The Rebel Angels (Cornish Trilogy, #1)

Feb 23, 2013 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The first part of the Cornish Trilogy. Alternating between two narrators – Maria, a half gypsy graduate student in love with her mentor and a Simon, a priest who teaches at the University and falls for her – the book tells a complex story of love, lust, art, pride, scholarship, academic rivalry and criminal actions. John Parlabane, a defrocked gay monk and sort of evil genius, stirs up the brew with his sharp eyes and tongue, yet somehow it tuns out right for the characters whom the reader sympa...more

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Jul 30, 2007 Gill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Good reading for a nerd like me who loves good sentences and endearingly wacky characters.

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May 31, 2012 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, canadia

Robertson Davies is probably the greatest writer Canada has ever produced. Not that Canadian literature is all that great, but even overshadowing the likes of Atwood and Munro is still a pretty remarkable achievement.

He writes about things that should be really boring in a way that's somehow really interesting. Like the drama of Renaissance professors and graduate students. Does that get your heart racing? No? Well what if I told you it's all interspersed with Gypsy mysticism and Rabelaisian al...more

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May 08, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 4 of 5 stars

It’s humbling--I suppose I need it--to be introduced to wonderful writers I ought to have known about years--nay, decades--ago. So I’ve been chastened once again by following a tip, again from that Canadian son-in-law I’ve mentioned before, that I might like a certain author of Canadian renown named Robertson Davies. Why I haven’t run across this prolific storyteller of great intellect and wit before must be a matter of my earwax or some kind of American literary snobbery. The man is a first ra...more It’s humbling--I suppose I need it--to be introduced to wonderful writers I ought to have known about years--nay, decades--ago. So I’ve been chastened once again by following a tip, again from that Canadian son-in-law I’ve mentioned before, that I might like a certain author of Canadian renown named Robertson Davies. Why I haven’t run across this prolific storyteller of great intellect and wit before must be a matter of my earwax or some kind of American literary snobbery. The man is a first rate writer, that rare combination of aesthetic and entertainer. I plucked The Rebel Angels off the library shelf at random, and (lucky me) it turns out to be the first in one of the Monty-Wooly-lookalike author’s several trilogies. I’ll certainly go on to the other two of the threesome in The Cornish Trilogy, What’s Bred in the Bone, and The Lyre of Orpheus.
So what’s so good about him? First of all, he’s produced a novel set in academia that is neither pretentious nor supercilious. I tend to shy away from these things because they often become self parodies. The writer so wallows in his characters’ academic affections that said affectations reveal themselves as belonging as much to the author as to his creations. Not so Davies.
Among the main characters are several learned and established academicians, and their research provides important grist for the action mill. Discussions of the likes of Rabelais and Paracelsus play important parts in relationships, and numerous conversations include generous helpings of Latin. Indeed, a bit of research (I’m not willing to spend the time.) would undoubtedly yield amusing insights into both character and action.
However, amid all this scholarly give-and-take (which Davies manages to make engaging even when the reader is not quite sure what people are talking about) there appears an enormous amount of shit. Literally.
Davies uses excrement as an emblematic source of creativity and spirit as well as of corruption. It’s also a source of delicious (so to speak) satire. One professor (nickname, “turd skinner”) receives a high prizes for research on “faeces,” research which no one understands, which has yielded no discernible results nor is expected to. Prized violins are cured in beds of horse manure. All this earthiness is completely appropriate to the Rabelaisian dimension of the work. but it’s perhaps unprecedented in a university-set novel. I’m reminded of a couple of images from probably my favorite poet. W.B. Yeats is noted more for his ethereal imagery than for for his earthiness, but that’s the fault of his squeamish readers, not his. Try these lines from (I believe) “Crazy Jane Talks to the Bishop:”

Love has pitched his mansion
In the place of excrement.
Nothing can be whole or sole
That has not been rent.

Or this entire poem called “A Stick of Incense:”

From whence did all this fury come?
From empty tomb or virgin womb?
St. Joseph thought the world would melt,
But liked the way his finger smelt.

