The Manticore - Robertson Davies - 3*

[Elise]

Shortly after his father’s death/murder, David Staunton flies to Switzerland to meet with a famous psychologist because he’s rich and pretentious like that. This unpleasant character spends about 75% of the book telling us about his past, and this interminable monologue is cut with conversations with the aforementioned famous psychologist. Then he runs into his old professor Ramsay (the narrator from the previous book and his father’s childhood friend) and spends the last quarter of the book with him, the magician Magnus Eisengrim and Liesl in her country mansion. He feels right at home since they are as unpleasant and stuck-up as he is.

Okay, I’m being mean. Despite all these outward signs that I really, really should not have liked this book, I actually did not hate it and kept turning the pages through David’s intellectual masturbation.

Except we still don’t know who killed Boy Staunton...