Admirers of Davies who may have felt somewhat of a falling off in his last two books can be reassured: The Cunning Man is a superb return to the high form of the Deptford trilogy and What's Bred in the Bone. It's a novel in which Davies' clear-sighted humanism, irony and grasp of character are on vivid display. The hero, Dr. Jonathan Hullah, is a Toronto doctor of decidedly unorthodox opinions and practice who regales the reader with an account of his family and educational history, and his relationships with a group that includes a noble priest who dies mysteriously at the altar, a far-from-noble one who quite justifiably declines into drink and despair, an untidy Scottish journalist who is a splendid foil to Hullah, and a lesbian couple who offer the provincial Canadian city the equivalent of a Parisian salon on the basis of cucumber sandwiches and cream cakes. Everything revolves around a church much more Roman, in its rituals and music, than it should be; an apparent miracle; and a nosy woman reporter. Davies's command of both his material and his elegant first-person narration is absolute. He achieves a remarkable sense of uncloying elegy in his vision of a group of people who are far more complicated than they appear, yet always utterly believable. To call a book the work of an infinitely civilized mind might seem starchy; to add that it is also wonderfully funny, poignant and never less than totally engrossing should redress the balance. (Feb.)
For years, Robertson Davies has won acclaim for his warmth and wisdom, humor and bravura. Now Canada's leading man of letters crowns an astonishing literary career with a novel in the spirit of his best-selling Murther Walking Spirits. "Should I have taken the false teeth?" This is what Dr. Jonathan Hullah, a police surgeon with "a high degree of cunning," wonders after he signs the death certificate for St. Aidan's Father Hobbes.What made the good father drop dead while celebrating Communion? In his search for the answer, Hullah whisks us back on a tour of his own rich and colorful life. From his adventures in the Royal Canadian Army to his relationship with a butter sculptress, from his medical secrets to his circle of friends-including outrageous banker Darcy-Hullah revels in the divine comedy of life and, not incidentally, solves a murder. The Cunning Man is enormous entertainment from the first Canadian Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
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The Cunning Man
For years, Robertson Davies has won acclaim for his warmth and wisdom, humor and bravura. Now Canada's leading man of letters crowns an astonishing literary career with a novel in the spirit of his best-selling Murther Walking Spirits. "Should I have taken the false teeth?" This is what Dr. Jonathan Hullah, a police surgeon with "a high degree of cunning," wonders after he signs the death certificate for St. Aidan's Father Hobbes.What made the good father drop dead while celebrating Communion? In his search for the answer, Hullah whisks us back on a tour of his own rich and colorful life. From his adventures in the Royal Canadian Army to his relationship with a butter sculptress, from his medical secrets to his circle of friends-including outrageous banker Darcy-Hullah revels in the divine comedy of life and, not incidentally, solves a murder. The Cunning Man is enormous entertainment from the first Canadian Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
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Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940171081355 |
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Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
Publication date: | 01/02/2015 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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