Canadians, who seem oft times armed with a great, unrelenting inferiority complex, have extravagant and boundless opinions of Robertson Davies of Caledon, Ontario.
Said one noted literary scholar in Toronto: "In anyone's ... pantheon of Canadian writers, Davies holds a place close to Zeus."
Mr. Davies, at 81, is Canada's best known writer of fiction. He has been twice considered for a Nobel Prize in literature. His books have circulated worldwide, translated into dozens of languages. He is, without question, preeminent.
Now comes Mr. Davies again -- with a new fiction, "The Cunning Man" -- to tease more sensational rhetoric from the pens of his star-struck Canadian loyalists.
"The Cunning Man" is a writer's novel. From its structure and technique to its language and choice of words, Mr. Davies crafts a story of reminiscences. The main character, Jonathan Hullah, recounts his life from his lowly birth and childhood in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, past private schools, university and to his unconventional medical practice in Toronto. He enlists his childhood friends, his loves and his inspiring admirers and acquaintances to enrich a narrative of age and aging, wisdom, knowledge and melancholy.
Dr. Hullah's world takes us to the present, but swirls with details more rooted in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. They reflect a more provincial time. His Toronto is not unlike the city I first encountered in the mid-1960s: insular, very English and decidedly un-American. Like Jonathan Hullah, the city was the center of my emotional and intellectual quickening too.
As the main character recounts his personal pursuits -- for adulthood, for knowledge, for stature, the reader is taken from society's old-fashioned standards of character, backbone, the brainy precisions of elitist education to the liberalizing freedom of Canadian socialism, and material and sexual hedonism. This is, it seems, the natural course of things.
Through it though, Dr. Hullah is able to finally trumpet: "This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free but taxation is mortal. You come when you can and leave when you must. The show is continuous."
"The Cunning Man," at 469 pages, is worth your time.
Now for the details:
The technique: Mr. Davies' tale is recounted largely by gimmick. Dr. Hullah is interviewed by a journalist, Esme. At the same time, he writes a secret Case Book, which becomes the narrative. Both work, allowing the story to flow. Part III, however, is devoted to a series of letters from Grebe House in Toronto, home to the lesbian lovers Emily Raven-Hart and Pansy Todhunter. The letters, while descriptive and enlightening, so alter the thread of the book that the narrative falters. The story line ebbs only to pick up again once the reader returns to Dr. Hullah's Case Book. Mr. Davies shouldn't have. The language: This is not a breezy beach book. Forget the fast read. "The Cunning Man's" style will twist the cerebrum. The sentence structure is complex, replete with semi-colons. The words are royal: hetaera, dwale, euchred, opprobriously, frugiferous. There also are frequent sprinklings of Latin phrases. Yet this combination, for my money, is the heart and soul of some of the best writing there is. Not kid stuff. Not sentences bastardized by decades of electronics, but honest, flowing, lyric passages. It's much appreciated.
An excess: On a single bizarre occasion -- beginning at page 197 -- Mr. Davies succumbs to an unnecessary and peculiarly out-of-place description of sexual violence involving prostitutes
and the Russian Navy. Now, I'm no prude but his detailed descriptions -- which served no purpose in the context of the contiguous passages or in the book generally -- were offensive.
Mr. Davies is old enough to know better.
James Asher, city editor of The Sun, studied at the University of Toronto. Born in rural New York State, Mr. Asher has written for newspapers for the last 25 years. His work has been cited regionally and nationally for journalistic excellence. Before joining The Sun, he was an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer. He has a master's degree from Syracuse University and has done post-graduate work in finance and economics.
"The Cunning Man," by Robertson Davies. 469 pages. New York: Viking. $23.95