Why Robertson Davies?

This week I thought I’d join in the Robertson Davies reading Weekend organised by Lory, over at The Emerald City. I’d planned to think about some of his essays, as I recently bought the collection, The Merry Heart. The first one is actually a lecture, from 1980, called A Rake at Reading. It begins: “ ‘People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.’ Did I say that? No, Logan Pearsall Smith said it, but I have thought it so many times that sometimes I mistake it for my own.‘

…and that was all I needed to remind me that Robertson Davies wrote just for me.

I’ll allow that some of you may feel something similar, but I can assure you, that I was, and am, his ideal reader.

My first Robertson Davies novel was borrowed from the local library, a couple of decades ago. I hadn’t heard of him then, but there was a book with a jester on the cover, and I’m drawn to the motley. Amorality in life is to be avoided, but in fiction? It’s exciting.

My choice wasn’t only based on that cover. The book was a doorstep, and in those days, that mattered.

I weighed my reading from the library. The building wasn’t on any of my usual routes, so borrowing books meant a special journey and that effort needed to result in two bags at bursting point.

I hadn’t checked the blurb of What’s Bred in the Bone. I did my usual test, and read a couple of random paragraphs. I’d no idea I was taking the middle volume of a trilogy.

In the course of my life there have been several significant novels I’ve looked forward to discovering for myself: Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Tess of the D’Ubervilles, Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Orlando. These and others I heard about long before I was old enough to get hold of copies. Many have proved to be trusted friends.

What those novels gave me was the theory of fate. In fiction, it’s a tricky thing to pull off effectively. But, I can give you chapter and verse on how it’s shaped my life, and particularly my reading.

I knew, within a few lines of What’s Bred in The Bone, that it was a novel I was meant to discover. I read it at every daylight moment when I wasn’t working, at breakfast, lunch and tea, and until past midnight.

The world of Robertson Davies was wicked: not just in the modern slang sense, but in a deliciously dangerous way. There were twists and turns that kept me guessing, and laughing. Reading it was an audacious adventure, something that was different to anything I’d read before, and yet I knew that it was what I’d been working my way towards all of my literate life.

His characters entranced me even when I was appalled by them. His Canada was visceral. It smelled of wet tweeds, freshly baked bread and cool, deep water.

I’ve no idea whether any of those things featured in that Davies story. What I retain is a memory, because rereading this novel is a treat that’s always before me. I’m looking back at impressions, in the same way that I recall details of a wedding attended around the same time. That also is, I know, true to me only.

Reading this novel left me with a landscape that was endless, spacious and welcoming. I was never going to visit any of it in real life, because that would be asking for disappointment all I wanted was to move on to another of those worlds. Reading it, was to recognise that although I hadn’t realised it until that moment, his was a world I’d always hoped existed.

ROBERTSON DAVIES, UNDATED. © WALTER CURTIN/LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA

This week, in his essay, A Rake at Reading, there was so many things about which I could say, ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s it exactly,’ and sometimes I said it with envy, other times with a smile, because really, when you look at the argument from that angle, it actually is rather funny.

…”A Rake at Reading.” The phrase comes from a letter written to a friend by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: “I have been a rake at reading,” she says. The word rake, in the middle of the eighteenth century when Lady Mary make her confession to the Countess of Bute, still meant to roam or stray, but I think she also meant to have a hint of what was dissolute and irresponsible. So – I confess I have been a rake at reading. I have read those things which I ought not to have read, and I have not read those things which I ought to have read… I can only protest, like all rakes in their shameful senescence, that I have had a good time.

Something for the four children who made stories, just for us.

It’s been five and a half months since we’ve seen some of the family. For various reasons, Ray and I are still shielding, and they’re a hundred miles away. So last week we had a Zoom slot with some of the grandchildren.

It was lovely to see them all together, rather than taking it in turns on the phone. Charlie, Alfie, Sasha and Kelsey told us about the arts and crafts projects they’d done through the summer, and Charlie said that he was writing a book.

‘Wow,’ we said. ‘What a great idea. Who else likes making stories?’

They all did, excitedly taking it in turn to give us summaries of things they had written, and ideas of what they would write next. The inspirations, all different, were influenced by books and films. ‘That’s exactly what writers do,’ we told them.

‘I’ve just had an idea,’ Ray said. ‘You can write stories to read to us on Zoom.’

There was a chorus of enthusiastic yeses.

‘And,’ said Ray, ‘we’ll send each of you a special notebook and lots of pens.’

So, yesterday, we were treated to an exclusive private reading by four authors. It was brilliant.

