the 60s ruined everything.

So, Robertson Davies, I discovered, is for me. He may well bore the living Christ out of you, though.

If none of this has turned you off yet, then pour yourself a "bumper of first-class scotch" and dive right in. ("Bumpers of first-class scotch" are kind of a big thing in Davies novels, if you haven't picked up on that yet) I would recommend The Cunning Man foremost of the books I read. It is, for one thing, a singular work, and thus more user-friendly than the Deptford Trilogy. Such nuts-and-bolts considerations aside it's also, I think, a better written, tighter, and more compelling story. It follows Dr. Jonathan Hullah as he reflects on the entirety of his life and follows the development of his lasting friendships. This book-length reminiscence is prompted by a reporter’s investigation into the death of an Anglican clergyman, and the possibility that Dr. Hullah's oldest friend may have been involved. It is this mystery that ties the book together, giving it a bit more starch and cohesion then the other Davies novels I read.

I am not a lover of the idea that ‘Character is plot’ (which notion was rammed down my throat bi-weekly with a punter’s pole while I was in grad school). I am an adherent of the radical notion that Plot is Plot and Character is Character, but I’m a little screwy you know. In the case of this book, however, it holds fairly true. Jonathan Hullah is, very simply, a person you want to read about. He’s a gentleman, and I mean that in one of the more archaic and elegant uses of that word. I say this because while he’s a diagnostician by occupation–it isn’t the beginning and end of what the man is. He is an illustration of that charmingly old-school idea that wealth is not an end in and of itself. The end, rather, is to develop oneself as an interesting and cultured person, and wealth only serves this end by providing the leisure and means to pursue it. He is a patron of the theatre, a literary critic, and a cultivator and collector of oddities, especially as regards his friendships. And his friends, being oddities, are also an interesting mix of people to read about.

So, what is there to say? It’s a good read. You won’t regret it. Especially if you’re a member of that increasingly marginalized demographic: the Square. If you’re reading this there’s a good chance you are one, whether you know it or not. And if you’re quite sure you aren’t may I recommend Valley of the Dolls?