The Cornish Trilogy
by Robertson Davies
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robertson DaviesEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1992-02-01
ISBN: 0140158502
Number of pages: 1152
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of The Cornish Trilogy
Book Review: "Lyre" deserves more credit
Summary: 4 Stars
This review is about "The Lyre of Orpheus," the third book in The Cornish Trilogy, and a work that merits more comment than a previous reviewer's "unremarkable." Davies is one of my favorite writers. His "The Cunning Man" is excellent - a yarn within a yarn, as I've said elsewhere. "Lyre" is similar in style. Reading a Davies novel is a pastime, more rewarding than at first glance, like doing large tabletop puzzles. His characters are archetypes, and his stories repeat patterns like waltzes. The unfolding of the patterns is a reading pleasure. In "Lyre," The Cornish Foundation sponsors an opera about King Arthur. The head of the Foundation is named Arthur, and the opera and our narrative follow parallel story lines. Another element to the puzzle appears. The opera is to be staged in the 19th-century style, while a deliberately anachronistic painting enters the drama. This device abounds in Davies' novels. As a reader, you start in the middle of the onion layers and work both ways, inward to the center, penetrating the simpler layers (Arthur and Arthur), and outward from the dramatic action, finding the themes (how many anachronisms are there?), pleased as when while listening to music a melody reappears, transformed. The transformations can be as pleasant as the melody. "Lyre" isn't my favorite Davies' work, but it has the familiar elements for which I return again and again.In most reviews I would say "read if you like this sort of thing." Not this time. Read. Put down your Anne Rice or Don DeLillo for a moment. Make a glass of lemonade and sit at the table. It will do you good to work at a puzzle for a change.
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