A Mixture of Frailties

The Salterton Trilogy #3

by Robertson Davies

"A Mixture of Frailties", the third volume of Robertson Davies "Salterton" Trilogy, is his first extended engagement with one of the great neuroses of Canadian culture: Canada's artistic relationship to Europe, and particularly to Britain. Davies begins his story with the funeral of Louisa Bridgetower, the Salterton matron whose imposing presence ranges throughout the earlier volumes of the "Salterton" Trilogy. The substantial income from her estate is to be used to send an unmarried young woman to Europe to pursue an education in the arts. Mrs. Bridgetower's executors end up selecting Monica Gall, an almost entirely unschooled singer whose sole experience comes from performing with the Heart and Hope Gospel Quartet, a rough outfit sponsored by a small fundamentalist group. Monica soon finds herself in England, a pupil of some of Britain's most remarkable teachers and composers, and she gradually blossoms from a Canadian rube to a cosmopolitan soprano with a unique - and tragicomic - career.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Literary Fiction, Classics, Literature, Novels, Humor

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

William Robertson Davies, CC, FRSC, FRSL (died in 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 Master of Massey College, a graduate college at the University of Toronto.

Novels:

The Salterton Trilogy
• Tempest-tost (1951)
• Leaven of Malice (1954)
• A Mixture of Frailties (1958)
The Deptford Trilogy
• Fifth Business (1970)
• The Manticore (1972)
• World of Wonders (1975)
The Cornish Trilogy
• The Rebel Angels (1981)
• What's Bred in the Bone (1985)
• The Lyre of Orpheus (1988)
The Toronto Trilogy (Davies' final, incomplete, trilogy)
• Murther and Walking Spirits (1991)
• The Cunning Man (1994)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertso...

Reviews

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The (Mostly) Dead Writers Society Author in Residence program 2022

You know, I was sure that I had read this book thirtyish years ago, but I have to say that it was completely wiped from my memory banks if I did. I think I'm maybe giving myself credit for something I never actually got around to.

I'm really struck by the similarities between A Mixture of Frailties and Davies’ later work, The Lyre of Orpheus. Both involve financial trusts funding musicians and the creation of operas. Here, Monica Gall is sent to London to improve her voice and develop a reputation for her singing. Monica becomes involved with one of her tutors (I hesitate to call it ‘romantically‘ since he seems to be the taker to her giving). Eventually some of her trust money is put towards his opera, The Golden Ass. The Lyre has the obnoxious Schnak, who is to finish ‘Arthur of Britain' both to earn her degree and to gain her own reputation as a composer.

Monica and Schnak are both from religious, repressed families and Davies turns both of them loose from those bonds, with additions of art, booze, and sex. Having gone through a much milder form of both religion and liberation, I could relate to them. Both of them also must overcome their backgrounds as provincial Canadians and learn to properly value their own talents. This is not so much in evidence here in 2022, when I think Canadians have learned to be proud of our own accomplishments, but it very much held us back in our earlier history. Now we are rightfully proud of our artists, musicians, and writers.

Because this is a trilogy, we once again see Solly Bridgetower, Auntie Puss, Dean Knapton, and attourney Snelgrove as members of the Bridgetower Trust. When Solly's manipulative mother dies, her will is revealed to be an instrument of punishment for the son who dared to marry Veronica Vambrace against her wishes. The Anglican Church gets punished, her friend Puss fares no better, and the trust members must find a deserving young woman (i.e. Monica) to send to the UK for artistic training. At least until Solly and Veronica produce the son to whom the fortune will be bestowed.

Davies had such a clear view of human nature that I can easily envisage the novel's events playing out in real life. He oversaw enough theatrical events and university students that he must have seen many such personal dramas in his career. His writing may be somewhat old fashioned but I still appreciate its clarity and the compassion he shows for his characters as he puts them through their paces.

[Aaron Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Davies book I've read so far has been really enjoyable, but I found this one truly exceptional. His later novels are more technically skilled - the Deptford trilogy taken as whole contains more detailed characters and more insight into the subjectivity and serendipity of personal experience - but of his individual works that I've read, this one presents Davies' personal philosophy of "live life to the fullest" in the most engaging way. I realize that to a reader in 2016, "the Canadian inferiority complex towards British art and society circa the 1950s" might not at first seem to be the most riveting thematic scaffold for that idea, yet the way that he entwines that commentary with the musical training and personal growth of a young girl from Canada sent to England to learn about art is both a great narrative and fun from a meta perspective, without ever being overly self-aware. In fact, the more you give yourself over to how harmonious Davies' view of life is, the more it rubs off on you, and you wish more authors could blend comedy and drama so smoothly.

In the first two books in this series, Davies had a habit of making his sidekicks the best characters, with the best lines, the most interesting lives, and the most profound insights. And though the way he bounces their vivid, roguish, off-color mannerisms off of the straight-laced central protagonists was perfectly readable, few people would ever consider the somewhat colorless Hector Mackilwraith or Solly Bridgetower as memorable leading men. However, this book is much less farcical in tone, and so Monica Gall goes through a much more interesting transformation, from a quiet girl with potential to an actual person with real experiences and scandalous behavior. She doesn't have quite the depth of the religiophile academic Dunstan Ramsey, brooding playboy David Staunton, or troubled magician Paul Dempster from the Deptford trilogy, but that series was about old people exploring their memories - this is about youth making memories in the first place. I'm not sure if the change from the first two is because Davies improved as a writer, or because having his main character leave Salterton to expand her horizons let him tell a bigger story, but even if he still towers over all of his characters and has the lesser ones deliver most of the meaningful life lessons, it makes for a deeper and more interesting novel.

