I just reread Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business, since Amazon compared Owen Meany to it, and I had thoroughly enjoyed my rereading of OM. Fifth Business was even better this time around, and that’s saying a lot because Davies is one of my favorite authors based on my first-time readings of his novels. I caught a lot of references that I missed the first time, due in part to both my age, and my experience being broader, I suppose. Or maybe I was just stupider when I was younger.
For example, the protagonist Dunstable Ramsay is involved with several women during the war; he names them: Agnes Day (who yearns to “sacrifice her body and mind to some deserving man’s cause”), Gloria Mundy (the “good-time girl”), and Libby Doe, “who thought sex was the one, great, true, and apostolic key and cure and could not get enough of it.” Clever.
Poking around a bit on the web for info on Davies, I discovered that The Cunning Man, which may very well be my favorite of his novels, was intended to be the second in a so-called Toronto trilogy, Murther and Walking Spirits as the first. I have not yet read Murther…, mostly because I just couldn’t seem to get into it. But now I have a really good reason to pick it up! What a crying shame Davies died before completing the trilogy.
And I also found a review likening Fifth Business to both The Magic Mountain and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, so now I have those to check out:
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt described it in the New York Times as "a marvelously enigmatic novel . . . elegantly written and driven by irresistible narrative. One thinks of The Magic Mountain and The French Lieutenant's Woman….
I started the second in the Deptford trilogy today, The Manticore. I imagine I’ll go right onto the third, World of Wonders, when I am finished that one. Nothing else is really gripping me at the moment.
Gina does have the fourth Y: The Last Man for me, but that’ll occupy me for about an hour.
My brother and his wife sent a belated April birthday package for all of us, and I got Jason Elliot’s An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan. Ever since reading The Kite Runner, I have been interested in reading and learning more about Afghanistan and its history and culture. This was a very good call on the part of my little bro and his wife.
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Why does this story amuse me so much? Probably because a ten-year-old and a fifteen-year-old certainly should know better than to let themselves be locked into the trunk of a car, even if their lame-brained mother does not know better than to do it. It's not as if she threw a helpless and defenseless baby and a toddler in there...I also totally think the URL that CNN assigned to the story is hysterical: the “crowded car” part is what slays me. I'm sorry, but I think the whole thing is amusing. I know I am terrible.
1 comment:
The only Davies I've read is The Cunning Man, which I liked a lot. I've picked up a few others when I've seen them used, but I haven't read them. I just had my hands on The Manticore when I did some redistributing to the new book shelf.
Libby Doe! As Homer would say, "D'oh!" :-)
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Teddy would jump at the chance to get to ride in the trunk of my car, and I think I would have felt similarly at eight or ten. The biy, at fifteen, should have known better than to think it would be some sort of fun adventure.
People are so stupid. Crowded Car. Sounds like a good name for a band.
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