Just so are universities as replete with the down and dirty as all other institutions of human enterprise. Yes, and as full of superstition as well. The Rebel Angels has magic at the center of it. Gypsies, Tarot cards, spells, curses and the power of menstrual blood move the action every bit as much as scholarship and intellect. The grotesque image on the cover art is from the Tarot and is entirely appropriate to the feel of this novel, which pays homage to the entirety of the human comedy, it’s pain and savagery, as well as to its superficial wit. “Honor not only your crown but your root.” If you care to know what that little quote means, read The Rebel Angels. And, for no particular reason, I leave you with Rabelais’s will:
I owe much, have nothing, the rest goes to charity.(less)

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Nov 06, 2011 Christopher Walborn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Robertson Davies’ The Rebel Angels is an engaging and energetic novel with a vigorous sense of humor. The novel reads quickly and never feels weighed down by ideas or seriousness. This is deceptive.

Davies gives us a novel populated by Medieval and Renaissance scholars. Their intellectual landscape is thus not unnaturally populated by Paracelsus and Rabelais, two constant figures in the dialectic of the novel. Of the two, Rabelais seems the most significant. He is a figure frequently claimed by b

...more

Robertson Davies’ The Rebel Angels is an engaging and energetic novel with a vigorous sense of humor. The novel reads quickly and never feels weighed down by ideas or seriousness. This is deceptive.

Davies gives us a novel populated by Medieval and Renaissance scholars. Their intellectual landscape is thus not unnaturally populated by Paracelsus and Rabelais, two constant figures in the dialectic of the novel. Of the two, Rabelais seems the most significant. He is a figure frequently claimed by both sides of the numerous arguments in the novel. He provides a lens through which we see into the characters a bit more deeply than they might hope. Parlabane and McVarish make him a model of vulgarity and misogyny, or perhaps more accurately, misanthropy. To Hollier, he represents an object for his own academic ambition. For Maria and Darcourt—and Davies—he is a model of the best sort of scholar, as we hear from Maria:

Rabelais was gloriously learned because learning amused him, and so far as I am concerned that is learning’s best justification. Not the only one, but the best.

It may be wrong to include Darcourt here—as a priest scholar, his greater reference is St. Augustine:

Conloqui et conridere et vicissim benevole obsequi, simul leger libros dulciloquos, simul nugari et simul honestari.

In Maria’s translation:

Conversations and jokes together, mutual rendering of good services, the reading together of sweetly phrased books, the sharing of nonsense and mutual attentions.

This erudite amusement is a hallmark of everything I have yet read by Davies, and it is tempting to think that the best part of what Davies gives us in this novel is Davies, himself. Davies is more wise than a mere intellectual, and more alive than a modernist. He brings with him the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and with these life fuller than which we are accustomed today.

What we get from Davies is not a hair shirted historicism, but a sense of wholeness for a consciousness which is fermented in the broadness of human experience. Maria says of Hollier that he studies the Middle Ages because they are truly middle—a vantage from which he can look backward to antiquity, and forward to our post-Renaissance present. This dynamic of looking backward and forward, contrasting each with the other, is at the very heart of The Rebel Angels, a book which makes attractive Paracelsus’ “second paradise.”

The striving for wisdom is the second paradise of the world.

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May 14, 2012 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

This book is set at the University of Toronto (College of St. John of the Holy Ghost) and concerns the doings of a group of scholars: three professors, graduate student Maria Theotoky, and renegade monk John Parlabane. I was thoroughly enchanted with this novel - it's way more fun than I would have thought. Davies writes with plenty of wit and humor and embues the plot and the university setting with a sense of magic and adventure. The three professors are named the joint executors of the estate...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Warnie B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012, canada, mystery

Robertson Davies books always just...completely suck me in. I don't even care what the hell he writes about (wrote about? talking about books by dead authors always confuses me), I always have a very difficult time putting his books down once I've picked them up. This one involves a 23-year-old half-Gypsy research assistant and several professors at the College of St. John and Holy Ghost (Spook for short), the complicated will of an art patron and donor, a deadbeat defrocked monk who has arrived...more

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Feb 06, 2010 Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wry humor, delightful characters, and that deft touch with scoundrels I've come to expect from Davies. Add to that the fact that three out of five main characters are medieval scholars and it had lots of fun local color for me. The book alternates narration by two characters, an Anglican priest who teaches New Testiment Greek at a Canadian college, and one of his students, Maria Theotoky, half-gypsy, in love with her thesis advisor, and all-around gifted student. They are both great narrators an...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Sheri-lee rated it 4 of 5 stars

There is a bit too much debauchery in this book at times, but I understand the use of it in certain characters' development. I am thankful to not know of anyone who would fit this character...it is one described by several other characters in the book as a truly evil person. So, it was a full taste of evil that is for sure.