The last book began with a fake wedding, and this one begins with a real funeral. Mrs. Bridgetower, the overbearing mother of Solly, has finally died and divided up her earthly possessions in her will. Unfortunately for her son and his wife Veronica, not only are they forced to keep living in her gigantic old house without being able to sell it, but the money they were hoping to inherit goes straight into a trust. The trust is dedicated to sending a young Salterton girl to Europe for artistic training, which they couldn't care less about (just as in the last book, the church organist Cobbler has a typically good jab at musical taste in Salterton: "'Music is like wine, Bridgetower,' he had said; 'the less people know about it, the sweeter they like it.'"). What's more, the only way to reclaim the money is to have a son, or else the trust will keep sending girls off to Europe in perpetuity. As Davies was a big Dickens fan, this situation is reminiscent of the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce case in Bleak House. But very little of the novel concentrates on Solly and Veronica's struggle to produce an son under the weight of the maternal bequest. The majority is dedicated to Monica Gall's transformation from a religiously sheltered young girl with a good singing voice to a full-fledged artist, and her simultaneous growth as a person through a scandalous love affair as a sugar mama, until the affair ends, she returns home, and has a major personal decision to make.

The way that Mrs. Bridgetower's will controls the lives of the other characters is deliberately tied up with how European culture overawed Canadians back in Davies' era, the hand of the dead placed firmly on the shoulders of the living. In the last book as well, but especially in this one, Davies pursues a strong theme of young people needing to be free to live their life and make their own mistakes, because often, after enough time, mistakes turn out to not really be mistakes at all. Monica loses her virginity to composer Giles Revelstoke, falls in love with him, attempts to displace his current lover Persis Kinwellmarshe, uses her trust money to fund his grand and critically acclaimed opera, ends up falling out with him, and even ends the book convinced that she's directly murdered him, but if she accepts conductor Benedict Domdaniel's proposal of marriage, which probably wouldn't have happened without her interaction with him during her affair with Revelstoke, was that affair really a mistake? Saying that "your life experience is made up of both good and bad, so whether it turns out all right is up to you" is very simplistic, but who would want a life where they avoided making any important decisions so that nothing could go wrong? As another good Cobbler line has it, "People who mind their own business die of boredom at thirty."

That part of growth which entails making choices means that you develop an ambiguous relationship to what you've left behind, with upsides and downsides. There's a funny part after Monica has just gotten to London where she meets the McCorkills, fellow Canadians, whose dedication to the homeland is so strong that they purchase as much Canadian foodstuffs as possible, and fret that their young children are developing English accents instead of proper Canadian ones - "the McCorkills' vast disrelish for England meant no more than that they were uprooted, afraid, and desperately homesick". Immediately following, there's an interlude where Monica leaves London for a Christmas holiday to Wales with Revelstoke and the rest of his crew. In real life Davies was very interested in his own Welsh ancestry, which makes the combination of his admiration for the beauty of the countryside and his sardonic take on their overindulgence in their own history pretty funny, and the discussion on "the longing for what is unattainable, which is called 'hiraeth' in Welsh" is a great example. After a character rhapsodizes on this "real Celtic magic", Davies deflates the parochialism of the Welsh for thinking they've invented some uniquely abstract concept: "The Welsh make a fuss about their hiraeth as if they'd invented it; it's common to all small, disappointed, frustrated nations. The Jews have used it as their principal artistic stock-in-trade for two thousand years. It’s the old hankering to get back to the womb, where everything was snug. Whimpering stuff."

And of course the rest of her interactions with Revelstoke and his friends, as she discovers that "sophisticated scenes" are both more and less glamorous than the naive would imagine, are both a wonderful portrait of artistic progression and a very relatable account of the often-painful accumulation of life experience. There's several great discussions about the power of criticism, not trying to be clever with something meta, but showing the power of art and criticism on each other. The point is that you have to be true to yourself: in the same Christmas Welsh scene, she tries to impress all of the assembled English people with tall tales of Canadian loyalty to the Empire, only to be laughed at for being too eager to fit in. This difficulty of feeling confidence in herself is a constant in her artistic training. Her initial trainer Molloy has to get her to truly feel the mood ("muhd") of many of the pieces she's trying to sing in order to excel, but whereas an author like Thoman Mann might have their protagonist look to Mephistopheles for artistic inspiration, as in Doktor Faustus, for Monica it's a matter of choosing the best parts of what's already in herself. Molloy tries to get her to admit that she likes her talents because of the power they give her and to tell her not to be ashamed of that, though she should still think carefully:

"In your heart of hearts you think of singing as a form of power: and you've got more common sense in your heart of hearts than you have on that smarmy little tongue of yours. You're right; singing is a form of power - power of different kinds. Singing as a form of sexual allurement - there's nothing wrong with that. Very natural, indeed: every real man responds to the woman with the golden, squalling, cat-like note, and every real woman longs to hurl herself at the cock-a-doodling tenor or the bellowing bass. Part of Nature's Great Plan. But sex-shouting's a trap, too. At fifty, your golden squall becomes a bad joke."

