Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic

Robertson Davies has 43 ratings and 9 reviews. Krista said: If I had to choose a ( mythic) character standing for myself, it would be the Ugly Duckling.
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First Edition Book condition: From his student days onward, Robertson Davies made a huge impression on those around him. Fine in hardcover in Fine dustjacket. Laird Books , Saskatchewan, Canada Seller rating: We're sorry - this copy is no longer available. More tools Find sellers with multiple copies Add to want list. Didn't find what you're looking for? Add to want list. Are you a frequent reader or book collector? Social responsibility Did you know that since , Biblio has used its profits to build 12 public libraries in rural villages of South America?

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There are a couple of passages repeated verbatim that a final edit would have caught. Even though writers are, as bookish individuals, famously unpromising subjects for biographies and even though Davies' life offers nothing in the way of real scandals or adventures, he is a meaty subject. A very public man of many accomplishments and an autodidact whose studies carried him into many odd corners, he was known for his merry wit and his flamboyant public style.

As an articulate member of the last of [End Page ] a generation who grew up in the 'old' Ontario mono-culture, his personal history tells us much about the roots of today's Canadian society and the development of Canadian culture in the second half of the twentieth century. An aspiring actor who became Canada's leading playwright before he turned to fiction, he was also the founding master of Massey College, an institution that gave him his last and best stage.

Man of Myth , published in , the year before Davies' death, offers completeness and scope? The two biographies cover much of the same ground and both give us a sense of their subject's achievements. Ross's book is especially good on showing us how, by spending his life playing the role of 'Robertson Davies,' Davies never ceased being the actor he first aspired to be, but Grant's biography also suggested this, if not as emphatically.

Both books argue that Davies' careful crafting of an oversized public persona was a compensation for his deep insecurities. Both also show his private side: Theirs was a real partnership: From his student days onward, Robertson Davies made a huge impression on those around him.

Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic | Quill and Quire

He was so clearly bound for a glorious future that some young friend National bestseller and a Globe and Mail Best Book A fascinating, larger-than-life character, Davies left a treasure trove of stories about him when he died in — expertly arranged here into a revealing portrait. He was so clearly bound for a glorious future that some young friends even carefully preserved his letters.


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And everyone remembered their encounters with him. The one hundred or so contributors here range very widely. There are family memories, of course, and memories from colleagues in the academic world who knew him as a professor and the founding master of Massey College at the University of Toronto. Predictably, there are other major writers like Margaret Atwood and John Irving. Less predictably, there are people from the world of Hollywood, such as Norman Jewison and David Cronenberg who remembers Davies on-set, peering through a camera lens as he researched his newest novel. And we even hear from his barber, and from his gardener, Theo Henkenhaf.

Some speakers contribute just a lively paragraph; others several pages. Hardcover , pages.

Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic

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But when they found out he was a swan, opinion changed. I may not be the world's foremost swan, but I am not a duck. I also own a couple of anthologies of the gr "If I had to choose a mythic character standing for myself, it would be the Ugly Duckling. I also own a couple of anthologies of the great Canadian's musings The Merry Heart and The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies , so when a literature course was announced through my local library that is to focus on Davies, I promptly registered.

Robertson Davies A Portrait in Mosaic is the first book on the syllabus. In contrast to the other biographies I have read, Val Ross composed hers in the oral history format -- where short paragraphs from diaries, lectures, letters, memoirs, and the results of direct interviews from Davies and over a hundred people who knew him are assembled in an approximate chronological order with very little editorialising from Ross herself.

Although the result is an impressive collection of research, I found the format to be jarring and discontinuous; as though I were reading Ross' research notes and not a finished biography. And I do understand that this format is becoming more and more popular, but as presented here, it's just not my cuppa tea. Called a "portrait in mosaic", this book reminds me of a mosaic project my daughter did for me years ago: Ross, in the periodic comments she made, tried to provide focus, but if she was attempting to remove herself from the book entirely I imagine that's the point of this format?

Sometimes she made inferences from outside of the source material on Davies' father: With a war on and a family to support, much responsibility rested on Rupert, who must have feared that his family would face ruin if he fell ill. Then he did fall ill.

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Her mother, Muriel Larking, was just 22 years old when she married Paul Matthews. I don't find that shockingly young even today. The main thrust of this biography is that Robertson Davies was a hard man to get to know: This was likely an act of self-preservation as both his wife, Brenda Davies, and his good friend, Arnold Edinborough, note that Davies had "one skin too few". When it came to biographers, Davies was even less forthcoming as he tried to control what information became public. To a filmmaker, he quoted his father's advice: When you meet a man in business for the first time -- be an observer.

Let him conduct the meeting and do the talking. Listen to him closely -- not just to his words, but his phraseology. Observe his gestures, his deportment -- and his manner of dress. Then, imagine the direct opposite of everything you have just seen or heard. And so was Robertson Davies merely playing the part of a curmudgeonly old geezer?

Not according to his friend, Sarah Edinborough Iley: People spoke of him as always acting. I don't believe such people ever really knew him.