What would they write next, we wondered. Ray thought they might create a story together. I thought I might join in. Perhaps, I could start them off.

So, this is for our story-tellers, who might, perhaps, decide what happens next…

There were once four children who could sit quite still, if they had to. They were called, Charlie, Aflie, Sasha and Kelsie, or maybe, they were called Kelsie, Sasha, Alfie and Charlie. They may even have been called, Ashas, Lafie, Larchie and Selkie. It’s tricky to tell when your Zoom connection isn’t quite stable.

Stables are where horses live. Lots of children long to own a horse. Sometimes, if they’re very, very lucky, they might get to ride on one.

Most people would say that one of the things no one can do, is promise to post you a horse. Well, not a real, live, breathing horse. But that’s what Aunty Cath decided she would do, when she woke up one Monday morning.

It wouldn’t be easy. It would need some very special skills.

She’d got the idea while watching the children, who were a hundred miles away, on the other end of a Zoom call, eating some really delicious looking sandwiches. Those sandwiches looked so wonderful, perhaps the best she’d ever seen, that she could almost taste them.

She’d said, ‘I’d love one of those. I wish there was a way you could send one to me through the internet, right now. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could put one in a slot on your computer, press a button, and have it arrive at ours, right away? One of you ought to invent a way to do that.’

They had laughed, as if their silly aunt was making another joke. But when Aunty Cath woke up the next morning she knew exactly how to do it, and she wasn’t just going to send food, she would send something alive, something exciting, that could be an adventure.

She had had a dream, not just about how to send a sandwich. No, the thing to deliver, was a horse. A magic horse.

Aunty Cath could remember exactly how her dream horse had looked. All she had to do, was draw it.

That was the difficult part: the trickiest thing she would have to do. Aunty Cath was rubbish at drawing. She much preferred writing descriptions. But, would words come to life?

What a question! Of course they did, all the time. That was the magic of stories, after all.

On the page, to someone who couldn’t read, stories could look like a lot of squiggles. But if you understood them, if you read them, like the four children had yesterday, then whole other worlds could come to life.

Print by Alberto Manrique

It was just what happened when Charlie told Coco’s story. Aunty Cath had run with him, when he was chased by a bully, and followed him into the shopping Mall and the hotel, and it had been lovely. Then, just when she’d thought Coco’s story was finished, another special thing happened: he made friends with a peanut, and how that had made her, and everyone else, laugh.

Next Alfie introduced her to Artemis Fowl Junior, and Dr Doom, and she’d had a very exciting time, going into big battles and mixing with fairies.

After that Kelsey told her about Tom Gates. He’d had to find ways to keep calm when Covid meant he couldn’t play with his friends, and Aunty Cath had been really relieved when he found a way to have a lovely special birthday party.

Then Sasha had described Matilda The Second, who was four years old, and super clever, but had mean parents who didn’t want her to go to school. Aunty Cath had been really worried about that, wondering who could save the little girl. What a surprise when Matilda cleverly tricked her parents into understanding that really, school was a good place for little girls to spend time.

Yes, that was it, all she needed to do was write a true description of the magic horse. She would start with his name, which was Starlight, because he glowed so brightly white.

He was not too tall, but he was strong, with a long glossy tail, and a shiny mane that flicked up softly when he galloped. What he loved sometimes, was to run along a beach when the sea was stormy, stamping through the frothy waves flicking spray up around him.

Other times he liked to walk quietly through long grass, feeling the stems tickle against his long white legs. He was good at stretching his neck and reaching high in the branches of a fruit tree to find apples.

Starlight was a gentle horse. If you were brave, and held your hand out flat, with a piece of carrot on the centre, and shut your eyes, you wouldn’t know Starlight had taken the treat until you heard him munching.

When he was happy, Starlight whinnied, gently, as if chuckling. He loved to have the soft skin under his chin stroked, and the hard bump of his forehead scratched. That always made his ears twitch.

Well, there he was: Starlight was on the page. Was he clear enough? Would it work?

What would the children do if they each received a horse, by email? Would they take him into their yard at the back, and keep him cosy and happy? Would they climb up on his back and see where he would take them?

There really were such a lot of questions that could be answered.

Film review: Official Secrets.

‘Are you sure you want to watch this one?’ Ray said. ‘I mean, what about a film where we don’t know the outcome?’

I said, ‘But look at the cast list, Keira Knightly, Matt Smith, Rhys Ifans, Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Grieg… it’s a who’s who of British talent. Can they all be wrong?’

Ray shrugged, ‘It’s your choice.’

‘We can watch another, if you like. You choose.’