But I did find some of the themes very interesting...about the medieval society/culture within universities, the way we can find meaning in the dung and cast off garbage of pe...more

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May 21, 2011 Kate Millin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am reading this in a different version - one that has the Cornish trilogy in one volume, but want to record each book as a separate read, so this is not the same as the copy I am reading.

The Rebel Angels revolves around the execution of a difficult will. In this case, the estate is of one Francis Cornish, a fantastically rich patron and collector of Canadian art and a noted antiquarian bibliophile. A lost Rabelais manuscript is rumoured to be among his possessions, and his executors include th...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Frank rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Highly recommended, a terrific read. Brilliant plotting, according to the blurbs, but actually there's not all that much narrative. It's mainly talk, talk, talk. And very entertaining talk at that. The book sometimes feels like a lighter, comic version of Mann's Magic Mountain. Scholars discussing life and death and everything in between, from sex to human excrement (in fact with particular attention being paid to exactly those two subjects). It's all about duality and alchemy, how we're creatur...more
Highly recommended, a terrific read. Brilliant plotting, according to the blurbs, but actually there's not all that much narrative. It's mainly talk, talk, talk. And very entertaining talk at that. The book sometimes feels like a lighter, comic version of Mann's Magic Mountain. Scholars discussing life and death and everything in between, from sex to human excrement (in fact with particular attention being paid to exactly those two subjects). It's all about duality and alchemy, how we're creatures of the earth and of the spirit, body and soul. And Davies tells it all with broad humour and immense flair, in an aphoristic style that's reminiscent of Hollywood screwball comedies – as is his plot, in fact, and the lip service he pays to psychological realism, which doesn't interest him all that much, only just enough to keep his cardboard vaudeville characters from toppling over. By which I don't mean that the characters aren't interesting – they're as interesting as anything in a Capra film.
And just as the plot in such films serves mainly as a vehicle for the jokes, the minor narrative developments here serve only as the occasion for orchestrating the big set pieces of dinner conversations, where the characters really let rip.

Maybe a couple of quotes are in order, although in isolation they can't quite convey the genial humour that pervades the entire novel and makes it such a joy to read. Because only as the narrative unfolds do you see the mirrorrings that give added meaning to the separate jokes. (E.g. the gypsy mother who tells fortunes with tarot cards and the scientist who tells people's fortunes based on their body mass and their excrement, which he considers as unique to each individual as our fingerprints.)

'And that is bloody well my field and, and it could be the making of any scholar who got hold of it, and I'll be damned if I want that bogus sniggering son of a whore McVarish to get his hands on it!'
'Spoken like a true scholar!' (97)

'What's a perfect mother? We hear too much about loving mothers making homosexuals, and neglectful mothers making crooks, and commonplace mothers stifling intelligence. The whole mother business needs radical examination.'
'You sound as if in a minute you were going to give me a lecture about Original Sin.'
'And why not? We've had psychology and we've had sociology and we're still just where we were, for all practical purposes. Some of the harsh old theological notions of things are every bit as good, not because they really explain anything, but because at bottom they admit they can't explain a lot of things, so they foist them of on God, who may be cruel and incalculable but at least He takes the guilt for a lot of human misery.' (105)

'Civilization rests on two things,' said Hitzig; 'the discovery that fermentation produces alcohol, and voluntary ability to inhibit defecation. And I put it to you, where would this splendidly civilized occasion be without both?'
'[... I]nhibition of defecation is in essence a theological matter, and unquestionably one of the effects of the Fall of Man. And that, as everybody now recognizes, means the dawn of personal consciousness, the separation of the individual from the tribe, or mass. Animals have no such power of inhibition, as every stagemanager who has to get a horse on and off stage without mishap will assure you. Animals know themselves but dimly -- even more dimly than we, the masters of the world. When Man ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge he became aware of himself as something other than a portion of his surroundings, and he dropped his last, carefree turd, as he, with wandering steps and slow, from Eden took his solitary way. After that he had, literally, to mind his step, not to speak of his Ps and Qs.' (182)

