Robertson Davies is apparently a very famous Canadian novelist. The fact that I didn’t know this is not surprising, I guess.
I was visiting a friend in Ottawa, and we went to a local bookstore. He handed me this and told me to buy it. He said it was required reading for most Canadian high school students.
It’s an epic historical novel about the life of Francis Cornish, born to wealthy parents in a small Canadian town. He life leads him on some strange adventures involving spies, Worlds Wars, and art restoration and forgery.
I enjoyed the story. It covers Cornish’s life from a long view – the novel covers several generations of his family, and sometimes multiple years pass in a single sentence.
However, I didn’t think it was particularly Canadian. Most of Cornish’s life happens in Europe. Do I feel that I understand anything more about the “Canadian experience” from reading it? Not really.
I have talked to many Canadian friends about it. They’re about evenly split as to whether Davies is fundamentally notable in Canadian literature. Some absolutely agree, but several had never heard of him.
Book Info
Author
Robertson Davies
Year
Pages
448
Acquired
I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on August 13, 2024.
A softcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.
Here are some notes I took on the acquisition of this book:
Mark Demeny told me to buy it while we were in Black Squirrel Books in Ottawa. He told me it was quintessentially Canadian.
This is a chain of islands off the northwestern coast of Scotland. Not truly north, like the Shetland or Faroe Islands, but what is essentially the northern most part of the west coast of the island of Britain. The Hebrides are directly north of Ireland.
Personal We traveled to Des Moines for the baby shower for our upcoming grandson. We had a lovely time. Driving across the Midwest is one of my favorite things to do. Isabella is back to college this month for her junior year. Gabrielle started working in the NICU this month. She’s working three...
A work of art that is separated into three panels. The middle panel is the largest, with two small panels on other side. The side panels might fold in.
The etymology traces back through multiple languages, all the way to the ancient Greeks. It’s said to have been coined because the Athenian Greeks thought the grammar of the people of the city Soli (sometimes “Soloi”) was poor and provincial, therefore they called grammatical and verbal mistakes...