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Article: Robertson Davies' Magic
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- January 7, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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ROBERTSON DAVIES
Man of Myth
By Judith Skelton Grant
Viking. 787 pp. $35
THE TERRITORY of wonder that Robertson Davies means to reclaim
in his marvelous novels dates to the Middle Ages and an outlook long
since discarded by civilized folk: "It was a sense of the
unfathomable wonder of the invisible world that existed side by side
with a hard recognition of the roughness and cruelty and day-to-day
demands of the tangible world. It was a readiness to see demons
where nowadays we see neuroses, and to see the hand of a guardian
angel in what we are apt to shrug off ungratefully as a stroke of
luck. It was religion, but religion with a thousand gods, none of
them all-powerful and most of ...