'Oh, we could tell secrets,' said Yerko. 'Gypsies have lots of secrets. That's what makes them so powerful. Look -- I'll tell you a Gypsy secret, worth a thousand dollars to anybody. Your dog gets into a fight see; both dogs trying to kill the other dog -- Rowf-rowf! Grrrrr! -- you can't get your dog away. Kick him! Pull his tail! No good! He wants to kill. So what do you do? You lick the long finger good -- make it good and wet -- then you run up and you shove your finger up the arse-hole of one dog -- no matter whether your dog or not. Shove up as far as you can. Wiggle it good. Dog surprised. What the hell! he think. He let go, and you kick him so no more fight. -- You got a good dog?'
'My mother has a very old Peke,' said Hollier.
'Well, you do that next time he fight. Show who's master. -- You got a horse?'
Neither of the professors had a horse.
'Too bad. I could tell you how to make any horse yours forever. I tell you anyway. Just whisper up his nose. What you whisper? Whisper your secret name -- the name only you and your mother know. Right up his nose, both nose-holes. Yours forever. Leave anybody he living with when you do it, and follow you. Spit in my face if I lie.' (227)

Finally, one character describing the (terrible) novel he's writing, a nice spoof on pretentious authorial intentions and the worst kind of litcrit:

And thus the hero of the tale -- because it is a tale to the simple, as I said -- will be found to have been preoccupied all hist life with the quest for the Father Image and the Mother Idol to replace the real parents who in real life were inadequate surrogates for the Creator. The quest is never completed, but the preoccupation with Image and Idol gradually give way to the conviction of the reality of the Reality which lies behind the shadows which constitute the actual moment as it rushes by. (247-8)

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Feb 17, 2013 Perry Whitford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Rebel Angels is the first in a superlative trilogy about friendship, love, knowledge, obsession and the arts, set in a Canadian university campus. As an eccentric, millionaire art collector dies and the three appointed executors get down to the task of sorting through his massive, uncataloged paintings and manuscripts, another old, disreputable university figure reappears on the scene, penniless and dressed in a dishevelled monk's habit, shamelessly cadging off all and sundry yet convinced o...more The Rebel Angels is the first in a superlative trilogy about friendship, love, knowledge, obsession and the arts, set in a Canadian university campus. As an eccentric, millionaire art collector dies and the three appointed executors get down to the task of sorting through his massive, uncataloged paintings and manuscripts, another old, disreputable university figure reappears on the scene, penniless and dressed in a dishevelled monk's habit, shamelessly cadging off all and sundry yet convinced of his own genius and superiority.
Davies loves to echo and make allusion to great works of classical and medieval literature in his characters and plotting, most of which he makes accessible to all readers through clear yet unforced referencing. In this novel the life and works of Rabelais and Paracelcus are cleverly conjoined with the story of the old testament angels who were banished from heaven in disgrace, but brought wisdom with them which they gave to mankind.

The Rebel Angels features two narrative voices for the price of one. 'The Second Paradise' is narrated by the marvelously named Maria Magdalene Theotoky, a bright and beautiful research assistant specializing in the works of Rabelais. Of mixed aristocratic and Romany parentage, she falls in love with her brilliant but frigid professor whilst others fall in love with her.
'The New Aubrey' is narrated by a professor-priest, Father Simon Harcourt, who is appointed one of the three executors responsible for carving up the collection and who also begins to write short, anecdotal biographies of many of the universities' characters, a la John Aubrey.

A large percentage of the book is made up of little more than conversations between the characters, but Davies is a master of wise, witty dialogue, so that's fine by me. Like Gore Vidal, Davies can really make you believe that people can be simultaneously superlative in thought and language, a rarefied gift and reason enough to read his books.
As well as being about the search for love and wisdom, The Rebel Angels is crammed full of interesting esoterica, such as the specific names given to the excrement of different animals (a hare craps "crotels", whereas an otter relieves itself in "spraints") and the ancient gypsy art of "bomari", a heat treatment used to revive the sound of aging violins.

I first read this trilogy one after the other in 2003. The second book, What's Bred in the Bone, goes back into the past to look into the secretive life of the dead art collector, and is if anything better than this book, whilst the third installment is a fitting denouement replete with playful parallels of the King Arthur myth and based around the staging of a play.
I will re-read and review them also at some point, just for the pleasure.(less)

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Jul 24, 2011 Susan added it · review of another edition

Strange book. I'm still digesting it and am very much in two minds. Can it be said to successfully grapple its grand and sweeping themes? Or does it just disappear up its own rear end in a medley of poo and seediness?! The study of excrement is probably as someone else has suggested a bit of fun being poked at academia, but is also part of the bigger theme of taking people as a whole, roots and crown, past and present, physical beauty and the not so attractive digestive system and products there...more

