Robertson Davies: Man of Myth

by Judith Skelton Grant

Drawing on interviews with the Canadian novelist himself and an unprecedented access to his notebooks and family papers, a detailed biography traces the evolution of Davies's work and the relationship between his life and his fiction.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Canada

816 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1994

Reviews

[Miles Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough exploration of the man and his work. Demonstrates how anyone can turn the everyday instances of their life into their own legend.

[Alex Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I looked forward to this biography, since I greatly admire Robertson Davies' novels, but the book turned out to be a mixed bag. Its strengths are 1) a thorough description of the influence of Jungian psychology on Davies' life and fiction, 2) a careful analysis of the manner in which elements of Davies' own life are incorporated into his novels, 3) an interesting depiction of Davies' parents and their profound influence on him, and 4) the importance of myth to Davies, who sees classical mythic patterns recurring subtly in everyday modern life. The huge gap is the book's failure to portray in any meaningful way Davies' relationships with anyone other than his parents. After a section on their courtship, Davies' wife pretty much vanishes from the biography; we have no sense of the details of their marriage (beyond the fact that it seems to be happy). Davies' three children simply don't exist as characters. The biographer gives no sense of their personalities, the incidents of their growing up, and their relationship with their parents (the last is a surprising omission, since Grant repeatedly emphases the importance in Davies' fiction of characters coming to terms with their family history and protagonists who need to grown beyond their limitations set by their parents). Grant mentions that Davies has friends, but we learn next to nothing about them (and even less about Davies' enemies, beyond a sketchy picture of his brother Fred and a couple of pages about a mean-spirited academic in Massey College). In fact the book contains comparatively little about what might be thought of as Davies' personal life; it tends to concentrate on his professional roles - newspaper editor, author, and master of Massey College - - and mention his private life largely in terms of his passion for music, art, and the past. Grant's literary analysis is hit or miss. Some genuine insights tend to be lost in pages of plot summary. All in all, I couldn't help wishing that Davies rather than Grant had written this book. It would have been much more entertaining.

[Tom Axworthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robertson Davies, one of the premier writers in Canadian literature, decided well when he cooperated with Judith Skelton Grant's project to write his biography.Davies gave Grant access to his working notebooks where we can see that his vivid imagination produced ideas, sketches, and outlines years before his novels were written. In the late 1950s, for example, he kept visualizing a snowball with a stone hidden inside thrown outside his boyhood home in Thamesville and a decade later as Davies began to write Fifth Business this was the originating event that made the Depford Triology a milestone in Canadian letters.Grant chronicles the early successful career of Davies as an actor, editor , playwright and director and shows how his life experiences informs and are often reproduced in his novels. But as Grant makes clear as Davies approached middle age he had a tremendous burst of creativity leading to six award winning novels( Davies was even in the running for the Nobel Prize in literature) that turned an interesting career into great one. Davies became interested in Jungian psychology in the 1950s and these techniques helped him to adapt to middle age , expand his self-awareness and write novels that were as wise and erudite as his earlier novels and plays had been comedic. This is a superb biigraphy of a Canadian literary giant.

[john greenhalgh]

Loads of information, like a list in chronological order.

Any insights? Any interesting analogies? Any cross-connections?

Robertson Davies explains himself eloquently, this biography,
not so much

[Eugène L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkably detailed biography of one of the best English-speaking writers of Canada.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly comprehensive, delightful, makes me want to read his books again.

[Joyce · Rating 2 out of 5]

the description of this book uses the word EXTENSIVE. that's an understatement. I guess we should know when a book about someone's life is four inches thick that it's padded with trivia. I gave up on this one about a third way through. The author appears to have dumped every piece of research she came across into the book without asking 'does the reader really need to know this?' For example; an entire page of the name of every kid who played a part in an elementary school play, long lists of contacts that had little to do with his life etc.etc. His life was ostentatious and he was a fascinating character but this book is full of trivia. I will however read some of his own writing and I expect it to be comical and verbose.

[Addie · Rating 5 out of 5]

got about 1/4 of the way through and had to return it to the library! this book is enormous! waiting for my ebay copy to arrive in the mail so i can continue on.