Aspects of Robertson Davies's novels

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Completing the survey begun in Lams’ Cornish Trilogy volume, Aspects of Robertson Davies’ Novels discusses the Salterton and Deptford trilogies along with Davies’ last two novels, Murther & Walking Spirits and The Cunning Man . The apprentice effort Tempest-Tost and the journeyman’s success Leaven of Malice were followed by Davies’ first genuinely fine novel, A Mixture of Frailties , the story of a talented Salterton girl who becomes a world-famous soprano. The Deptford trilogy is discussed in terms of Northrop Frye’s «confession» form as it appears in Fifth Business , and in variations of that form in The Manticore and World of Wonders . Although Davies’ Jungian enthusiasms produced certain flaws to which readers have objected, Murther & Walking Spirits is by no means a failure; it is best understood as an implicit spiritual history of Canada which is adumbrated in the generational experience of a single Canadian family. The Cunning Man concludes Davies’ career with a narrative as rewardingly complex as any of the Cornish trilogy novels.