"If I had to choose a (mythic) character standing for myself, it would be the Ugly Duckling. You see, no one thought much of him when he was a duck. 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."
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 that Mallory did for me years ago: one with sharp, unpolished edges that, even when seen from a distance, strains to resolve into a coherent picture:
 |
| Can you tell that's a handprint? Can you believe I own such an apt analogy? |
The main thrust of this biography is that Robertson Davies was a hard man to get to know: with his theatrical appearance and subversive sense of humour, even his closest friends were held at a remove. 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. That's your man!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. They said he was an actor. That was crap. They'd met a persona, not the man, and they didn't seem to be able to tell the difference.I do appreciate the research that went into this book -- and the difficulty that must have been involved in memorialising someone like Robertson Davies who played with his public image -- but it just really didn't work for me; likely because I'm on the brink of becoming a curmudgeonly old geezer myself.
So, more on this literature course. The info I saw from the library was:
Brush up on your English Literature at Idea Exchange!
Ever considered taking a literary course? Well now is your chance! Community Lit is a FREE university-level course offered at our Queen’s Square location. This adult learning course is open to anyone wishing to expand on their literary knowledge.
The course includes 8 sessions, running weekly on Wednesdays from July 16 – August 20 from 6:30 – 8:00pm. Each session focuses on a particular issue relevant to the text. There will be no evaluation of any kind, with much more class involvement than a traditional lecture. Community Lit will be taught by University of Waterloo English Literature Instructor, Diana Lobb, PhD.
After spending a year and a half writing book reviews on goodreads, I thought it would be really interesting to take a course like this -- if nothing else, it would get me out of the house for a little bit each week and let me dip my toe in the book club vibe (with the added benefit of having a literature professor choose the books and guide the discussions). It wasn't until after I signed up that I was sent the syllabus, and my heart thudded with glee when I saw it -- no course could have been more tailor-made for me:
The Perils of Patronage: Robertson Davies, Vincent Massey and The Cornish Trilogy
Instructor: Diana Lobb, PhD
Course Description: Author, playwright, journalist, cultural critic and educator: Robertson Davies was a man of many talents with a very powerful patron – Vincent Massey, first Canadian born Governor General of Canada. In The Cornish Trilogy (The Rebel Angels, What's Bred In The Bone and The Lyre of Orpheus), Davies intertwines the world of the modern Canadian university with the history of the Holocaust. Given that, against strong objections Massey installed his protégé, Davies, as the first Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto and Massey's (and possibly Davies' own) anti-Semitism, the relationship between Massey and Davies offers an interesting context for reading how these books speak to the perils of patronage.
July 16th
Introduction
July 23rd
Robertson Davies: A Portrait in Mosaic
July 30th
None Is Too Many
August 6th
The Rebel Angels
August 13th
What's Bred In The Bone
August 20th
The Lyre of Orpheus
Robertson Davies? The king of Canadian letters who I did have the great joy of seeing perform a reading from his last book before he died? I love that guy! And a look at anti-Semitism? I'm always interested in this strange and vile phenomenon. A reading list with 5 can-lit selections, 2 of them non-fiction? These are books that I would be interested in reading anyway! (And although I did read the Cornish Trilogy 25 years ago...that was 25 years ago...)
So I attended the introductory class this past Wednesday, and arriving early, I was interested to see what my classmates would be like. To my bemusement, the majority of them are senior citizens, and the majority of them are loud-mouthed, opinionated senior citizens. Oh boy.
The Prof began by explaining that Robertson Davies intimately knew Vincent Massey (the first Canadian-born Governor General and a scion of the Massey tractor fortune). When Massey decided to build a college at the U of T, he made the offer conditional on Davies becoming its first Master (which the school didn't like because Davies was not an academic -- he not only didn't have a proper university degree, but he never actually graduated high school). Massey was a known and vocal anti-Semite, and although Davies was also known to toss off a good Jew joke himself at times, it's always been unclear whether that reflected his beliefs or whether he was simply "playing the game"; currying favour with the elites. The reading list includes a biography of Davies (here reviewed), None is Too Many (on Canada's refusal to accept Jewish refugees during and immediately after WWII), and then the Cornish Trilogy (which includes many references to the Holocaust).
