Writers' portraits - Robertson Davies

    This post will just scrape in before the 28th. of August is over, and the date is important because it is the 100th. anniversary of Robertson Davies's birth, something I confess I would not have been aware of but for this short piece this morning.

    Happily, I still have lots of his books left to read, but those I have read - including Fifth Business with our own book group - have been marvellously rich reads, distinctive of voice, strong in narrative pull, and fascinating in content and ideas. If you've yet to discover his work, do try him soon (his three great trilogies, for example, Salterton, Deptford and Cornish, or The Cunning Man), and as Martin Chilton says in that article, take one on a long journey* and you may find, as he did, that the miles pass very pleasantly.

    For more of the man himself, here is a television interview from the 1970s, and here is his Paris Review interview from which come a few bons mots with which to end:

On the work-in-progress - "I hope it turns out well. But with novels, like cakes, you never know."

On writer's block - "I might enjoy a wee block, just to have time to catch my breath."

On endings - "...if the story is any good, it must have an inevitability."

On clarity - "I am a writer much given to light and shade, and I firmly believe that to know all is to despise all."

On selective details - "there must be a few tricky bits in my books or they wouldn’t be books by me."

                                                ~~~~~

    *Speaking of journeys, I asked you the other day which books you'd pack as good travelling companions, and you gave such a wealth of suggestions that if we took them all, no journey would have a dull moment. I'll be drawing a name out of the hat tomorrow (Thursday) so if you haven't entered and would like a chance of winning that EIBF book bag, leave a comment on that post now.

Comments

[Madame Là-Bas]

I read Fifth Business about 40 years ago and it was indeed tricky. Robertson Davies is on of our Canadian literary greats!

[AJ]

I haven't read any of his novels although I've picked up almost all of them here or there over the last decade or so because I good friend recommended the -- but his letters found their way in to my hands first and they are a delight.

[Cornflower]

He must have been a fascinating person to know, don't you think, Madame? Certainly a great writer.

[Cornflower]

I must find them! Thank you, AJ.

[Barbara MacLeod]

I can't tell how much I enjoyed the television interview you referred to here! Although this man would be my parents' generation, I went to university in Canada in the 60s needing that same Mathematics requirement (for non-Mathematical area of study) as he talked about. Unbelievable when I think of it now! No ... I did not fall at the first hurdle as he did but I certainly recall how it stopped really good people from getting on to this one particular university (UBC) course .

[Cornflower]

Yes, how awful for anyone who would otherwise get into university to be excluded for that reason, and good for Oxford to take Robertson Davies.
I enjoyed the interview very much too.