Robertson Davies

Encounters with Writers: 9

But first, a quick editorial announcement

By the time this post hits your inbox, I will have been on Substack for a year. I’m grateful for all the support you’ve shown me through your subscriptions and your kind comments. Thank you!

I started off suggesting that I’d post every two weeks. But in an effort to get out of the gate quickly and create enough content to attract subscribers, I ended up posting every week—even more often in the very early days. So in the last year, I’ve written and published here, just shy of 60 posts. But as we start our second year together, I’ve decided, for a few reasons, to revert to my original plan of posting bi-weekly. Why? Well, firstly, I’ve worried that I may be testing your patience and your time by dropping a post in your inbox every week. (I remember the pressure—and ultimate futility—of keeping up when I once had a New Yorker subscription.) It’s a lot to expect that you’ll read each one. Secondly, to be honest, it’s hard to come up with brand new content week in and week out. And finally, now that my ninth novel, A New Season, is essentially finished and formatted—and soon heading to the printers—(update coming in my next post), I really must turn my focus to my tenth novel (update coming on that at some point, too). So, starting with this post, you’ll be hearing from me, not weekly, but every other week. I hope you’re all okay with that but it’s time to write my next novel.

Now, on to a hero of mine, Robertson Davies.

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Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies in his literary prime.

I realize it may be a bit misleading to file this piece under the heading “Encounters with Writers,” as I’ve never been in the same room with Robertson Davies. Though I feel as if I have met him, and laughed with him, and shed a few tears with him over the years as I devoured his oeuvre. So I guess I’m okay with the subhead, and hope you are, too.

His novels

I came late to Robertson Davies—I seem to have been late to many writerly things, including, um, writing—and didn’t begin reading his novels until I was in my late twenties. I started with his best known works, The Deptford Trilogy comprising Fifth Business (1970), The Manticore (1972), and World of Wonders (1975). I enjoyed them so much I then started at the beginning with the Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost (1951), Leaven of Malice (1954), A Mixture of Frailties (1958). Then I fell into The Cornish Trilogy: The Rebel Angels (1981), What’s Bred in the Bone (1985), and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988). Finally, I waited patiently for the first two novels in what’s come to be known as The Toronto Trilogy: Murther and Walking Spirits (1991) and The Cunning Man (1994). He died a year later before finishing the third instalment.

My copies of the eleven novels of Robertson Davies.

I love the way Robertson Davies wrote. His sentences made me feel as if I were reading novels from the Victorian age. I think he was a writer born out of his time. His beautiful sometimes ornate prose was certainly at odds with the spare and sparse post-modern writing that Hemingway pioneered earlier in the last century. But as I’ve written before in this space, I much prefer the more flowing, complex prose of Davies to Hemingway’s simple, declarative sentences. (After all, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m a charter member of the “why use six words when twelve will do” school of writing!) But Davies’ understanding of the human condition and his insights into character, motivations, and relationships kept me coming back—not to mention his wry sense of humour.

After I finished reading his novels, I went looking for more Davies… and I found more.

A number of the other Davies books on my shelf.

I loved reading his short pieces, essays, ghost stories, letters, and of course, his hilarious musings in the guise of his alter ego, Samuel Marchbanks. And, I so enjoy his sentences.

Finally, I read two biographical works to try to connect his writing to his life. You can see the tendrils of his own experiences reaching into his fiction including the worlds of the theatre, the university, and small town Canada.

A crooked shot of two biographies of Robertson Davies that I’ve enjoyed.

He was, first, an actor at the Old Vic in London, England. You can hear his theatrical cadence when speaking, not to mention a hint of an English accent though he was born and raised in Thamesville, Ontario. Check out this 1970 conversation with him, largely about the state of theatre in Canada. (He’s not yet 60 years old in this video.)

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon

I have a couple of other oblique connections to Robertson Davies. I was lucky enough to have Douglas Gibson as my editor for my first six novels. He was Robertson Davies’ last editor. I would often ask Doug about Davies and he always obliged sharing wonderful stories of working with the CanLit legend.

Doug Gibson in September 2008 after handing me the first copy of my first novel. Yes, I then carried my BlackBerry on my belt. I stopped soon thereafter.

The first time I laid eyes on Douglas Gibson, long before I’d ever met him, was when Nancy and I attended Robertson Davies’ memorial service at U of T’s Convocation Hall in late 1995. We were just adoring Davies fans and attended the public service just because we could. It was open to all. Doug was kind of running the show from the stage while we sat up in the rafters of the packed hall. Doug spoke—and even sang a little, but that’s another story—along with a cast of other literary luminaries including Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, Jane Urquhart, Rohinton Mistry and the one and only John Kenneth Galbraith. It was a very moving service that also had its lighter moments. I’ll never forget it.

Now retired, Doug Gibson has written a couple of wonderful books about his time as an editor and then Publisher at McClelland & Stewart. In his Stories about Storytellers, there is, of course, a chapter on Robertson Davies—therein, Doug recounts how he came to be singing at Davies’ memorial service. Doug also writes about many of the other stellar writers in his stable—and one notably less than stellar writer who nevertheless continues to try hard.

You can see the great Robertson Davies caricature by Globe and Mail editorial cartoonist Anthony Jenkins in the middle left frame on the cover above. (It’s unlikely I’ll share the rather unflattering Jenkins sketch of me in the book.)

I can also argue that there’s a Leacock connection between Robertson Davies and me. You see, Davies won the Leacock Medal in 1955 for his second novel, Leaven of Malice. To have somehow won the same award as Robertson Davies and appear on the same list with him, continues to blow my mind all these years later.

This board-mounted banner hangs, out of sight, on the back of the door in our library as a constant reminder of my extraordinary good fortune.

Finally…

I even write under the watchful eye of Robertson Davies. This photo, a Christmas present from my favourite in-laws, hangs in our library. The shot was taken at a book signing in Nova Scotia many years ago.

You may have seen this from an earlier post, but this photo of Robertson Davies hangs in our library and presides over my writing.

I regret there’ll be no more Robertson Davies novels to enjoy. On the other hand, we have eleven wonderful and rich stories to which we can return again and again.

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Many thanks for stopping by. Hope you’re enjoying my posts. A reminder that this marks the start of posting every other week and not weekly. It will take some of the pressure off as I embark on the planning and writing of my tenth novel. Coming up next, an update on my ninth novel, A New Season. Hope you’ll subscribe and share. It’s free and easy. See you in a couple weeks.