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Official Secrets it is. I just can’t see how it’s going to be entertaining to watch when we know that it ends with a war. I mean where’s the story?’

‘That’s what I’m curious about,’ I said.

I turned off the light, pulled the curtains on the torrents of summer rain pouring down the window, and Ray hit ‘play’.

A courtroom, paneled in dark wood, with Kenneth Cranham high up on the bench in his wig and gowns, was the grim face of British justice. Keira Knightly walked nervously up from the cells and into the dock to be faced with that eternal question, ‘How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?’

There was a pause. The camera panned closer to her face. What did it say? Which way would she jump? All I could read was apprehension.

Then the opening titles came up.

‘Did she do it, though?’ Ray said.

I couldn’t remember much. I vaguely recalled some of the lead-up to the trial, the headlines and the furore. But there had been so much anger, back then, so much heated debate, everywhere. I’d even witnessed it surging over into classrooms where I’d had to improvise ways to divert it into something creative.

‘We’ll just have to let it all unfold,’ I said, as the story flashbacked to 2003. That’s what we did.

There was nothing lazy about the way the story was delivered. It began with some brief orientation scenes when Ray and I played do-we-recognise-that-location, because these events began not far from our own doorstep.

Soon we were inside one of the most secret buildings in the country. As we number friends and neighbours who do or have worked there, but say nothing about it, this was also fascinating, even if fictional.

Katharine Gun’s dilemma was the first email she opened. We knew that she was going to end up in court, charged with breaking the official secrets act, and yet, the film kept both of us gripped. This was not about action, it looked at motivation, and not just Katharine’s.

Equally fascinating were the discussions about her email release in the newspaper office, and amongst the legal teams. Characters argued with conviction for each side of the debates that led up to the invasion of Iraq by British and American forces, and from a variety of stand-points.

In a way, watching with the knowledge that Katharine’s actions would not achieve their intended actions, added to the tension. It was not the story Ray had dreaded, a predictable rehashing of recent events. There may not have been guns, car crashes or bloody action, but there was drama.

It was personal, and believable. Strengths and weaknesses of arguments and motives were explored. We saw, close up, how actions impacted on relationships.

At the end, I found myself thinking about the way we understand events, and wondering about the kinds of impressions we store in our memories. In retrospect, I could see how important this story had been, yet I’d remembered so little of it. Only as I watched did I realise I’d conflated a couple of similar cases with this one.

No doubt, a contra version of this story could be told. That is, after all, the way history should be written.

It may be that I liked this film so much because I it reflected my own sympathies. What this fiction of true events, this docu-drama, did for me, was to make me think about justice, and how lazily I accept the winning version of where and how it is presented.

Even if there was a clear slant to this version, back then, at the times of the document leak, and the trials, my view of Katharine had almost certainly been tainted by powerful voices on the mirror side of this story.

Official Secrets is a film I want to watch again, soon. In part, for the convincing characters, but also because it was about me. I’ve been left asking the question, ‘how would I respond to a similar test?’

This is one thing I did this week, and where it took me.

I celebrated. It was a modest event, no popping corks, or bubbles.

There was, however, a jubilant, ‘Yes’, as I completed that task I signed up to with Cleo, on Classical Carousel, four months ago. You know, the marathon that seemed hardly possible. Surely you remember my mentioning that I intended reading Ann Radcliffe’s, The Mysteries of Udolpho? Well, I’ve finished. And I’m three weeks ahead of the reading schedule.

You’d be right in thinking that last statement is a surprise development. Just like Emily, I could never be quite sure that things would work out for the best. Well, I turned an unexpected corner.

It happened this way. I’d been avoiding even looking at the hefty tome for several days. It had been hot, I was lethargic, and the story seemed to be lagging. I had a list of jobs needing attention. It was a classic set-up for displacement activity-itous.

I started with taking on boring, mundane chores, that no one but me would notice. I became focused on crossing jobs off.

Days passed. I wrote course proposals, bringing fresh papers and books to the corner of the table that has become a temporary office.

Udolpho and my original list got buried, along with the top of the table. I found some new lines of research and began a fresh list. When that one disappeared, I started another. At some later point the table began to groan under the stacks of ideas.

One morning I walked into the kitchen and found an old envelope on my laptop. Written on the back of it, in large black letters were the words, ‘tidy notes.’ It was the reminder of a dream that I had woken from in the middle of the night. There had been an Alice-in-Wonderland like moment when page after page of a story had rained down upon me, and I had seen, clearly, some perfectly formed and irresistible narrative.