The ending scene, at a Bridgetower Memorial Lecture stipulated by the will, does a great job of showing the complexity of life experience. She's come home on vacation to sing before the Saltertonians she has moved beyond, such as her old flame George Medwall, who seems fated to live a pleasant but constrained life in the hometown. Coincidentally, Veronica has finally given birth to a boy, which has at last fulfilled the conditions of the will, releasing the Bridgetowers from their maternally-imposed purgatory. The lecture is about the importance of education as apprehension, as understanding what's happening in the world around you, although ironically Monica is ignoring it while pondering her marriage proposal from Domdaniel, though we don't find out what she chooses. I wasn't expecting that ultimate ambiguity, but it makes sense for the character, and for the story. Davies managed to balance his inimitable sense of humor with his sympathy for the process of life beautifully here, and a big part of life is the unknown. Very few writers make the unknown seem as pleasant as he does.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai lu ce livre il y a cinquante ans quand j'étais toujours à l'école secondaire. Je l'ai trouvé très anglo-protestant. Parce que je comprenais pas que les grandes entreprises, les universités, le gouvernement et les institutions culturelles de la province étaient toujours contrôlés par les anglo-protestants je croyais que ce roman et l'œuvre de Davies en générale manquaient de pertinence. Autrement dit, je pensais que la société Ontarienne était déjà pendant les années 1960 ce qu'elle deviendrait pendant les années 1990. J'aurai mieux compris le parcours si j'avais fait attention à ce que Davies avait à dire la culture de la province à l'époque de mon adolescence.

Il vaut toujours la peine de lire quelques romans de Davies afin de connaitre ce que la société anglo-canadienne au milieu du vingtième siècle.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd put A Mixture of Frailties up there with What's Bred in the Bone and Fifth Business as Davies's best. While it's not the story of a whole life like the other two, it has a similar sensibility as we follow Monica Gall, a gifted but raw Canadian singer, through her formative experiences studying with some of England's great musicians. Mixture has a lot to say about music, talent, and the process of being an artist, which I found utterly fascinating even if I'm in no position to judge its realism. It also features Davies's trademark celebration of the intuitive, intangible, and mysterious elements of life.

Going even further, "irrationality" is a major theme in this novel. Two incidents really stand out to me. First, is Monica's love for Giles Revelstock, a brilliant composer who accepts her time, money, and physical affection, but never returns her love. Her friends urge her to prioritize her own self-respect and leave him, but she doesn't because he emotional attachment is so strong. The other incident occurs when Monica's mother falls ill with some kind of routine malady that can be cured by a simple operation. But Ma, product of a provincial, religious upbringing, is terrified of hospitals and refuses to go, even though this decision leads to her death. In both cases, there is a simple, rational course of action that almost anyone (me included) would support. But in both cases, Davies's gives credence to the strength of each woman's emotion. This account of a conversation between Monica and her mother's doctor really brings this point home:

"'...You realize you may be bringing about your mother's death,' I said."

"Now Jimmy, that was a mistake."

"Yes, I know it was, but I was mad. It's all so senseless! But she looked me straight in the eye and said, 'My decision may do so, Dr. Cobbett, but your decision would do so beyond any doubt. My mother lives by the spirit as well as the flesh; if I kill the spirit by delivering her, frightening and forsaken, into your hands, what makes you think you can save the flesh?'"

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most serious and deep of the three novels. If I have time I will write a review, but for now, here is the protagonist reflecting on what music stirs in her:

It was the yearning which had been buried in the heart of her mother, denied and thwarted but there, forever alive and demanding. It was a yearning toward all the vast, inexplicable, irrational treasury from which her life drew whatever meaning and worth it possessed. It was the yearning for—? As Ceinwen’s song had said, not all the wise men in the world could ever tell her, but it would last until the end.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this weird time in our human history, Davies is like a balm to my soul. His writing is insightful and witty, warmly crisp and engaging, and hits all the emotional marks, celebrating the passions, fears, and silliness of humankind. In this, the conclusion to the Salterton Trilogy, the story of Solomon Bridgetower and Pearl Vambrace, which began in such an unlikely fashion in the previous volume, is tied up neatly, as they endure the vengeance of Mrs. Bridgetower, exacted upon them from her grave. In crafting her legacy thus, the story of Monica Gall, an indifferent girl who happens to be a singer of some talent, begins. Monica becomes the heiress of a complicated trust designed by Mrs. Bridgetower, which allows--indeed, demands--that she go off to Europe to pursue music as a career, a path which would never have occurred to her in the natural course of her life. But, she travels to London (as my own daughter has done, at Monica's age!), falls in with a varied and, at times, motley crew of musical teachers, and finds herself working toward a success she's not quite sure she deserves. She is filled with Canadian humility and propelled by the passions that consume young women, and her trajectory is informed by both of those qualities. When the story winds down, all injustices appear to be set to right, and Monica is faced with a choice that could change her life forever (again). So excellently written is this tale that I don't even care that the reader doesn't get to know what her decision is, because I get to imagine it.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monica had heard all her life that Opportunity knocks but once. But when Opportunity knocks, the sound can bring your heart into your mouth.

