Book Description

A posthumous treasury of brilliant essays that shines with Davies's unmistakable wit, erudition, and magic.

One of Canada's--and the world's--most beloved authors, Robertson Davies was also a devoted fan of opera and the theater. In this follow-up to his first posthumous collection, A Merry Heart, Davies ruminates on these lifelong passions, offering a diverse sampling of personal reflections on everything from the ancient Greeks to Lewis Carroll, Scottish folklore to Laurence Olivier, the sins of Verdi to the virtues of melodrama. The combined effect of these thirty-three essays, lectures, plays, and librettos-- edited by his widow and daughter--is true alchemy, as "readers . . . come away with a renewed appreciation of the ease with which Davies routinely transformed his sometimes erudite passions into delightful entertainments" (The New York Times Book Review).

The book in thoroughly entertaining fashion acquaints us with Davies' expansive erudition and gift for rendering literary and historical complexities in simple, human terms." --The New York Times

"Lovingly collected. . . . A welcome addition to a corpus like no other in contemporary literature." --Kirkus Reviews ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The good stuff
What can anyone say about Robertson Davies? He was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

Interesting for a Davies' fan
Although I'm not a big theatre fan, I do enjoy reading Robertson Davies. He is one of two writers whose work I will read even when the subject is not up my alley; so when C.S. Lewis writes about Medieval English Literature or Robertson Davies writes about the theatre, I still read them. It brings me great pleasure to experience their writers' craftsmanship and I know I will learn something. (I also know I'm going to enjoy their humor.) Happy Alchemy's subtitle reads, "On the Pleasures of Music and the Theatre", and this work present 33 Davies pieces, including "Lewis Carroll in the Theatre", "Opera for the Man Who Reads Hamlet", "Dickens and Music", "How I Write a Book", and the humorously self-depreciating "My Musical Career." Happy Alchemy shares many fine insights about humanity while also providing many historical and literary lessons for the reader. To read Davies (or Lewis) is to expand one's view of the world.

Great book by a great author.
This is a delightful collection of Davies's thoughts on the theater in all its myriad forms, including opera, melodrama, tragedy, and comedy. Davies has a perfect mix of wit, erudition, and curmudgeonly attitude, and in addition to being a terrific writer, he is an ardent devotee of the stage.

This comes forth in all the pieces, and is further emphasized by excerpts from his "Theater Diary," provided by the editors, his wife and daughter. While some of the pieces are there just for amusement (e.g., a libretto Davies wrote for a children's opera), others are very thought-provoking (such as his "Opera and Humour" talk), and still others are a melding of the two extremese (for instance, his talk on "Lewis Carroll and the Theater").

Some of the pieces repeat themselves, as they are based on talks he gave and pieces he wrote throughout his life, and obviously certain comments which are redundant to the reader would no doubt have been fresh to the audience.

All in all, I recommend this book very highly, for anyone with an interest in theater, or a love of Davies. I would have liked more of his thoughts about theater and less of things like his libretto (though I did find that amusing), as it felt more like that was included to meet some page count demanded by the publisher. However, this may not have been possible given the material at hand. ... Read more

Book Description

Robertson Davies, one of the twentieth century's most distinguished authors, brought his characteristic great sense of style to everything he wrote. Whether it was a letter to his daughter or a formal letter to the editor disemboweling a hostile review, he wrote with care, zest, and in a distinctive voice. Penned during the height of his fame-between the years 1976 and 1995-theseletters were sent to a wide range of recipients, from Sir John Gielgud to Margaret Atwood, from publishers to fans and critics of his writings. The letters are frequently testy, tart, and not always "politically correct"; but whether they are funny, moving, or thought provoking, they provide a rare glimpse of the private Davies, as r evealed in his own words. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Gems galore
It's startling how thoughtful, evocative and just plain funny a man can be in writing his regular correspondance. Makes you want to be a prolific letter-writer yourself. Makes you wish he were still alive so that you could respond to some of the more inflammatory things he says.

I don't think I'd realized quite how much Davies was concerned about the "place" of Canadian Literature in the world literature canon; it comes out so plainly here.

Judith Skelton Grant, who edited the letters, is mentioned repeatedly in them -- Davies apparently was amused, worried and sometimes just ticked off about the biography she was writing of him.

An Opportunity For More Insight
I enjoyed this book's organization, which was established by the various books Davies had written over the last part of his career. While not Canadian, and thereby somewhat in the dark regarding some of the letters' recipients, I found the editor's annotations brief but helpful. The main draw here is the author's distinctive voice, which emerges within the various letters.

I am not usually interested in reading compilations of letters. Here, however, I find a volume that constitutes a diversion from my other reading, a book which I can pick up from time to time and garner ideas for those brighter days when I re-read a Davies' novel. For this end, I found the collection worthwhile! ... Read more

Amazon.com

The great Canadian novelist Robertson Davies spent his long life in love with books. Thisposthumous collection of two dozen essays stands as the lively recollections of a great reader: Davies talkspraises the books he's loved, damns the books he's hated, and seeks to answer the eternal question of whywe read books. And while Davies writes with great authority, he's thankfully never pedantic, and hiscomments about books, which range from children's titles to Ulysses, are always delivered in a charminglyunpretentious manner. The individual essays are all beautifully written, and cracking this book will nodoubt encourage readers to track down many of the authors and titles that Davies covered. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

My First Davies
You don't need to be familiar with Robertson Davies' work to enjoy this set of insightful talks and essays about reading, writing, and life in general. This has been my first exposure to his work (a gift from my mother-in-law), and I loved it. I'm now deeply interested in reading his other work. In fact, I bought the Deptford Trilogy, but haven't gotten to read it yet since my wife got ahold of it before I did.