Tenniel’s ‘Alice’

Unfortunately, the form and shape of it had evaporated with the sunrise, as they usually do, even after making notes. But, looking at our mountainous table, I saw some other sense in those two terse words.

Dismantling a paper heap of that size is no simple matter. Things must be re-read, decisions need to be taken on what to save, where to tidy them to, and whether they’re safe to discard. I found several books I’d forgotten about before I resurrected Ann Radcliffe.

I did not pull back in horror, tattered as the cover is, though I may have sighed, a little, as I recalled that neglected schedule. Surely, I thought, I was so far behind by now it would need a marathon to catch up.

Could I have missed the finish date all together? I hunted around for the reading schedule, and perhaps I was half hoping that I might be able to add it to my must-finish-that-one-one-of-these-days shelf. I could not. I put the book back on the emptied table.

So imagine my surprise, later that morning, when I took it up to re-establish my ten-minutes-a-day reading policy, and a moment later realised that I had been reading for over an hour. More astounding still, I was reluctant to leave Emily and make lunch.

I don’t think it was just that I realised the end was in sight, and the pages I’d read far out-weighed those ahead of me. It was that at some point, about half-way through Volume Three, the story took me over.

Perhaps, I was better adjusted to the mindsets of the characters, and the author. It seemed to me that they had all become brighter, and more active. Strands of plot were coming together in interesting and unexpected ways. New characters appeared, and took me to fresh scenes.

There were some things about the plotting that seemed a little conveniently coincidental, but I was enjoying the journey. It seems that, when the writing works, we readers can accept it.

Maybe, the old saying about ‘truth being stranger than fiction’, could be said to apply when the writing doesn’t persuade us to suspend our sense of disbelief. Could it be that because most of us do experience odd coincidences, we’ll accept fictional truths so long as the characters and their world are believable?

Some thoughts on, things found in small packages…

Forgive me my title. I do believe that cliches, used with care, can save a lot of ink. Is that statement an apology, or a quick means of opening up a conversation about three of the good things I’ve been reading in The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry?

I leave that for you to decide. I have, after all, steeped myself in brevity, this week. Surely I’ve absorbed something in the process.

Short as they’ve been, my readings have been resonant. Sometimes a title caught my eye.

Linda Black’s, My mother is locked in a jar of ginger, was one. I prepared to smile. I like quirky.

This prose poem is very short: a paragraph. It might, perhaps, be a joke. The four and a half lines begin, ‘I hear her battling with the lid‘. I anticipate what must be coming. I begin to smile.

‘It suits me not to let her out‘ the narrator says, and shifts the story so that it becomes something darker, and deeper, an exploration of a relationship, perhaps. Two characters are sketched out. It is a line drawing, no more. By the end of that fifth line I’ve filled in the colours of this mother and daughter, I can see them clearly.

In, Mowing, Liz Bahs states that she, ‘cannot write about mowing the lawn while I mow it.’ This is a longer prose poem, more than half a page which describes frustration, and consequences.

It’s driven by a series of repetitions that might mirror, ‘the rhythm of the blades over the deep field of grass‘, or the turning back and forth as she mows. This neglected lawn is ‘calf-deep and soaked from autumn rain‘. Mowing it is about bodily discomforts, and ‘the growl and shear as they [the blades] slice stones and muddy earth‘. Again and again, though, we return to that earlier complaint, ‘I cannot write...’

These disparate activities are described with precision, and juxtaposed in such a way that I had no idea how such a feeling of frustration might turn, in the final line, and become something bright. This is the best kind of twist-in-the-tail. I’m lead to reread it again and again, envious of its truth.

All You Need to Know, summarises the contents of several chapters from a murder mystery novel. But are the chosen details vital clues of a crime, or a series of interesting observations? Cliff Yates may be parodying the way cosy crime fictions focus on minute details, or celebrating it. Perhaps, the clue lies in his title. Is it a cliche?

In that case, how about the events? I probably can connect the baby crying in chapter two with the dog barking three chapters later, but what is the significance of ‘the chief witness’s best friend’s former girl-friend,’ changing a lightbulb, and how does the argument about the paradoxes of time travel fit this?

Perhaps the most significant moment of all is the fourth one. When ‘A neighbour’s cat vomits on the author’s carpet,’ I’m reminded that novels are not always neatly planned, some writer’s are pantsers, drawing inspiration from events we can’t begin to guess.

It’s my turn to give away clues, by taking you to the final sentence: ‘No one notices.’ If the other two prose poems sent me back to read them again, this one resonates without another look, and leaves me with a final question: when is a cliche not a cliche?

‘The Throes of Creation’ by Leonid Pasternak