The Cunning Man @ richardeward.com

The Cunning Man
by Robertson Davies
from Penguin (Non-Classics)

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

• Interesting
  I read this book because it's on the modern library's top 100 books, and it was interesting. The thing I liked the best is how the author alludes to a lot of other well known poems and sometimes directly quotes things. It shows how well read and clever the author was when writing this novel. The overall story is good, not outstanding because it's a little dull and boring at times, but it definitely has it's good moments as well. Overall, The Cunning Man is unique, and in my opinion worth reading.

• Cunning end
  Though Robertson Davies was researching another book -- the end of the unfinished "Toronto Trilogy" -- his final novel "The Cunning Man" feels like the real end of his career. While it has some typical Daviesian content (mystery, evolving characters), the whole novel feels like an elderly man's farewell to his friends and the changing world.
  Father Ninian Hobbes, a sweet old High Anglican priest, dies during Good Friday mass. Dr. Jonathan Hullah is perplexed by the details, but not so perplexed that he... more info

• decent book
  the main character was a little too in love with himself. maybe that was the point. about 80% of the way through, i got bored and put the book away.

• Great Cast of Characters
  Robertson Davies' "The Cunning Man" purports to be the Diary or Case Book of a doctor--Jonathan Hullah--who moves from the wilderness of Sioux Lookout to Toronto, Canada.
  But it is much more than that. It turns into what the narrator, Hullah, says he wants to avoid, a Bildungsroman or Novel of Development: in this case the development of Hullah's character, but also the development of Toronto and Canada itself, from a wild-and-wooly backwoods place to an cosmopolitan, but very quirky, society.
  The... more info

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