Young singer Monica Gall is at the core of this novel but, as with all the Robertson Davies novels I’ve read (this is the sixth), there is a lot more to his narrative than – in this case – the musical education of an ingénue. The wider aspects of Davies’s mise-en-scène is equally important to him, as it must therefore be for the reader.

Thus the framing device involves a perverse Last Will read in Salterton, Ontario where the previous two instalments of the trilogy take place; as well as a cast of diverse characters we encounter many of Davies’s recurring literary motifs – literature of course, and drama, but also music, pedagogy, Europe, illusion, guilt, humour; and, rambling though the plot may feel at times, there is a sureness of touch and clarity of vision that comes from an author who knows what he wants to say.

And why does he want to say? The novel’s title comes from a passage written by George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax in the 17th century: in it Lord Halifax counsels a softening of personal arrogance and condemnation of others by remembrance of one’s own faults, one’s personal frailties: “they pull our Rage by the sleeve and whisper Gentleness to us in our censures.” And this is Davies’s theme too, the hauptstimme of the final part of his Salterton trilogy: temper judgement with compassion.

Following the end of Leaven of Malice (1954), in which Solly Bridgetower and Pearl Veronica Vambrace seemingly overcome family displeasure at their union, A Mixture of Frailties reveals that all is not over: Solly’s mother has her revenge with a will denying her son his substantial inheritance until a son is produced; until then a trust is to be set up to provide a generous arts bursary for a young Canadian to develop their talents in Europe. Mrs Bridgetower’s arrogant nature in life thus persists with the Dead Hand of her Will, setting up a change of focus in the person of a vapid Monica Gall and a change of scene to Europe, principally in London, North Wales, Paris and Venice.

To say this novel is essentially a bildungsroman is to vastly simplify Davies’s accomplishment, but it’s true that we witness the growing pains of Monica Gall as she is tutored by a number of specialists, mainly in music but also in matters of manners and style; you’d have to be hardhearted not to feel for this small-town innocent plucked from one environment and thrown willy-nilly into the maelström of European capitals and country houses. All of Davies’s own interests and talents are on show here: we have his theatrical nous to the fore with performances in the Albert Hall, Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre, the Wigmore Hall, Venice’s La Fenice and elsewhere in Trallwn and Salterton described in detail; we are made aware of diction and voice production, musical genres and literary classics, national traits and prejudices; we are also reminded of his own Welsh roots with references to “Trallwm” (a thinly disguised Welshpool, Y Trallwng in Wesh) and Neuadd Goch, the “Red Hall” modelled on Fronfraith Hall, the one-time family home near Montgomery in Powys that Davies knew well.

There are a couple of other themes that he plays with, apart from that longing for Wales and for home known in Welsh as hiraeth. They are I suppose quintessentially what makes us human – an appreciation of love and death, and the symbols that we form to stand for such ineffable things.

“There are, the world over, only two important political parties — the people who are for life, and the people who are against it. Most people are born one or the other, though there are a few here and there who change their coats. You know about Eros and Thanatos?” — Sir Benedict Domdaniel.

Davies knew that Freud added to his conception of the pleasure principle, Eros, that of Thanatos or Death, which to him symbolised aggression and a tendency towards self-destructiveness. While Monica – whose name resonates with ‘harmony’ despite its unrelated etymology – represents aspects of Eros, one of her teachers, Giles Revelstoke, forms the counterpart of Thanatos. Out of these opposing roles comes much of the later action, but of course it is the lack of love in the late Mrs Bridgetower that signals the presence of Death which both stalks and bookends the novel.

The other theme I detect is symbolism, and it’s the one with which I shall close this overview. One of Davies’s many skills is to create memorable and credible characters – A Mixture of Frailties is replete with them – but I can’t help but notice the fun he has with the naming of individuals. Milder than Dickens’s or Peake’s outrageously descriptive names, his nevertheless are mostly carefully chosen to add distinctiveness to his players while giving a clue to their nature. Not quite nominative-deterministic but certainly characteristic, they help breathe life into individuals we feel we may recognise if we had bumped into them in the street.

Ripon solemnly removed his hat. “This is a sacred moment,” said he [to Monica]. “Sacred to me, anyhow, as a student of literature. You have just made the great discovery that behind every symbol there is a reality.”

With such wisdom comes Davies’s wit, and mastery of words, dialogue and inner monologue in different voices. Being a musician myself, I see the author’s novels as symphonic in scope and operatic in style; if you like such musical forms you may well enjoy his fiction.

[Alberto Illán Oviedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Una mezcla de flaquezas' cierra la trilogía de la imaginaria y canadiense ciudad de Salterton y lo hace cambiando de registro. Mientras que en las dos primeras imperaba la comedia, la tercera novela es más dramática e intensa; mientras que las otras dos son historias corales, con muchos personajes cruzándose entre sí, la tercera es más íntima, centrándose la experiencia vital de la protagonista, que la llevará de la adolescencia tardía al estado adulto. Mientras que los dos primeros transcurren en Salterton, la tercera salta el océano a Londres, París y Venecia. Robertson Davies nos conduce magistralmente por una historia profunda, entrañable y emocionante.

