Rating: 
Summary: A last laugh from the master
Review: Nobody who has not discovered Robertson Davies could possibly understand the almost fanatical devotion of his fans. As one reviewer put it, he is the kind of writer who makes you pester your friends to read him, so that they may share the joy.
The Cunning Man was Davies's last novel and, as might be expected, he ended his life with a bravura piece of literary virtuosity. Like his central character, Dr Jonathan Hullah, Davies is a wise old man, looking back on what must have been an extraordinary life, sharing some of the delights and vexations with his audience. Sometimes sad, sometimes hilariously funny (try the annual bad breath competition - if you don't laugh you are probably certifiably dead), always accomplished and almost obscenely knowledgable, this is one of the most satisfying books you are likely to read in some time.
Rating:
Summary: Saving the best for last.
Review: Robertson Davies has been an author who has always seemed to have been "my own." Most of the people I know have never heard of him -- and that's a great loss for them. The Cunning Man is Davies at his best. He keeps you on your toes, mixing his sharp wit throughout the novel. After reading this book, I realized just how much I will miss him.
Rating:
Summary: An Unusual Yarn Well Told
Review: Robertson Davies remains far and away my favorite novelist. After reading this book, I was sorry that he was no longer around to continue putting out such entertaining work. Some people, even otherwise enthusiastic Davies fans, don't care much for this book. As a physician, perhaps this biased me in the book's favor, but I thought this the most enjoyable book I read in 2000. I've read all of Davies novels and would rank this high among them. The story never sagged, the characters were of the usual fascinating Davies' variety, and his humor had me laughing aloud again and again. Davies' narrator is Dr. Jonathan Hullah, a physician of unusual diagnostic skills and adroit healing powers. He is known as the cunning man, a term hearkening back to English village life in which a sort of village know-all could do a little of everything, from setting broken bones to doctoring horses. He was the wizard of folk tradition, the cunning man. The Cunning Man is Dr. Hullah's fascinating reminiscence of life, from boyhood apprenticeship with an old Indian healer to his service in the medical corps during World War II, then on to his unusual medical practice (which included such orthodox measures as having his patients strip off their clothes and lay on an exam table while he sniffed them.) Hullah narrates this while at the same time conducting a search into the mysterious death of his parish priest while saying mass. This combination memoir/mystery novel was, as I said earlier, the most pleasurable book I read in 2000. If the chief end of a novel is entertainment, then this book succeeded admirably.
Rating:
Summary: An Unusual Yarn Well Told
Review: Robertson Davies remains far and away my favorite novelist. After reading this book, I was sorry that he was no longer around to continue putting out such entertaining work. Some people, even otherwise enthusiastic Davies fans, don't care much for this book. As a physician, perhaps this biased me in the book's favor, but I thought this the most enjoyable book I read in 2000. I've read all of Davies novels and would rank this high among them. The story never sagged, the characters were of the usual fascinating Davies' variety, and his humor had me laughing aloud again and again. Davies' narrator is Dr. Jonathan Hullah, a physician of unusual diagnostic skills and adroit healing powers. He is known as the cunning man, a term hearkening back to English village life in which a sort of village know-all could do a little of everything, from setting broken bones to doctoring horses. He was the wizard of folk tradition, the cunning man. The Cunning Man is Dr. Hullah's fascinating reminiscence of life, from boyhood apprenticeship with an old Indian healer to his service in the medical corps during World War II, then on to his unusual medical practice (which included such orthodox measures as having his patients strip off their clothes and lay on an exam table while he sniffed them.) Hullah narrates this while at the same time conducting a search into the mysterious death of his parish priest while saying mass. This combination memoir/mystery novel was, as I said earlier, the most pleasurable book I read in 2000. If the chief end of a novel is entertainment, then this book succeeded admirably.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but not his best
Review: Robertson Davies was a Canadian author, arguably the finest Canadian writer ever, who wrote plays and novels on generally Canadian subjects. The novels fit generally into trilogies: The Salterton Trilogy, The Deptford Trilogy, and The Cornish Trilogy, in order of composition, represent his first nine novels. All his novels, however, can be read independently (although at least The Deptford Trilogy probably reads best in order.) To say, as I have said, that his novels are "about Canada" is a laughable understatement, however. I tried to summarize the subjects which Davies covered once for a friend, thinking it would be a tidy list, and I kept going and going: Theatre, Music, Vaudeville, Toronto, Hagiography, Jungian Psychology, Art (particularly "The Old Masters"), aging, medicine, Canadian politics, war, finance, schools (both Canadian "boarding schools" and Universities), and on and on. Suffice it to say that his novels are fascinating, hypnotic, works, usually centered on an artist of some kind. Anyway, his last two novels (barring a posthumous work) are Murther and Walking Spirits and The Cunning Man, which appear to be the first two parts of another loose trilogy, although both are capable of being read completely independently. The Cunning Man is the story of Jonathan Hullah, a Toronto doctor of somewhat unusual reputation. Hullah narrates the book, and tells his own life story beginning in about 1920 in a very isolated part of Northern Ontario, and continuing through early experiences with the local doctor, and also a Native American healing-woman (treated with respect but without Political Correctness), boarding school, medical school, World War II, and his postwar establishment of his own rather unusual medical practice, which is treated as a court of last resort for cases other doctors have considered hopeless. The key elements of the book are Hullah`s relationships with various people, in particular his school friends Charlie Iredale and Brocky Gilmartin (the latter the father of the narrator of Murther and Walking Spirits), his English lesbian landladies, called The Ladies (also treated with respect but without PC), and the community surrounding the Very "High Church" Anglican church of St. Aidan`s, next door to Hullah`s practice. At the heart of the story is the mystery surrounding the death of the pastor of St. Aidan`s, Father Ninian Hobbes, and the attempts of Charlie Iredale, now an Anglican priest and Fr. Hobbes` assistant, to have Hobbes declared a saint. As usual, the main interest of the book is in the characters, and in the curious subjects which come up as a result of the story: medieval saints tales, Anglican ritual and especially Church music, acting, a somewhat psychosomatic theory of disease, church politics, some Freudian psychology, and a great deal more. For me, this book ranks in the middle range of Davies' work, which of course still makes it highly recommended. However, my interest flagged at times, and the book failed to completely involve me in the way that Davies' very best books do. Also, the central story is less compelling than in most of Davies` books, so the interest devolves even more to the characters and the somewhat arcane knowledge and theories that Davies discusses. These are interesting indeed, but a real gripping story would be still more interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but not his best
Review: Robertson Davies was a Canadian author, arguably the finest Canadian writer ever, who wrote plays and novels on generally Canadian subjects. The novels fit generally into trilogies: The Salterton Trilogy, The Deptford Trilogy, and The Cornish Trilogy, in order of composition, represent his first nine novels. All his novels, however, can be read independently (although at least The Deptford Trilogy probably reads best in order.) To say, as I have said, that his novels are "about Canada" is a laughable understatement, however. I tried to summarize the subjects which Davies covered once for a friend, thinking it would be a tidy list, and I kept going and going: Theatre, Music, Vaudeville, Toronto, Hagiography, Jungian Psychology, Art (particularly "The Old Masters"), aging, medicine, Canadian politics, war, finance, schools (both Canadian "boarding schools" and Universities), and on and on. Suffice it to say that his novels are fascinating, hypnotic, works, usually centered on an artist of some kind. Anyway, his last two novels (barring a posthumous work) are Murther and Walking Spirits and The Cunning Man, which appear to be the first two parts of another loose trilogy, although both are capable of being read completely independently. The Cunning Man is the story of Jonathan Hullah, a Toronto doctor of somewhat unusual reputation. Hullah narrates the book, and tells his own life story beginning in about 1920 in a very isolated part of Northern Ontario, and continuing through early experiences with the local doctor, and also a Native American healing-woman (treated with respect but without Political Correctness), boarding school, medical school, World War II, and his postwar establishment of his own rather unusual medical practice, which is treated as a court of last resort for cases other doctors have considered hopeless. The key elements of the book are Hullah`s relationships with various people, in particular his school friends Charlie Iredale and Brocky Gilmartin (the latter the father of the narrator of Murther and Walking Spirits), his English lesbian landladies, called The Ladies (also treated with respect but without PC), and the community surrounding the Very "High Church" Anglican church of St. Aidan`s, next door to Hullah`s practice. At the heart of the story is the mystery surrounding the death of the pastor of St. Aidan`s, Father Ninian Hobbes, and the attempts of Charlie Iredale, now an Anglican priest and Fr. Hobbes` assistant, to have Hobbes declared a saint. As usual, the main interest of the book is in the characters, and in the curious subjects which come up as a result of the story: medieval saints tales, Anglican ritual and especially Church music, acting, a somewhat psychosomatic theory of disease, church politics, some Freudian psychology, and a great deal more. For me, this book ranks in the middle range of Davies' work, which of course still makes it highly recommended. However, my interest flagged at times, and the book failed to completely involve me in the way that Davies' very best books do. Also, the central story is less compelling than in most of Davies` books, so the interest devolves even more to the characters and the somewhat arcane knowledge and theories that Davies discusses. These are interesting indeed, but a real gripping story would be still more interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Charming retrospective and idea free-for-all
Review: Robertson Davies was an old man, (who looked quite a bit like George Bernard Shaw) when he wrote this book and he tossed into it a vast variety of vignettes, stories, opinions and theories that he
has accumulated over a thoughtful and vigorous lifetime as a newspaper editor, actor, professor and man of letters in that big place north of the USA that is a foreign country, old what-do-you-call it. He also mixes in quite a variety of writing styles, spoken dialogue, notebooks, letters, narration, and it all works remarkably well. The characters are frequently eccentric, or at least passionately interested in one particular pursuit (or person) and their single-minded focus gives them a great deal of charm in the author's view. He throws out more theories and ideas than he can adequately pursue in this book, or in his remaining lifetime, but Mr. Davies leaves us with a charming read and a provocative tour of his pet peeves, observations and memories.
