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99th out of 714 books
—
726 voters
The Cunning Man
"Should I have taken the false teeth?" This is what Dr. Jonathan Hullah, a former police surgeon, thinks after he watches Father Hobbes die in front of the High Altar at Toronto's St. Aidan's on the morning of Good Friday. How did the good father die? We do not learn the answer until the last pages of this "Case Book" of a man's rich and highly observant life. But we learn
...moreFoam Book
Published
1996
by Penguin Group
(first published 1994)
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I started this book for my book club, which members had highly recommended it, knowing that it was a mystery. In the very beginning there is a death and hints that it will be investigated but this is never addressed again until the very end of the book. The middle of the book is a look back at the lives of the main character and some of its friends.
While the book was enjoyable it is a very slow reading book. I believe it was written int the late 40's early 50's and the writing style reflects th...more
While the book was enjoyable it is a very slow reading book. I believe it was written int the late 40's early 50's and the writing style reflects th...more
I’ve been an avid, even proselytic fan of Robertson Davies for more than 20 years, and was delighted to discover that this novel (his last) had somehow slipped by me and that there was still more Davies to read. Sadly, The Cunning Man is a let-down—a book that demonstrates, more than anything, an act of literary onomatopoeia: a novel about an elderly man contemplating a life’s worth of memories and trying to position himself philosophically and existentially as he nears the end of his own story,...more
I pretty much love this book unconditionally. I first read it in college, and have read every few years since. It is a book I enjoy growing older with. This time through there was a lot that drove me crazy - the switch to Chip's point of view, Jon's discussion of Gil's paternity with Brocky and Nuala after Gil's death, and the character of Charlie. I still love the description of St. Aidan's, Charlie and his saints, and the discussions in the theatre.
Robertson Davies is one of my favorite authors because he writes intelligent, kind novels that navigate the weird and wonderful world of human life with a precision that is often sharp but never cruel. The Cunning Man continues in this tradition, and for 400 pages does a wonderful job of melding the grounded with the fantastic. And the language! Mr Davies almost haphazardly throws in elegant phrases that lesser writers would labor towards, setting them in places of pride among the many duller wo...more
The "Cunning Man" is the narrator of this novel, physician Jon Hullah. The title comes from the idea of every village having either a Wise Woman or a Cunning Man--someone with insights into the nature of things who sometimes brings healing or at least perspective.
The book spans the seventy years of Hullah's life from his own encounter with a Wise Woman following his miraculous recovery from scarlet feaver to the autumn of his life as a medical practitioner caring for his long-time friend Charlie...more
The book spans the seventy years of Hullah's life from his own encounter with a Wise Woman following his miraculous recovery from scarlet feaver to the autumn of his life as a medical practitioner caring for his long-time friend Charlie...more
I really liked the opening narrative "hook" in the first paragraph of this, the last novel of Canadian master Robertson Davies. But unfortunately reading it turned out to be quite a long haul. Perhaps Davies - who was in his ninth decade when "The Cunning Man" was published, was simply unable to gather together all the diverse threads on what had the potential to be another magnificent tapestry in the manner of "The Salterton Trilogy."
This book is told almost entirely through the first person n...more
This book is told almost entirely through the first person n...more
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No review for you. Just some quotes:
To these wretches I was a marvel of well-being. It was inconceivable to them that I might have any cares, disappointments, aches or pains, for these things were their exclusive property. My appearance of well-being was a professional manner.
Anyhow, as I write now, so long after these events, it is all water-over-the-dam, or condoms-down-the-loo.
All right, many people have known worse things, but let them rejoice in their strength. .
Remember what that Frenchman...more
To these wretches I was a marvel of well-being. It was inconceivable to them that I might have any cares, disappointments, aches or pains, for these things were their exclusive property. My appearance of well-being was a professional manner.
Anyhow, as I write now, so long after these events, it is all water-over-the-dam, or condoms-down-the-loo.
All right, many people have known worse things, but let them rejoice in their strength. .