[Blixa McCracken · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Mixture of Frailties is a drastic departure from what came before, but I also find it to be the first true Robertson Davies novel in some ways. The third in the Salterton trilogy has the happy marriage of Solly and Veronica Bridgetower interrupted when Solly's mother Louisa passes away and leaves them with a measly $100, and the rest of his inheritance locked away for the crime of moving out, something every child must eventually do, and worst of all, marrying.

This book is a different experience from Tempest-Tost and Leaven of Malice , and while I can sympathize with complaints that it doesn't feel like the Salterton trilogy, it is easily my favourite of the trilogy because it's more in line with the rest of Davies' work than the rest of the trilogy (I'm especially reminded of the Cornish trilogy). The first quarter is still very Salterton with its focus on previously established characters, the Bridgetowers especially, but it becomes a very different sort of book as soon as Monica Gall crosses the Atlantic to London.

It is here that the title's meaning becomes apparent; Monica's mentors prove to be a cantankerous lot whose egos clash with the same regularity as California wildfires, and it really makes me question the company Benedict Domdaniel keeps. Giles Revelstoke and Murtagh might be talented musicians, but I'd rather not have them teach me music, especially someone as sensitive to criticism as Giles, which is probably why I never understood his acrimony towards the music critic Stanhope Aspinwall. Perhaps this is just because I also like to write about music on the side and have pretensions to being a music critic, but his writings are pretty level-headed and cogent, and whatever criticisms he makes always come from hope for improvement.

Theatre once again features prominently, and while Davies' descriptions of production cycles are as excellent as ever, it also shows Davies' development as a writer. He was a playwright before he wrote Tempest-Tost, and it shows in the way it and Leaven of Malice are structured; those books were more farcical in nature, whereas A Mixture of Frailties is more serious in tone, has more focus on character development in addition to characterization, and hops across the Atlantic and the U.K.

The only complaint I have is the brief moments in Salterton prior to the denouement; the emphasis on Monica's story is so strong that whenever we return to Solly and Veronica, it always feels like those moments are only there to remind us that they and Salterton still exist, because they seldom advance the story. Otherwise, I've come to like this book far more rereading it. I don't think Davies has yet entirely honed his craft yet, but I find the characters in this book to be improved for the most part, and his wit and warmth are what make me revisit his work, which fortunately this book and trilogy has in spades.

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my gosh, so good! Totally my new favorite Robertson Davies book, and that's saying something, since of the six other books of his I've read so far, four of them have been...just, absolutely, unreservedly fantastic. To me, anyway.

This one starts out with Solly and Veronica sorting out the late Mrs. Bridgetower's funeral arrangements--after years and years spent under his mother's thumb, there's finally some hope that Solly and his wife will have the freedom to begin to make a life of their own. But Mrs. Bridgetower has left quite a few surprises in her will, and now that freedom seems farther away than ever--for them, but not for young singer Monica Gall, who is given the opportunity of a lifetime. This is mainly Monica's story, about music and love and heartbreak, and about discovering who she really is and what she really wants once she's far away from all she's previously known.

Though A Mixture of Frailties definitely has it's share of humor, it's a much more serious book than the first two in the Salterton trilogy, and has a much larger scope as well--approaching the dark, quiet magic of Fifth Business. As always, Davies' characters are complex, have very distinct voices, and feel totally believable, and though the situations they find themselves in might sometimes seem a little bizarre, they always react in ways that feel natural to me.

I don't know. Really what it comes down to is just that something in Davies' writing really strikes a chord with me. I'm smitten. That's all.

[Melinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy years ago and remember being deeply affected by it. Now I recall my admiration and affection for this Canadian treasure who writes big novels with big ideas consistently leavened by wit, warmth, and a dash of comic error. The story begins with a death and a trust that sets a young, provincial woman on her way to becoming a world-class performer. I haven't read the other two books in this trilogy, and you don't have to in order to enjoy this one. Very much about a young woman Becoming through trials and friendships and cutting connections with her past, it reminded me of Willa Cather's Song of the Lark. You can read about the plot elsewhere, but that will never persuade you to read Robertson Davies. If you love big novels of ideas without the lectures and with laughs, you will enjoy his work. This was a good time for re-discovery as it totally transported me from current troubles into the solace of literature. What a fine thing to be a reader in times like these.

[latner3]

I will recommend 'The Salterton Trilogy' to all my goodreads friends apart from one.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aunque los libros de la Trilogía de Salterton pueden leerse de manera independiente, es mejor seguir el orden en el que fueron escritos ('A merced de la tempestad', 'Levadura de malicia' y 'Una mezcla de flaquezas') para poder disfrutarlos plenamente.

’Una mezcla de flaquezas’, la tercera novela de la trilogía, tiene como tema principal el mundo del teatro musical y la lírica, cerrando de esta manera el círculo que se inicio en ‘A merced de la tempestad’, donde la trama giraba en torno al montaje de una obra de teatro por actores aficionados. Como siempre, la acción se sitúa en la ficticia ciudad canadiense de Salterton, lo que le sirve a Robertson Davies para ofrecernos su particular mirada de las costumbres y habitantes canadienses de la década de 1950, época en que fue escrita.

