Robertson Davies: A Mingling of Contrarities

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

This collection of essays, in the words of one of the editors,
“developed from the first-ever conference on Davies, at the University
of Ottawa, May 1998,” and is published as the latest in the
Reappraisals: Canadian Writers series that has been appearing regularly
from the University of Ottawa Press for 30 years. It is not altogether
clear what “developed from” implies, but the resulting book is
well-planned and admirably comprehensive in its scope.

It is framed by two items that focus appropriately on Davies himself.
The first, which gives the impression of being the keynote address, is
an account by Michael Peterman, author of the Twayne study of Davies,
who uses his own somewhat uneasy relationship with Davies as a
foundation upon which to explore the author’s elaborate series of
masks with which, in dramatic fashion, he shielded his essential self
from the probing scrutiny of readers and commentators. Peterman writes
with dignity and generosity, and succeeds in presenting a convincing
“mingling of contraries”—wit and cantankerousness, humor and
seriousness—that suggests a genuine complexity. The last contribution,
described as “a story with academic interest,” presents Davies’s
correspondence with his physician-friend Rick Davis concerning medical
details required for the writing of Murther and Walking Spirits and The
Cunning Man, a fascinating glimpse into the novelist’s workshop.

In between, a series of academic papers competently survey the wide
range of Davies’s writing. All 11 novels are considered, and there is
an additional paper devoted to his plays. More generally, Faith Balisch
tackles the dangerous topic of humor, and K.P. Stich contributes an
original study of the place of “Wine and Spirits” within his work.
There are also useful discussions of his preoccupation with magic and
“Authentic Forgeries.”

Despite a few reservations (I found that the paper on the Cornish
trilogy never came to grips with its subject, noted a number of glitches
in the notes, and lamented the lack of an index), I consider the
standard generally high. I have read most of the volumes in this series,
and judge this one of the best.