Remember what that Frenchman...more
Canada isn't nearly as bad as Ernest says, just about thirty years behind the time artistically and what he says about being bourgeois and uncultured and narrow and pious could just as well be said about Nottingham or any of a dozen places we know and keep away from.
While "Murther and Walking Spirits" tells tales of a Canadian Methodist family, the second book in the unfinished Toronto Trilogy concerns a very different form of protestantism, as it concerns the clergy and congregation of Saint A...more
While "Murther and Walking Spirits" tells tales of a Canadian Methodist family, the second book in the unfinished Toronto Trilogy concerns a very different form of protestantism, as it concerns the clergy and congregation of Saint A...more
This was my first foray into Robertson Davies, and I chose his final book to begin with. From the first few pages I was hooked, a mysterious death at the altar rail of an eccentric high church Anglican priest witnessed by a motley ensemble of characters the reader gets to know over the next 470 pages. What's not to love? However, the book loses steam half way through albeit not in an unreadable way. There are lots of amazing observations and highly quotable turns of phrase, but there is also a b...more
Davies by-the-numbers - erudite, passionless (but indeed "drye mockery"), with Davies' characteristic personages: The Bachelor, The Visionary, The Lesbians (what, oh what is Davies' obsession with lesbians? There's at least one if not more in every book/series!).
Four stars - solidly entertaining, particularly in the first and last thirds, and filled with wonderful Daviesian prose and observations. Dock a star for the irrelevant lesbians (they work in nearly every book - Schnak and her supervisor...more
Four stars - solidly entertaining, particularly in the first and last thirds, and filled with wonderful Daviesian prose and observations. Dock a star for the irrelevant lesbians (they work in nearly every book - Schnak and her supervisor...more
Feb 23, 2011
kyle
added it
While there was plenty I found unsatisfying as I read it, its portrayal of the "cunning man" doctor and his eccentric practice continues to stay with me. What would it take to craft a practice like that these days? There's my task. And ultimately how can you not like a novel with lines like this:"Homosexuality had become, not the love which dares not speak its name, but the love that never knows when to shut up" (392). After spending last night at the Monster Ball presided over by the Lady Gaga...more
"Should I have taken the false teeth?"
Not a bad opening sentence for a novel in which all the action is precipitated by the death at the altar on Good Friday of a beloved priest in Toronto's high church Anglican parish of St Aidan's. The narrator, the cunning man of the title, Dr Hullah, has been a police surgeon and he has his suspicions about the sudden death of the old man. But his friend from childhood, Father Charlie Iredale, won't let him beyond the communion rail and the doctor does noth...more
Not a bad opening sentence for a novel in which all the action is precipitated by the death at the altar on Good Friday of a beloved priest in Toronto's high church Anglican parish of St Aidan's. The narrator, the cunning man of the title, Dr Hullah, has been a police surgeon and he has his suspicions about the sudden death of the old man. But his friend from childhood, Father Charlie Iredale, won't let him beyond the communion rail and the doctor does noth...more
3 likes · like · see review
"Should I have taken the false teeth?" This is what Dr. Jonathan Hullah, a former police surgeon, thinks after he watches Father Hobbes die in front of the High Altar at Toronto's St. Aidan's on the morning of Good Friday. How did the good father die? We do not learn the answer until the last pages of this "Case Book" of a man's rich and highly observant life. But we learn much more about many things, and especially about Dr. Hullah. From an early age, Jonathan Hullah developed "a high degree of...more
Robertson Davies is more than just a good storyteller. He is a literate storyteller who fills his novels with references to literature, music, art and science and does so in an engaging way while creating characters that are so interesting that it is difficult to put the book down. At least that has been my experience and my only regret is that I have read so few of his novels.