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May 25, 2010 Surreysmum rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1982, canlit, general-fiction

[These notes were made in 1982:]. Thinly disguised U of T, in some ways - in others, of course, it has nothing to do with our venerable institution. If such characters as Maria Theotoky, Urky McVarish, or Clement Hollier exist, they exist in much more subdued tones. And, of course, it is a murder mystery - and one with a very bizarre solution at that! One of the main concentrations of the book is an opposition between the "intellectual" and the "superstitious" or "pre-intellectual" - and the way...more

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Jul 18, 2010 julieta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: siglo-xx

Quiero empezar diciendo que amo a Robertson Davies. A excepción de un libro suyo que realmente no me gustó, todo lo demás siempre me parece entrañable, entretenido, divertido, profundo. En fin, tiene algo que también debe ser de su carácter, que lo hace muy cálido para leer. Este libro me encanta porque entra al mundo académico, un mundo por el cual siempre he suspirado, por nunca haber vivido ni de cerca algo por el estilo. La vida me llevó a otras cosas, y una vida académica no estaba en los p...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Kristine Morris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian, based-in-toronto

A little bit slow at the beginning, but I was stuck on a plane with no other book so... Once past the long introduction, the book hums along quite comically as you uncover more about each odd ball character. There is a plot (a few actually) but it is secondary to the characters and their interactions. At points the character Parlabane got a little too philosophical and my eyes started to twitch a bit. I am still digesting his tautological diatribe on how skeptics can only be skeptic because ther...more

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Oct 02, 2009 Marlow rated it 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book, for all that it was a hard read. It has a bit too much dialog for me, but a philosopher would probably enjoy those parts more than I did. I read them, and then after it grew to be too long of a conversation had to put it down and do something else and reread it later.

This book is told by 2 points of view and there is some adjustment initially in figuring out who was talking. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered at the end and you feel as if you've been shot out the back of...more

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Feb 21, 2013 Kyrie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: other-cultural-fiction

I read this book when I was in college because an English professor suggested it. I have to admit, a lot of it went over my head then.
Reading it now, I appreciate the story and am considerably less concerned that I don't know much about Rabelais or Paracelsus.
I like Maria now. I didn't so much the first time I read it. I also have a greater appreciation of her mother, the not-so-crazy Gypsy lady.
There is one part that is very graphic and pretty gross, almost as if the character Parlabane is h...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Stephen P rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love reading about the academic life. I have never been in academics yet I've also not been a researcher and I could read endlessly on a person dedicating their life to the study of a specific subject within the walls of a library, their live's enfolded in cluttered stacks of paper and tilted piles of books. If I'm going to get truly confessional here I admit to a desire to read about someone reading even without me knowing what it is they read. Seeing the act of reading for me is enjoyment.

Wa...more I love reading about the academic life. I have never been in academics yet I've also not been a researcher and I could read endlessly on a person dedicating their life to the study of a specific subject within the walls of a library, their live's enfolded in cluttered stacks of paper and tilted piles of books. If I'm going to get truly confessional here I admit to a desire to read about someone reading even without me knowing what it is they read. Seeing the act of reading for me is enjoyment.

Wanting a break I thought a fun book on academia would be this first of the Cornish Trilogy by Mr. Davies. Living in the U.S. I have come to be satisfied with getting what I pay for but not surprised if I receive less. It amazes me what when younger I went into battle about now I let pass. What I am not accustomed to is being handed more. What do I do? Should I send additional money to the author and publisher? Read fewer pages?

The novel is a wonderful romp through academic college life written by an author who spent a good part of his life in academia. He knows the twists and turns, the absurdities and hypocrisies, the characters, and those truly dedicated to their life of study. The freebies-which I may still receive a bill for in the mail-is an honest accounting of love, obsession, the various and raucous folds of ambition, qualities of friendship, the nature of scholarly pursuit, and the big one: the philosophy of identity. While frolicking along in my break in academia the author showed better than any philosophical treatise the answer to, what is our journey, what is it we seek? It is woven into the story. He is an excellent thinker and an excellent writer. His fascinating characters reveal without any pomp and circumstance they will either set out and to differing degrees discover who they are even if it doesn't coincide with their life circumstances or desires, and have the guts and audacity to live that life, or will conjure up images of themselves resulting in the fevered maladies when sacrificing authenticity. Much needs to be spent on obtaining bevelled, warped mirrors to locate the reflection of themselves most needed to gain the glistened trophies handed out with indifference by the administrators of society in the great halls and decked rooms marked life.