La historia comienza informándonos de la muerte de la señora Bridgetower, madre de Solly, y de la lectura de su sorprendente testamento: su enorme fortuna no pasará a manos de Solly hasta que él y su esposa Veronica no hayan tenido un hijo varón. Pero la cosa no queda ahí, ya que mientras las rentas de tal riqueza deberán ser destinadas a la educación y formación artística de una joven elegida por los fideicomisarios. Y será esta joven, Monica Gall, la verdadera protagonista de la novela. Davies rompe el patrón de las anteriores novelas y desplaza buena parte de la trama a Europa, sobre todo a Londres, donde Monica deberá desplazarse para dar sus clases, recordando a Pigmalión. A lo largo de la historia, asistiremos a la madurez de esta joven apocada que vivía inmersa en la obsesiva vida religiosa de su familia.

El característico humor de Davies no falta en ’Una mezcla de flaquezas’, tanto en Salterton, con los miembros del fideicomiso, como en Inglaterra, con los estrafalarios miembros de Latern, una publicación cultural, y algún que otro profesor con el que le toca lidiar a Monica. Pero tampoco faltan los momentos dramáticos, sobre todo en el último tercio de la novela.

Davies aprovecha para reflexionar sobre su idea del arte y la música en particular, notándose su excelente erudición. Tenemos por una parte al consagrado director de orquesta, Sir Benedict Bomdaniel, y por otra al joven talento de la composición, Gilles Revelstoke, con los que asistimos a los logros y las miserias de este mundo musical tan exclusivo.

De las tres novelas que conforman la trilogía, esta es la que menos me ha gustado. Es más compleja y dramática, con un cierto aire a Henry James. Personalmente, me que con las dos primeras, que tienen una mayor frescura, sobre todo con ‘A merced de la tempestad’. Aun así, me parece un buen cierre para la trilogía.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. The beginning has a slightly farcical, Wodehousian feel to it....and then the story veers away from Salterton and bogs down in Europe, where I thought there was far too much detail about the career advancement of the protagonist. I read the single-volume trilogy, and this, the third book, clocks in at nearly, and for me unnecessarily, 200 pages longer than the other two. I felt as if Davies had started this novel with one idea and changed his mind midway, without reconciling very different tones of the two parts.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best Slaterton book, a superb story and a step in the right direction. It is clear to see his later and much better trilogies benefited from this experience.
The frailties mentioned in the title are many and apply to every single character in this novel, without exception. But of course, once you have the context to understand a weakness, you also have the contrast to see the strengths.
I would recommend this final book, so if you have too many others on your reading list already, skip the first 2 in the trilogy and just read this final one.

[Mark Vayngrib · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. He’s a consistently great writer. I wish he wrote some fantasy or sci-fi, but I’ll settle for whatever this is.

It got off to a slow start, in the small town around which this trilogy revolves, with the usual array of busybodies, petty tyrants, earnest nincompoops, self-satisfied intellectuals, merry penniless artists, personalities big and small, fonts of wisdom and idiocy, familiar faces and new players. That sounds a bit more exciting than it is. Once the story is handed off to the main character though, the pace picks up and it’s a fun ride till the end.

Some fun quotes:

“You’re too full of a desire to please—not to please me, but to please your family, or your schoolteachers, or those people—the What’s It’s Name Trust—who are paying the shot for you. Those people never want you to have great ambitions or strong, consuming passions. They want you to be refined—which means predictable, stable, controlled, always choosing the smallest cake on the plate, never breaking wind audibly, being a good loser—in a word, dead. I admit that the world couldn’t function properly without its legions of nice, refined, passionless living dead, but there is no room for them in the arts.”

“Anyhow, it isn’t what happens to you that really counts: it’s what you are able to do with it. The streets are crammed with people who have had the most extraordinary experiences—been shipwrecked, chased out of Caliph’s harems, blown sky-high by bombs—and it hasn’t meant a thing to them, because they couldn’t distill it. Art’s distillation; experience is wine, and art is the brandy we distill from it.”

“If formal education has any bearing on the arts at all, its purpose is to make critics, not artists. Its usual effect is to cage the spirit in other people’s ideas—the ideas of poets and philosophers, which were once splendid insights into the nature of life, but which people who have no insights of their own have hardened into dogmas. It is the spirit we must work with, and not the mind as such.”

“Everybody claims to have been in love, but to love so that you can afterward distill something from it which makes other people know what love is or reminds them forcibly—that takes an artist.”

“And the air, the cool, clear air, which had not been breathed and re-breathed by everybody since the time of Alfred the Great—that was best of all.”

“Monica rode in the parlour-car, gazing rapturously at the snowy landscape, even while eating her luncheon of leathery omelet and cardboard pie. Yet to her it was the food of the gods, for this was an omelet of Canadian leatheriness, a pie of real Canadian cardboard!”

[Ossian · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a pleasure to have discovered Robertson Davies. The Salterton trilogy is true, classic literature, with the depth and breadth and prose and character development that fully engages the reader, and humor and pathos and insight. This is not lightweight; it's like a pleasant bit of exercise or a satisfying meal. At the same time, there is a very nice measured pace to it -- although not a page-turner, it never sags; it felt good to read it just a few pages at a time, because even a few left you with enough to process.

