Robertson Davies, again
I’m not a hit hound by any means, but I do check them, just to see. And the most popular page on this blog is the space where we were discussing The Fifth Business.
Okay, so it’s not popular by some standards, but on my little blog, it continuously tops my hit chart with between 3 & 29 hits per day. And search terms like:
- essay on the women in fifth business
- fifth business ezboard
- women in fifth business
- fifth business mrs.dempster, paul
- fifth business robertson davies reborn
- Fifth Business devil Liesl
- robertson davies fifth business
- Fifth Business name meanings
- sex love in fifth business essay
- psychology in fifth business
- ramsay guilt fifth business
And those are only today and yesterday.
The frequency started once school started. With all this traffic, I’ve only had 2 of these students stay and comment. (Am I wrong in assuming they’re students?) In my day, I would have been searching card catalogues, and journals, hoping for a tidbit. Now, they comb the Internet for their research. I wonder if any of our comments here have been cited in a paper somewhere?
The mind boggles.
But I was thinking of you all on Friday, when I found a delightful treasure in my local secondhand bookstore: Robertson Davies: An Appreciation, edited by Elspeth Cameron. A book of essays collected and published in 1991.
For your delectation then, are some of the ideas thrown out by different commentators as Davies’ books were coming out:
- Dunstan is the Hero
- Dunstan in the Saint, not Mrs. Dempster
- Father Blazon is the Fifth Business
So, reading these essays has been quite fun, and now I have to go back and read the damn books again! Ideas that I want to look into myself.
Okay, so you’re writing an essay and you Google your way to this post. I won’t leave you empty-handed, so here are some things to explore further:
- Pay close attention to the audience in all three books.
- Do some research on St. Dunstan.
- All 3 books begin and end in the same places, geographically. (And one of Davies’ next books is called What’s Bred in the Bone.)
And do some research in a good library, not looking for the quick answer on the Internet.