The Cunning Man is a clever story, part mystery, part bildungsroman, part family saga and a bit of a romance, that keep...more
The Cunning Man is a clever story, part mystery, part bildungsroman, part family saga and a bit of a romance, that keep...more
So, the back of my copy has a picture of the author: a laughing, Santa Claus-type old man. He is a yucky old man, though. He's Scatological Claus. The narrator is a doctor, and therefore a certain focus on bodily fluids and emissions and nastiness could be expected. But that's not really what I object to. It's the same feeling that I had from the other Robertson Davies I've read--Fifth Business. The narrator seems to poke fun at himself and his relatively minor role in the people's lives around...more
Nov 02, 2008
Brackman1066
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
general-fiction
This was a very healthy book to have on my nightstand, because at no point did it tempt me to stay up reading it and become sleep-deprived. The first person narrator was a smug bore, who never managed to be very interesting. When the narrator says at some point that he's afraid that his story (supposedly written as his life history in preparation for being interviewed by a newspaper reporter) is becoming one of those tiresome German Bildungsromans but then becomes exactly that, it's a problem.
I...more
I...more
As a fan of Davies' fiction from way back I was disappointed by this effort. Davies attempts to describe the life, character, and experiences of an unorthodox medical doctor, and falls short.
Perhaps because of my own background as a physician I found that nothing rang true or familiar about the central character. It was painfully clear that Davies simply constructed a persona based on his own artistic/literary background and lacked the ability to come up with a plausible character with a non-a...more
Perhaps because of my own background as a physician I found that nothing rang true or familiar about the central character. It was painfully clear that Davies simply constructed a persona based on his own artistic/literary background and lacked the ability to come up with a plausible character with a non-a...more
I read a review of this book in the BMJ and found a copy at Unity Books and thoroughly enjoyed it; when recalled it recently discovered I hadn't written my own review and have resolved to re-read and correct this omission; in the meantime I have posted the review from the BMJ.
===
BMJ 20 October 2007 v355 p829
Alex Paton,
retired consultant physician, Oxfordshire
alexpaton@doctors.org.uk
“Should I have taken the false teeth?” Thus, the curt opening of The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies, typical of Ca...more
===
BMJ 20 October 2007 v355 p829
Alex Paton,
retired consultant physician, Oxfordshire
alexpaton@doctors.org.uk
“Should I have taken the false teeth?” Thus, the curt opening of The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies, typical of Ca...more
Robertson Davies, I have missed you. I remember loving reading his trilogies (Salterton Trilogy, etc.), but it's been so long that I'd forgotten why I liked them so much. This book reminded me: witty, erudite writing; interesting characters who grow and change; elegant sentences; philosophically interesting ideas; and unpredictable plots. The book's driver is the narrator, an observant and open-minded Canadian doctor who, from the vantage point of his 60's, looks back at his life and it's turnin...more
1 like · like · see review
This is a thoughtful book by an intelligent writer. To say it is good is true. To say it is interesting to read is not. Mostly, it is slow paced and not too much happens in between the few dramatic incidents. Everyone gains and everyone loses and there really is no central drama, just a portrait of life lived. Could this possibly be a self-biographical format? A novel about a long life lived from a novelist on his last book, at the end of a career? Me thinks yes. I'd like to read some of his ear...more
It took a rather long and roundabout way to get to the point of the book, but looking back, I guess it kind of had to. The book left me with a really deep feeling in my chest like most good books do, but it wasn't the best of the best as far as that goes. It kept me engaged pretty well and the writing style isn't hard to follow. The last line of the book was absolutely amazing. The only criticism I have of it is that it seems to digress quite a bit and it makes it a bit annoying to follow someti...more
"'The gift that isn't big enough to make a mark, but is too big to leave the possessor in peace. And so they can't be content to be Sunday painters, or poets who write for a few friends, or composers whose handful of delicate little settings of Emily Dickinson can't find a singer. It's a special sort of hell.'" (292)
"The gods destroy the heroes with a sudden blow, but they grind us mediocrities for weary, weary years." (416)
"The gods destroy the heroes with a sudden blow, but they grind us mediocrities for weary, weary years." (416)
I can't figure out what to make of this book. Certain aspects of it I find enjoyable and comforting (ah yes, a portrait of private school boy life, an old man's memories of boyhood friends etc) and, yet, other parts lead me to skim entire pages (lengthy dialogue debates about religion that I found less thought provoking than just boring and self-indulgent). Maybe I'm not intellectual enough (the charge has been leveled at me before), but I just kept getting pulled out of the wonderful writing an...more
Well executed. The subject matter/genre of this book is not my typical go-to (I read it on recommendation), and yet I was "hooked" at the beginning and read it to the end. Davies' clearly is in command of his craft.