The only slight blot, in my opinion, is the ending. One of the major premises of the book is that the ultimate worth of one's life, certainly the wellspring of artistry, is one's depth and skill of feeling; there is an awesome bit of dialogue on how most people fall short of emotional greatness because they fail to fully process the events that happens to them. This is a familiar theme in the classic Western novel. Accordingly, the main character, Monica, an aspiring opera singer, undergoes an "education sentimentale" that takes out of her provincial narrow-minded (and -hearted and -spirited) beginnings and exposes her to the great creative winds of classical Western culture and art, where she begins to grow as an artist and a woman.

Against this background, the emotions accompanying what should have been the novel's great climactic moment -- her discovery and handling of her lover's suicide -- are surprisingly small. Although she believes herself to be to blame, she lets herself off so matter-of-factly, so effortlessly -- there is a refusal or inability to process that thoroughly trivializes everything that came before, even though I don't believe that was the author's intention. Even more disappointing is the last-minute marriage proposal, in the style of Bleak House but without its emotional foundation, so that the whole thing seems contrived, as though the author didn't quite know how to get out of the plot he had created. It's a very good plot, at that; in fact, it is precisely because everything that comes before is so artistically sound and convincing that the ending falls flat. It's disappointing because I don't think it's intentional; unless I am greatly mistaken, this is not a novel about failed promise, and Monica is not a satirical character; we really are meant to believe that hers is a soul that has transcended itself. Except it hasn't.

But this is still good stuff -- better in its weakest part than the strongest writing of many, many others. I will certainly be checking out his other books.

[Robyn Roscoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This completes the Salterton Trilogy for me, and I was delighted with all three books.

I don't know if other authors previously had worked in the trifecta format, but Davies does it masterfully, allowing the old and new characters in the newer books to blend pretty seamlessly with the ongoing ones, and with the provincial setting of Salterton, ON. This latest books was especially appealing to me, as its main story is about an aspiring singer - or at least one who is deemed aspiration-worthy by the little folk of Salterton. Her adventures amongst both the elite and the bohemian of mid-20th Century England are entertaining and enlightening, and while she never emerges as a heroine (and feminism is not even a glint her eye), she sustains throughout the story and eventually defines herself on her own terms and decides what she wants rather than what is expected of her.

I was also pleased at how easy I found Davies to read. I delight in his extensive vocabulary and complex but appropriate sentences, and his dialogue and wry descriptions of things are candid and witty, with laugh-out-loud moments. I'm currently also reading another novel by an author for whom Davies was a bit of a hero, and I can certainly see the influences from one to the other (more when I finish that book and write a report). Davies is also staunchly Canadian, although not above seeing Canadians as the very caricatures that others see - all maple syrup and beaver lodges; through these, one can see and feel his love and admiration for the diversity of Canada, and how no one person could possibly represent the entire spectrum of the nation.

For a healthy dose of Canadiana, as well as a very well done story, I highly recommend these (The Lyre of Orpheus and Murther and Walking Spirits are also excellent).

[Tububa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is definitely the strongest book in the trilogy. Davies has finally found himself: he is at his best when he writes a bildungsroman about the development of expertise. My favorite books of his (What's Bred in the Bone, World of Wonders, and Fifth Business) are all like that: one is about the making of an artist (and forger, of sorts); another is about the making of a magician performer, and the third is about the making of a hagiographer. A Mixture of Frailties is about the making of an opera singer. She doesn't have a huge amount of personality, and what she ends up developing has some of Davies's unpleasant ingredients: stinginess, self-preservation, a certain lack of depth of feeling (some of this comes up in the other books). I actually find it somewhat refreshing that he doesn't go for the obvious here, which would be generosity to a fault and excessive emotional instability--I'd expect that of a musician.

There is also another aspect of this book that cost it two stars: I just don't like how Davies treats his female characters. I hated Maria in The Rebel Angels; I wrote plenty about why in my review of that book. This one is sort of similar: every other character (who are almost all men--except her sister and mother and Veronika the baby factory) relates to her as a sex object. They profess love to her or bang her and then treat her like garbage. I wonder if Davies thought that a woman should be flattered when others see her primarily as a sex object? I am not even talking about the bit where one of her teachers explains that singing is a form of sexual exhibition; that's not a new or original idea (and it may well be right). It's all the other bits, and the character's utter absence of an inner life reflecting on what happens to her. I don't think Davies writes good female characters, and I don't think he writes good dialogue. His several strengths as a writer still keep me coming back, but I don't think I will be revisiting the Salterton Trilogy again.