Then the Prof opened the floor to anyone who would like to introduce themselves.
One man said that he retired last fall from his job as a political speech writer and has happily returned to his first love, poetry, for which he won some prizes while in university. He's considering returning to university and thought he might take this course to see if he's still up to snuff. Coincidentally, he wrote this poem last week (opens notebook and begins reciting):
I didn't fight the great war
to stand in Timmy's
and listen to the Blackies
I fought for Queen and Country
My country
not Angola, Rwanda, Botswana...
It went on in that vein for a while and he explained that it wasn't finished, but he was intrigued by all the old veterans who hang around the coffee shops --veterans that this guy assumes are judgemental about the multiculturalism they see around them. All I could think was how crass it sounded for this man my father's age to write in the voice of a man my grandfather's age -- a man who did fight in WWII but is long dead.
A man with a silver ponytail said, "Well, isn't this timely since we all know that everybody's favourite game right now is to kill a Palestinian. And it's like I came up to punch you and you pulled out a machine gun. Like I punched you and you pulled out a machine gun. And the news won't even report on what's going on over there now. There's one Israeli soldier dead and if you ask how many Palestinians are dead, they shrug and say, "I don't know". Like they don't even matter..." This went on a long time, and I was giving him the squirrelly eye as he was ranting. I had feared that with a look at anti-Semitism that there might be some of this, but honestly, I expected it to come from the Prof (what with all this BDS stuff on campuses) and wonder if silver ponytail would have read any articles like this this week.
An old woman said, "I'm not from Canada -- I'm a newbie here -- but I just want to say that you all think your history is so clean, but it's not. It's dirty. It's dirty and you don't even know it." Mr. Poet asked her where she's from (and I assumed she was an American because she didn't have an accent) and she replied, "Germany. I came in 1974." "Then you're not a newbie," guffawed the Poet. German: "I simply mean that I didn't learn Canadian history in school."
When the Prof was trying to make the point that Canadian history is interesting, she mentioned that there's a pergola made from 200 year old headstones not far from the library, and she believed they were from a cemetery that was moved; a cemetery that was once used for the victims of an influenza epidemic.
Several of the seniors, instead of really introducing themselves, would say, "I have more information on that cemetery if you're interested" or "That was actually a Typhoid Fever Epidemic" or "The Typhus was brought to town by a travelling circus and the original advertisements -- painted on large pieces of wood -- were used to build the Dickson School. When I worked there, you could go up to the attic and see the paintings of the tigers and the clowns."
As usual, I have such difficulty speaking in front of crowds -- and the seniors put everything right off track -- and I didn't end up introducing myself. I wanted to say, "I'm a stay at home Mom and I do a lot of reading. Over the past year and a half I've become addicted to reviewing these books for goodreads, and I thought it would be helpful if I could back up my opinions with a bit of a scholarship." And then I would have totally mentioned seeing Robertson Davies in person (as the Prof said that she had, too).
When I was telling Ken and Laura about this last night, Ken said, "So, at what point did you stand up and walk out? There's no way I'd spend even another minute with those crazy old people."
But I shrugged and laughed. This is learning, too. Maybe, if I screw up the nerve to speak, someone there might even learn something from me.
Update from July 25th
We had the discussion last night for this book and the Prof started by asking people to comment on whether or not they enjoyed the book and why. Not wanting to never say anything, I was the first to put up my hand and said, "I didn't really like this book. I found it choppy and a little dull. I expect a biographer to also give historical context and describe other things that are going on -- not just what these people said directly, but also explain exactly who these people are."
The Prof said, "So, it was too 'bitty' for you?"
"Yes, too bitty. It might have been better if the snippets were longer -- it might not have been so off-putting then."
Then, the next 4 or 5 people to speak were old ladies who said that at first they, too, were confused by the format, but once they got the hang of it, they all thought the book was wonderful.
O.o
I didn't say I was confused. I said I didn't like it.
Most of the commentary after that involved people who decided that they didn't like Robertson Davies the man after reading this biography, which I didn't get, but then, I've always been in awe of the man and could never not like him. He was a giant and has my leave to have been quirky.
