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

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.5/10

The Man of Myth never quite becomes the book its title promises, and I think that is why it lands, for me, as a solid but faintly unsatisfying read.

JSG gives us a thoughtful, informed portrait of Robertson Davies, and there is no question she understands both the man and the world he moved in. You see clearly how Davies shaped himself, how deliberately he cultivated that magus-like public persona, part scholar, part performer. But the problem is that the book mostly observes that performance rather than pressing on it. The mask is described, even admired, but rarely tested.

Part of this comes down to proximity. Grant writes with care, even tact, and you can feel the edges being smoothed where a sharper biographer might have leaned in. There is little sense of friction, of contradiction, of anything truly at stake in the telling. The result is a life that feels curated rather than discovered, assembled from letters, anecdotes, and milestones, but without that jolt of revelation that makes a biography linger.

And Davies himself does not make it easy. He was already so self aware, so practiced in presenting a version of himself to the world, that unless someone pushes hard against that construction, you are left circling the persona rather than getting beneath it.

So the book is intelligent, readable, and often quietly interesting, but it never quite catches fire. You come away feeling you have spent time in good company, but not that you have been shown anything you did not already half suspect.

(I've been working on this tome for a while, drifting in and out of these pages when something more interesting came along, which it often did. I'm paring down my library and making a point of re-reading everything before I set it free. Some are easier than others to let go.)

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the whole, an okay bio from 1994. Too much plot summary at the expense of saying other things. Where does Davies fit in the canlit landscape? What do other canadian writers think of his work? What does he think of theirs? Is he a dead end or a source for other, younger writers? None of these questions are explored. While Grant does discuss Davies' faults, the tone of the book is a bit too reverential, and her own ideas about his novels and plays aren't insightful and seem to stay on the surface, content with recapitulating what he thinks and believes. Unless, of course, the meaning in his books is surface level. He appeared schematic, to me, after a while, and those jungian archetypes grew tiresome.

It's unlikely another bio of Davies would take the same approach as Grant, but I've not heard or read (and that only means I've not seen it, it doesn't mean I'm an expert) much about him anywhere, not in the last 15 or so years, so I do wonder if he was of his time but isn't influential in his literary afterlife and if another bio would ever be written. For now, this one is cautiously recommended.

[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.

[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.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In Robertson Davies: Man of Myth", author Judith Skelton Grant gives the reader a biography fully aligned with her subject's wishes. In her acknowledgements, Grant makes it very clear that she worked closely with Davies and his family:
"Davies brought great energy and liveliness to our almost seventy interviews between 1981 and 1993 and kept me on my mettle. Davies' wife, Brenda, his brother Arthur L. Davies, and his daughters Miranda, Jennifer Surridge and Rosamond Cunnington all gave me benefit of thoughtful commentary" (p. vii)
During the period when Skelton was conducting her research Davies would publish his "Cornish" trilogy (i.e. "The Rebel Angels (1981), "What's Bred in the Bone" (1985) and "The Lyre of Orpheus" (1988)) as well as "Murther and Walking Spirits" (1991). Skelton devotes a chapter to each of these novels. They are all excellent.
Skelton also does a tremendous job at explaining the role played by the theories of Carl Jung on the "Deptford" trilogy (i.e. "Fifth Business (1970), "The Manticore" (1972) and "World of Wonders (1975)). I suspect that Skelton also writes well on the on the Salterton Trilogy (1951 -1958) but as I have only read one of the novels in this group, I cannot be certain.
Similarly Skelton may be very perceptive on the 15 plays that Davies published between 1958 and 1981. However, as I have not read any of them, I feel unable to judge her comments. I am able only to note her thoroughness. Davies' plays were never very successful and no longer being performed.
Skelton is to be commended for the way that she covers Davies' career as editor of the "Peterborough Examiner" from 1942 to 1955. She stresses that he was not just a fine columnist. Being the owner he was also a highly successful business manager.
Finally, it should be noted that Skelton addresses very directly the extravagant dress of Robertson Davies and his habit of drawing attention to himself in virtually every setting.
Skelton's book is very long and her style at time is pedestrian but her meticulousness is remarkable. She looks at all aspects of Robertson Davies and gives every matter the attention that it deserves.

[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.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biographies are strange, perhaps even more strange if their subject is an author. An author, any author, develops their craft and presents their work of fiction and their mind to an audience. It is, perhaps, rather presumptuous to tell readers what a writer is, who a writer is, or even why they write, even if you have access to the writer, their papers, their letters and their world.

At least, that’s my thought. Anyway, Judith Grant’s biography of Davies is very good. Detailed, thorough, perceptive, sensitive and well researched. By reading it you will discover much about Davies, his life, his writing process and, yes, his association with that fantastical Duke of dark corners Carl Jung.

What was missing in the book? Well, I found it too clinical, too cold. Davies, like all of us, has many angles. I would have liked to have read a book that looked and wondered more about the shadows in Davies’ life. What is his persona?

[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.