[Ronald Kelland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robertson Davies is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors. His writing style is that kind of writing where every sentence reads like an effortlessly crafted jewel, which probably means Davies thought long and hard about each of them. Mixture of Frailties is no exception, it is exquisitely written and it is full of a wonderful wry and very understated humour. It follows a young Canadian woman from a small insular Ontario town who is sent, by a trust fund established through the provisions of a rather quirky will, to metropolitan, 1950s London to be trained as a singer. She revels in escaping her restrictive life of family and church in Ontario, but she actually finds herself in a very much equally restrictive life in Europe, caused by her instructors and her own self-confidence issues. The book was also surprisingly appropriate to read today admission the #MeToo movement as she faces some inappropriate advances by at least one instructor (possibly two or three instructors, depending on ones reading of the situations). My only issue with the novel is that although it is part of the Salterton Trilogy, but the familiar Salterton characters are reduced to big part characters in the novel, I feel like there may have been a couple of additional chapters needed to round out that aspect of the story. Regardless it is a great read by a great Canadian writer.

[Hryuh · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me 2 years to read the trilogy. It wasn't because of the language (i don't read many books in English) but mostly because it was boring. I admire Davies, he is one of my favorites. But this trilogy was obviously just a prologue for his genius.
It is filled with funny and vivid characters, but they lack the action. Nothing happens in the first two books, they are too full of brilliant descriptions and irony. The third book is the most touching of all, that's there emerges the most distinctive trait of Davies prose: he knows how to guide a character from point A to point B without losing credibility, balancing between small everyday things on the background, big drama on the surface and lots of purely intellectual very precise and short observations on life and art, put in the mouth of "clever" characters, which are present in every book of the trilogy. They behave putting aside the social pretence, acting as prophets when needed by the main character who's looking for some clarity.

It felt also very comforting to read about the absolutely Normal Canadian Society of the mid century.

[Fern Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. There is no question that Davies is a brilliant writer. This novel was no exception and was the most complex of The Salterton Trilogies. There is evidence however that this is one of his earlier works. I found his, to quote one of his book titles, Fifth Business characters far more interesting than his central characters. I was a bit disappointed for no return of Freddie from the first book and would love to read a novel with the Cobblers as the central characters. I didn’t overly like Monica, she was frustrating and I hated Giles with a vengeance. However maybe this is a strength overall of Davies work as no character is unimportant or assumed to exist only for the pages that they appear on but are made to feel that they have their own stories to tell (something rare to come across) even if their entire existence is only a few sentences. It really did feel like the three books together inhabited a town and showed how varied life can be on what often starts as a small action.

[Taylor Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book in the trilogy to me. I like that it continues the storyline of the earlier books but takes you far afield from Salterton and focuses primarily on a new set of characters while still checking in on the originals now and then. Focuses on many of the same themes as the earlier books such as where art fits into the Canadian way of life but with a more serious eye.

The overarching storyline of a vengeful mother punishing her son and his wife with a cruel bequest in her will works very well as a frame around the inner story of the journey of a young Canadian girl being educated as a singer in London. Reminds you not to respect the British.

[Kalle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was probably the best of the Salterton Trilogy, mostly because it focused almost exclusively on the main character, and we got a pretty interesting journey for Monica.

On the other hand, I feel so completely removed from the subject matter and topics of the book, that I failed to connect with most of it. What should I think of Canada-UK cultural relationship? What about some local branch of religion in Salterton? And the music... how to 'read' the lyrics on the pages? Should some of the things sound like something in my head? I don't know.

[Richard Edgar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really delightful book. Davies writes vivid characters and situations that are all over the map, and does them all well. Almost any of the characters in the book could be the main character in a novel all their own.

Recommended.

I once surprised myself and my listeners by saying that if Robertson Davies could write as fast as I read, I'd never read anything else. I stand by that, even though there will now, alas, be no more Davies novels.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the third part of the Salterton Trilogy, A Mixture of Frailties feels more like Robertson Davies' later trilogies. Aspects of the earlier Salterton books appear—particularly the ponderous sometimes pretentious conversations about Art—but the tone is less farcical, smug, and snarky. Characters feel more fully realized and not so easily censured. The central figure Monica Gaul's motives and troubles are particularly sympathetic and moving.

[Mark Edlund · Rating 3 out of 5]

Canadian fiction - the conclusion of the Salterton trilogy. Still a great examination of the human condition and all of the character's foibles. Mrs Hightower dies and her will, while punishing her only son and his new wife, opens up a world of possibilities for a singer in Salterton. Well done but I enjoyed the previous two books more.
Canadian references - set mostly in Canada.
Pharmacy references - brief mention of pharmaceutical wholesalers.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The final story of the Salterton Trilogy is very different from it's two predecessors in that most of the story takes place far away from the small Canadian town. Monica Gall is the recipient of the Bridgetower Trust fund, bestowed by the late Mrs Bridgetower, in an act of defiance against her son, Solly's marriage to Veronica Vambrace. Monica is taken away to London, where she is trained as a singer and lives a life that would be unrecognisable to the residents of Salterton.

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s been a real pleasure to listen to the Salterton trilogy by Robertson Davies. I appreciate the wit and satire, along with the lifelike people who are characterized in each story. With Monica Gall’s story you are frustrated with her and yet really grow to love her as she grows into a singer under her scholarship funded education. The situations are ridiculous yet at the same time feel drawn from reality.

[Simone Rauscher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful writing, really interesting characters who feel vivid and deep. Dragged a little too long in spots but was punctuated with great scenes and well crafted moments throughout. Some of the story arcs felt a little unfinished to me, some character reactions were unnatural and flat at times, and the ending was a bit too loose for me, but overall a good read.