There are things that I would have liked to debate with the Prof (but wouldn't since she's, you know, the expert on Canadian Literature and all...) but here are a couple of things:
In the first meeting, she mentioned that Davies (through the Massey Report and the implementation of its recommendations) had an outsized effect on Canadian culture. And isn't that amazing, coming from a man from small town Ontario who affected a British accent? Now, I remembered seeing Davies speak live, and I didn't remember it as a British accent -- just a theatrical one (and remembered it being like Gale Gordon's accent, someone I also met at around the same time). In this book, Val Ross described Davies' accent as "mid-Atlantic", so of course I looked that up. Essentially, it said that this accent was common in boarding schools and prestigious colleges all over North America, and that even many American Presidents spoke with a mid-Atlantic tone. In this week's meeting, the Prof pointed out that Ross calls it "mid-Atlantic" but stressed that it still shows a preference for British mannerisms. But does it? Davies' father was from Wales and he attended Upper Canada College (the snootiest boys' boarding school in Toronto), and then studied at Oxford and worked at the Old Vic in London. Couldn't his accent have been every bit as natural as, say, Grover Cleveland's?
And my second beef: the Prof said that this Anglophilia is also demonstrated by the fact that Davies was able to start the Stratford Festival, and she several times repeated, "Isn't it amazing that Canada's national theater is a Shakespeare theater?" I would have liked to push back with, "I don't know anyone outside of Ontario who would think of the Stratford Festival as Canada's national theater." And also ironic that she said that she's going to see a play at Stratford tonight: Mother Courage; definitely not Shakespeare.
All Five Titles:
Robertson Davies : A Portrait in Mosaic
None is Too Many
The Rebel Angels
What's Bred in the Bone
The Lyre of Orpheus
Update from July 25th
We had the discussion last night for this book and the Prof started by asking people to comment on whether or not they enjoyed the book and why. Not wanting to never say anything, I was the first to put up my hand and said, "I didn't really like this book. I found it choppy and a little dull. I expect a biographer to also give historical context and describe other things that are going on -- not just what these people said directly, but also explain exactly who these people are."
The Prof said, "So, it was too 'bitty' for you?"
"Yes, too bitty. It might have been better if the snippets were longer -- it might not have been so off-putting then."
Then, the next 4 or 5 people to speak were old ladies who said that at first they, too, were confused by the format, but once they got the hang of it, they all thought the book was wonderful.
O.o
I didn't say I was confused. I said I didn't like it.
Most of the commentary after that involved people who decided that they didn't like Robertson Davies the man after reading this biography, which I didn't get, but then, I've always been in awe of the man and could never not like him. He was a giant and has my leave to have been quirky.
There are things that I would have liked to debate with the Prof (but wouldn't since she's, you know, the expert on Canadian Literature and all...) but here are a couple of things:
In the first meeting, she mentioned that Davies (through the Massey Report and the implementation of its recommendations) had an outsized effect on Canadian culture. And isn't that amazing, coming from a man from small town Ontario who affected a British accent? Now, I remembered seeing Davies speak live, and I didn't remember it as a British accent -- just a theatrical one (and remembered it being like Gale Gordon's accent, someone I also met at around the same time). In this book, Val Ross described Davies' accent as "mid-Atlantic", so of course I looked that up. Essentially, it said that this accent was common in boarding schools and prestigious colleges all over North America, and that even many American Presidents spoke with a mid-Atlantic tone. In this week's meeting, the Prof pointed out that Ross calls it "mid-Atlantic" but stressed that it still shows a preference for British mannerisms. But does it? Davies' father was from Wales and he attended Upper Canada College (the snootiest boys' boarding school in Toronto), and then studied at Oxford and worked at the Old Vic in London. Couldn't his accent have been every bit as natural as, say, Grover Cleveland's?
And my second beef: the Prof said that this Anglophilia is also demonstrated by the fact that Davies was able to start the Stratford Festival, and she several times repeated, "Isn't it amazing that Canada's national theater is a Shakespeare theater?" I would have liked to push back with, "I don't know anyone outside of Ontario who would think of the Stratford Festival as Canada's national theater." And also ironic that she said that she's going to see a play at Stratford tonight: Mother Courage; definitely not Shakespeare.
All Five Titles:
Robertson Davies : A Portrait in Mosaic
None is Too Many
The Rebel Angels
What's Bred in the Bone
The Lyre of Orpheus