(I take issue with the philosophic outlook of the characters, which is a different issue entirely from whether or not this was a well-written, believable novel. Hence the four stars.)
(I take issue with the philosophic outlook of the characters, which is a different issue entirely from whether or not this was a well-written, believable novel. Hence the four stars.)
One small morsel:
"We complicated people must find our repose of spirit in further complexities. We cannot retreat to blockish simplicities."
I've been thinking of this as a bit of a guide for the past weeks. I have a tendency to retreat from the darker side of life's complexities and seek marshmallowy sweet distractions. Ultimately it is metabolized quickly, dissatisfying, not actually real.
"We complicated people must find our repose of spirit in further complexities. We cannot retreat to blockish simplicities."
I've been thinking of this as a bit of a guide for the past weeks. I have a tendency to retreat from the darker side of life's complexities and seek marshmallowy sweet distractions. Ultimately it is metabolized quickly, dissatisfying, not actually real.
Jun 21, 2012
Patricia
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
adult-fiction-literary
This is Davies' last book before he died; another meaty, engrossing tale, this time of the life of a physician who was given the nickname of "the cunning man" because of his almost wizardly skills at diagnosing difficult medical problems. Again, the tale is told with many twists & turns & eyebrow-raising surprises, as the wizard looks back over his life & contemplates what life really means.
A disappointment. This book came very highly recommended but the whole time I was reading, I kept thinking "Are we going anywhere with this?" There were several interesting characters but they just kept wandering around. Chips' letters from Glebe House were brilliant but I found the fake footnotes describing her illustrations incredibly annoying.
Another stunning literary work from my favourite author, full of wit,
wisdom,and humor. A valued wordsmith who's vocabulary is gargantuan.
Sadly he will be missed.
One of my favorite similies "He had a face like a horse with a secret sorrow"
The final sentence to this book is among the best ive read anywhere.
check it out.
wisdom,and humor. A valued wordsmith who's vocabulary is gargantuan.
Sadly he will be missed.
One of my favorite similies "He had a face like a horse with a secret sorrow"
The final sentence to this book is among the best ive read anywhere.
check it out.
I don't think this is Robertson Davies at his best. His writing, as always, is amusing and solid. He has a clever way with words, and the prose is never disappointing. The ideas and themes in this book, like in the Deptford Trilogy, are also original and wonderful. It felt some much like he was going somewhere exciting with all the plot points he had amassed, and then there just was a failure of execution, an inability for him to bring it all together in a meaningful and satisfying way.
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William Robertson Davies, CC, FRSC, FRSL (born August 28, 1913, at Thamesville, Ontario, and died December 2, 1995 at Orangeville, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is sometimes said to have detested. Davies was the founding Ma...more
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“I had become wiser, I tried to find out what irony really is, and discovered that some ancient writer on poetry had spoken of “Ironia, which we call the drye mock.” And I cannot think of a better term for it: The drye mock. Not sarcasm, which is like vinegar, or cynicism, which is so often the voice of disappointed idealism, but a delicate casting of cool and illuminating light on life, and thus an enlargement. The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit’s desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.”
—
4 people liked it
“she swore in good mouth-filling oaths, but never smutty ones, and that was uncommon. She knew the prosody of profanity. . . . she knew the tune, as well as the words. She was not a raving beauty, but she had fine eyes and a Pre-Raphelite air of being too good for this world while at the same time exhibiting much of what this world desires in a woman, and I suppose I gaped at her and behaved clownishly.”
—
4 people liked it
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Oct 12, 2012 04:34pm