The great magic of this book is that it is written in a high style of prose providing the right amount of distance of the authorial camera for us to view through while Mr. Davies himself stands by the open door of the novel, dressed proper in a suit and tie, impeccable manners, a wise noble smile, placing a hand beneath our arm while gently leading us into the story. He makes us comfortable and sets us at ease. He acts as if he hasn't done anything when by doing so, later we understand what magic has been performed.

I recommend this book to anyone and everyone. It is urbane, cosmopolitan, insightful, sad, funny, witty, knowledgeable, a pleasure to read Why not 5 stars? My original drop of a star was the hope I could slide by and not be charged for the multiple freebies. That not working I was set out to write a humble but brilliant section on how the characters were not well rounded enough. Then, just before posting I realized that was what the book, duh, was about. This part quickly deleted before public embarrassment was tagged onto the bill, the real reason arose. If just for the enjoyment of reading, and by itself, this is a 5 star book. However, I finished it then started Virginia Woolf's, The Waves, which for me so far may very well be the most important book I have read. So, unfair as it may be, to give any book right now the same rating I will be giving The Waves seems impossible. Let's say then that Rebel Angels is a strong 4 and if read at another time would have been a 5.(less)

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Feb 18, 2013 Matt rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What TEDIUM this book was. Interesting premise and characters, but one of the most unsatisfying, contrived and rediculous stories I can remember setting eyes on. Ostensibly about several academics in a large univ., the book was only saved by the presence of a colorful gypsy family, who were the only authentic and vaguely stirring elements in an otherwise drab, Canadian yawn of a novel.

A few good passages and interesting references, but overall it needed to be edited down to a third its size. Mi...more

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Mar 03, 2009 Dylan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Probubly my favorite book yet read in English 105B, Davies does what I want to do, write a novel where magic is treated as an actual law of nature. It could be argued that he dosn't do this, but he does give the study of magic it's due.
This is a pretty good novel, the characters were memorable and while I didn't understand all of the plot, it got off as a novel on Parlabane alone. If I was someone who read much of, or to that extent even cared about the literature of my supposed homeland, I wou...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012, fiction

It had a few annoying moments, the characters seemed a bit one sided, but maybe the academics I know weren't quite so obsessive and it made parts of it seem rather pretentious. I either really want to read/study Paracelsus and Rabelais now, or stay totally away from them. That being said, up until the last chapter, which to me kind of fell apart (the character of Maria seemed to kind of disintegrate, I didn't much like her anyway though), it was a great book. It was enjoyable, had interesting ch...more

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Aug 01, 2011 Jackie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-scifi-and-other-oddities, multiple-narrators, race-religion-other-dinner-no-noes

I was so disappointed in this novel. For one thing, it struck me as incredibly dated: its attitudes towards women for one thing, and the constant assessment of any progressive sentiment as "fashionable" (and therefore, one assumes, temporary). Simon Darcourt was a good narrator, but I couldn't stand Maria and I found myself wondering how they gypsy passages would read to an actual gypsy.
But whatever. The mythological/supernatural/religious moments were interesting. I liked the idea of a pure evi...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Enjoyable, I thought - particularly the depravity of Parlabane and the mind games he plays; Theotosky's earnestness; Darcourt's single-mindedness; Hollier's humanity; theologies I've distanced myself from in recent years. Will be looking to read the rest of the Cornish Trilogy - What's Bred in the Bone and The Lyre of Orpheus in the future.

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Apr 23, 2012 robert rated it 2 of 5 stars

After raves from Harold Bloom, Salon, and my favorite bookseller this book became my lackluster traveling companion for a journey across the Atlantic. None of the intellectual protagonists sound all that smart, their ideas are far from stimulating, and even the analysis of excrement is somehow boring. Like Possession, this is a writer´s wet dream (nothing wrong with that!). But though The Rebel Angels is much better than Byatt´s book, Davies´ liberated notions at times seem strangely dated and o...more

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Jul 28, 2010 Mel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Definitely worth reading, which leads me to say that the 5 star rating leaves something to be desired. It would have been 8.5 on a 10 point scale.