Rating: 
Summary: He saved his worst for last
Review: Robertson Davies- maybe Canada's all time best novelist; playright, actor, producer, journalist, director, professor, historian, cultural elitist, mystical eccentric, stylistic conservative and 20th Century Renaissance Man- died the year after this book was published. I was in Montreal the summer before it came out and a McGill U. grad student working in a bookstore there told me that Davies had been living in Vancouver- presumably working on this novel. The book starts out well, but soon degenerates into a veiled collection of sentimental recollections (the book's lead character is no doubt a symbol of Davies himself) that just runs on and runs off its plot like an old train off its track. Too bad. Although it does have an attaction in that it gives the reader a deeper inside view into what this master really thought about this and that, a view much deeper than his many outstanding essays and non-fictional reviews. But this is a weak book; incredibly it is Davies only weak book. I've read all the others and they are all absolute gems.
Rating:
Summary: A funny, humane book
Review: The Cunning Man is, frequently, a hilarious book. But it is more than that as well. By following the life and observations of an unconventional doctor from the backwoods of Canada, it offers a humane look at the human condition. Davies' narrator is a man to whom few great things happen, but who relishes the many joys and tragedies that pass across his life. Friends come and go; people die unexpectedly; and the central "event" of the book is treated as part of the flow of life only to be recognized for its effect years later. And all through it, we realize how wonderous life is. In addition, the doctor is simply an entertaining narrator. There are quite a few turned down pages on my copy of the book, reflecting funny or insightful comments that I want to remember. This is a book I will return to for it's wisdom and warmth.
Rating:
Summary: a great disappointment
Review: This book was so well received that I expected it to be much finer than it actually is. What's right with this book? 1) It is written in the beautiful, almost poetic language one expects of the very best prose. 2) It features highly detailed and carefully crafted characterizations of every character. 3) It is full of telling and apposite quotations from a huge variety of sources, famous and obscure. So what's wrong with it? 1) Very little happens in the first half of the book. Imagine a play in which the entire first act consists of nothing but set descriptions and character notes. The important background information contained in this part of the book could have been handled in three short chapters, it seems to me. 2) The author cannot make up his mind whether the first-person memoir that the book is supposed to represent is being written today, or 50 years ago, and it is therefore full of anachronisms no matter how you read it. I am well aware that a novelist is under no obligation to be either consistent or realistic, but this particular unreal inconsistency jars both because everything else about the book is microscopically realistic and because the 50-year time uncertainty reflects hugely on what the state of Doctor Hullah's (the central character and narrator) medical knowledge and philosophy ought to be. Numerous additional confusions also result, as when a dialog about anti-semitism in Toronto refers casually to "the situation in Germany and Israel"--huh? When? 3) Dr. Hullah's character is fundamentally unsympathetic, though that is clearly not what the author intended. His medical philosophy and practices are poppycock--culminating in his (correct!) diagnosis of cancer based on nothing but the symptoms of major depression; his philosophy is gimcrack and shopworn. His handling of the not-so-mysterious death that drives the narrative is reprehensible and probably would have been a violation of law in real life. 4) Important things keep happening to the characters for no apparent reason save that they will make a good story--as when, toward the end, Dr. Hullah suddenly and without narrative preparation falls in love w. a young journalist. In the very last paragraph of the book, a movie theater is erected for the sole purpose of giving the author a nifty metaphor for his last sentence. I've read better. Much better.
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