When Father Hobbes mysteriously dies at the high altar on Good Friday, Dr Jonathan Hullah - whose holistic ideas have earned him the soubriquet 'cunning man' - wants to know why. But it is only through looking back at his own long life that answers are forthcoming. He recalls the dazzling intellectual high jinks of his circle of friends, from the High Church homosexual Darcy Dwyer (an expert on the theory of sin) to the curious occurrence of the Coburg Social Parlour's Seventh Annual Bad Breath Contest. Compelling and hilarious, The Cunning Man is a profound exploration of what it means to be an actor in the divine comedy of life.
Recenzijas
Irresistible, unflaggingly vital. A wholehearted and sharp-minded celebration of the Great Theatre of Life * Sunday Times * A novel brimming with themes of music, poetry, beauty, philosophy, death and the deep recesses of the mind * Observer * An amazing coup. Davies has written a brilliant, never less than engaging work of fiction which is also a philosophical meditation on the business of living. I have not read anything so good in a very long time * Financial Times * A wise, humane and consistently entertaining novel * New York Times Book Review *
Robertson Davies was born in Thamesville, Ontario, in 1913. A novelist, playwright, literary critic and essayist, he received numerous awards for his work. It is as a writer of fiction that Robertson Davies achieved international recognition, with such books as The Salterton Trilogy (Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice and A Mixture of Frailties); The Deptford Trilogy (Fifth Business, The Manticore and World of Wonders); The Cornish Trilogy (The Rebel Angels, What's Bred in the Bone, shortlisted for the 1986 Booker Prize, and The Lyre of Orpheus); Murther & Walking Spirits, and The Cunning Man. Robertson Davies died in 1995.