Scoundrels, medieval scholars, gypsies, and tawdry sex - what more could a reader ask for in a treatsie on the quest for living the honorable life. I love Robertson Davies for the deft manner in which he's able to tackle such big questions in life like the pursuit of living an intellectual life and the ever-maddening struggle between fate and free-wil...more

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Nov 22, 2011 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, favorites

No one creates characters like Robertson Davies does. Maria Theotoky, John Parlabane, Simon Darcourt, Clement Hollier, so many ordinary yet extraordinary characters. Just like in "Fifth Business", Davies builts his story based on obscure knowledge. The main action all takes place at a University and the academic squabblings and adventures that go on there. It's almost comforting for me to read so soon out of university myself and it almost makes me want to go right back.

Maria is a grad student w...more

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Oct 22, 2009 Oscar rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mainstream, míos, 5-estrellas, humor-comedia, mis-obras-maestras, favorites

¡Qué bueno es Robertson Davies! Lo descubrí por medio de la Trilogía de Deptford, mención especial para el primer libro perteneciente a la misma, 'El quinto en discordia', y de decir que es un escritor absolutamente delicioso. Mientras leía 'Ángeles rebeldes', no dejaba de pensar en llamar a todos mis conocidos para leerles algún fragmento memorable, por su humor y por su inteligencia. Y es que este libro, y la obra de Davies en general, se caracteriza por la variedad de temas que trata, siempre...more ¡Qué bueno es Robertson Davies! Lo descubrí por medio de la Trilogía de Deptford, mención especial para el primer libro perteneciente a la misma, 'El quinto en discordia', y de decir que es un escritor absolutamente delicioso. Mientras leía 'Ángeles rebeldes', no dejaba de pensar en llamar a todos mis conocidos para leerles algún fragmento memorable, por su humor y por su inteligencia. Y es que este libro, y la obra de Davies en general, se caracteriza por la variedad de temas que trata, siempre desde un punto de vista erudito pero ni pesado ni farragoso de leer.

Si tuviese que escoger dos palabras para definir 'Ángeles rebeldes', serían humor y erudición. La novela está impregnada de humor, es inevitable reirse con algunas escenas. Me recordó la obra de David Lodge, tanto por las situaciones humorísticas como por dónde transcurren, que es el ambiente universitario y todo lo que conlleva. En cuanto a la erudición, Davies está versado en muchas materias, desde la alquimia, a la vida académica, pasandod por las tradiciones gitanas y el medievalismo. Pero todo está tan bien insertado en la trama, que lees el libro de manera compulsiva.

'Ángeles rebeldes' es también el primer libro de la llamada Trilogía de Cornish, formada también por 'Lo que arraiga en el hueso' y 'La lira de Orfeo', aunque puedes ser leídas de manera independiente. 'Ángeles rebeldes' comienza con el regreso a la Universidad de San Juan y el Espíritu Santo, llamada por algunos La Entelequía, de Parlabane, un ser malvado para muchos. La vida en la Universidad se ve alterada tanto por este retorno como por el legado que recibe del difunto Francis Cornish, coleccionista y mecenas de artístas, a cuyo cargo y revisión quedan los profesores Dancourt, Hollier y McVarish. Todo se complica con el descubrimiento de un manuscrito inédito de Rabelais... La historia esta narrada desde dos puntos de vista, el del padre Dancourt y el de la estudiante Maria, que se verá atrapada enmedio de estos ángeles rebeldes.

No puedo decir nada más, únicamente... pasen y disfruten.
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Jan 03, 2008 Shan O rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you have not met Canadian novelist and University of Toronto professor Robertson Davies, I strongly encourage you to do so. His narratives feature multiple layers which draw from history, art, literature, religion, and science, and he somehow manages to keep all the balls in the air as he juggles them.

I first came across Davies a couple of years ago when a former English colleague of mine recommended him to me due to my interest in the visual arts and literature. At this point, I've re-read...more

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May 12, 2011 Mo Johnston rated it 5 of 5 stars

Well spoken anglophile Canadians who work at a University in Toronto. So good. So many funny and obvious plot twists. The best characters include a gypsy whose specialty is basically what amounts to nonfiction of the Renaissance (and one of two developed characters in the book who are women boooooo), a defrocked monk with an evil heart, and the gypsy's uncle, a fiddle maker who drinks a lot and is curious "the baby Jesus". Because of this book, I will be reading all of Robertson Davies ASAP.

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title link	preview: The Rebel Angels
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The Rebel Angels (The Cornish Trilogy #1)

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