Reflections on reading, writing, and the world of books
It is usually a pleasure to sit down to a Robertson Davies work whether it be a novel, a collection of speeches, ghost stories, essays, or newspaper articles. The Merry Heart is a felicitous adddition to the Davies canon, containing his usual eclectic selection of literary topics and sparkling ideas. Each chapter has a few introductory comments (often including excerpts from Davies' diary) by the book's editors that paint the background for each piece. Readers enjoy comparing notes about favorite books and biographical history, so for avid readers, The Merry Heart will be like reading a series of letters from a funny, witty, learned friend about some of those events and books that have shaped his life. This fine 385 page book of 24 chapters is easy to read in bits and pieces, either during a lunch break, before bed, or on a weekend next to the fire. (One note of caution: for those unfamiliar with Davies' worldview, do not be surprised to see elements of gnosticism popping up from time to time.) All in all, this book was a real pleasure to read.

The old man has done it again!!
When I read this collection it was as if the old friend was still alive. He is most certainly alive and kicking in this book. The book gives not only his honest view of books, authors and the literary world but also includes yet another ghostly tale of mythological origin. Not only was this an informative read, as most of Davies' work is, it was also a heartfelt pleasure, and continues to be so, again and again and again.

A welcome little addition to the Davies bibliography.
Two years after Robertson Davies' death, here is the unexpected gift of "The Merry Heart," a collection of essays, speeches and autobiographical reflections pulled together by his wife and daughter. They proceeded knowing Davies himself had considered such a project, and in doing so, they honor both his memory and his intentions.

Page after page, "The Merry Heart" offers delight and dissertation. From the charm of the opening essay, "A Rake at Reading," to the storytelling wit of the last piece, "A Ghost Story," Davies' distinctive voice covers as wide a range of topics as a sparkling dinner party. From the seriousness of Canada's continuing preoccupation with its sense of place and history in "Literature in a Country without a Mythology" and such timely discourses as "Literature and Technology" and "Literature and Moral Purpose" to the gems of "Christmas Books," "A View in Winter: Creativity in Old Age" and "An Unlikely Masterpiece," he is by turns critical, thoughtful, playful, reverent and above all, a proud bearer of the literary standard. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Canada's greatest Jungian
The biographer's reverence for her subject is restrained but evident. If there was a dark side to this great old man of Canadian letters, hardly a shadow of it is to be found here. The figure who emerges from this book is a small-town boy -almost a backwoods boy - whose imagination flourished in the unbearable stuffiness of early twentieth-century Ontario. Davies' greatest private enthusiasm seemed to be his repeated trips to the U.K. He did a less-than-outstanding Oxford BA, and fell in love with the place, there meeting an Australian who became his wife.

Fans of Davies' eleven novels will find ample links between the life and the works; they will also learn much about his unremitting early attempts to become known as a playwright, a genre in which he made less much of a mark than with his novels and his journalism (the latter effort highlighted by his 1950s and 60s stint as editor of The Peterborough Examiner).

Davies' role in the early 1950s startup of the Stratford Festival is an accomplishment not to be overlooked; for that alone, he would merit top ranking in the annals of Canadian Shakespeariana. If the Bard was Davies' first intellectual love, Carl Jung would likely be the second. My favourite passage in the 700-plus pages of this splendid biography is on 461-62, where Davies is quoted at some length on how Jung viewed the "second half" of life - the 40-plus years - as the truly magic time of existence. A second memorable passage comes at pages 484-85, where the author (for once, with immodesty, but here deserved), reveals how she asked Davies to see his preparatory notes for THE CORNISH TRILOGY. Davies politely refused the request in a letter which might be seen as his essential statement on the art of fiction. Here is its key sentence: "The imagination is a cauldron, not a filing cabinet." We should all paste these words on the top edge of our computer monitors.

Fawning portait of still living (when written) author
this was a christmas gift several years ago and while I ADORE everything that Davies wrote (esp Rebel Angels), this was a fawning, name-dropping, dull, pendatic read. Davies, I believe, was still living when it was written, and he cooperated in the writing of it, so there is no critical look at him, his life or really any aspect of his writing.

I look forward to a new biography that doesn't treat Davies as a sacred cow. I grew up in the same area where davies was a newspaper editor and theatre guy and his put-on english accent and snobbiness didn't impress the people of my grandmother's generation.

Still, I appreciate his writing, but wished this was a truer portrait of him, warts and all. I found it a drudge to go through

Outstanding biography of a Canadian "icon"
Judith Skelton Grant has done an absolutely outstanding job of giving us everything we wanted to know about Robertson Davies: his background and roots in small town Ontario, his three careers (acting, journalism, academia), critiques and illuminating discussions of his plays, novels, and occasional writings, his beliefs and philosophies, and so on. I could not put this book down; read the first 500 pages in two sittings and finished it on the third. Let's hope that she brings out an updated version to take the story up to Davies' death; as it is, there is no discussion here of his fine last novel, The Cunning Man. END ... Read more