Thank you for reminding me of the wonderful Robertson Davies! He was not well known in small town Northern Ontario, although my Stratford-raised husband read his work in high school and attended at least one of his talks (sigh!) I began with the Papers of Samuel Marchbanks and progressed through most of his written work, which I still own. I think it is time to revisit Samuel's musings. Perfect for this mostly-post-Covid, not-quite-spring season!
A weekly blog post is very demanding of one’s time. Your readers may miss their Sunday morning fix but you deserve to husband your time more assiduously. I used to write a weekly newsletter but two years ago reduced that to a more manageable semi-monthly. But who am I kidding? I installed a word press blog engine on my website (with help from professionals!) and gradually taught myself how to make the posts more and more visually appealing. Each post now takes me at least three times as long as before to produce!
Robertson Davies is one of my favourite authors, Canadian or otherwise. Like you I have most of his works and curiously, I recently have mused about rereading some of them, especially the Salterton Trilogy. (Except for Fifth Business I was not fond of the other two in the Deptford Trilogy in particular, The Manticore.) Curiously, two obscure examples of Robertson’s incisive writings are his critical assessments of Stephen Leacock’s work: A Feast of Stephen, and The Penguin Stephen Leacock.
Of course your post is not intended to be a Davies biography but I thought you might have made mention of his long career as editor and then publisher of the Peterborough Examiner. He lived down the street from my family’s house in the south end of Peterborough in a big old dark and gloomy house surrounded by elms and willows and hedges on the banks of the Otonabee River. My mother often spoke reverently of the great man who lived there but it meant nothing to me; I was only eight years old.
Thanks, Doug. Good point about his role as editor at the Peterborough Examiner. It was an important part of his life, particularly in the creation of Samuel Marchbanks.
Happy to read your thoughts any time, whether it be weekly or bi-weekly. Good luck with #10. I look forward to #9, as I do all of your work
Ah, so you're human, after all! Every two weeks is just fine, Terry, so long as you keep writing!
Thank you for reminding me of the wonderful Robertson Davies! He was not well known in small town Northern Ontario, although my Stratford-raised husband read his work in high school and attended at least one of his talks (sigh!) I began with the Papers of Samuel Marchbanks and progressed through most of his written work, which I still own. I think it is time to revisit Samuel's musings. Perfect for this mostly-post-Covid, not-quite-spring season!
A weekly blog post is very demanding of one’s time. Your readers may miss their Sunday morning fix but you deserve to husband your time more assiduously. I used to write a weekly newsletter but two years ago reduced that to a more manageable semi-monthly. But who am I kidding? I installed a word press blog engine on my website (with help from professionals!) and gradually taught myself how to make the posts more and more visually appealing. Each post now takes me at least three times as long as before to produce!
Robertson Davies is one of my favourite authors, Canadian or otherwise. Like you I have most of his works and curiously, I recently have mused about rereading some of them, especially the Salterton Trilogy. (Except for Fifth Business I was not fond of the other two in the Deptford Trilogy in particular, The Manticore.) Curiously, two obscure examples of Robertson’s incisive writings are his critical assessments of Stephen Leacock’s work: A Feast of Stephen, and The Penguin Stephen Leacock.
Of course your post is not intended to be a Davies biography but I thought you might have made mention of his long career as editor and then publisher of the Peterborough Examiner. He lived down the street from my family’s house in the south end of Peterborough in a big old dark and gloomy house surrounded by elms and willows and hedges on the banks of the Otonabee River. My mother often spoke reverently of the great man who lived there but it meant nothing to me; I was only eight years old.
Thanks, Doug. Good point about his role as editor at the Peterborough Examiner. It was an important part of his life, particularly in the creation of Samuel Marchbanks.
Fun to hear Davies speak. Thanks, Terry!