Newsgroups: bit.listserv.literary
Date:         Wed, 29 Jul 1992 10:02:27 EDT
From:         Tim Johnson <PH408014@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Robertson Davies

>Are there any Davies fans out there?  I'm late getting to this writer,
>and reading *Murther and Walking Spirits*, his latest novel, makes me
>wish I had discovered him earlier.

  From what I have heard, you are in for a treat.  I believe
that most fans consider _Murther_ to be far from his best
work.  I've read the trilogy with _Fifth Business_ and
_The Manticore_ (can't remember what the trilogy is called,
now.  That's what happens when you get old.  Lose your
memory.  As I've not quite yet broken 30, I suspect I've
got a rocky road ahead of me.)

  At any rate, since I've been fighting about "revelation,"
I thought I'd post my favorite quote from the trilogy, which
happens to be about one man's coming to God.  I'll let y'all
evaluate its legitimacy yourselves.

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  'He isn't like any other preacher you've met,' said Boy.
'Honestly, you'd wonder how old dugouts like Andy Bowyer and
Phelps ever have the nerve to stand up in a pulpit when there
are men like Leadbeater in the business.  He makes Christianity
make sense for the first time, so far as I'm concerned.  I mean,
Christ was really a very distinguished person, a Prince of the
House of David, a poet and an intellectual.  Of course He was a
carpenter; all those Jews in Bible days could do something with
their hands.  But what kind of carpenter was He?  Not making cow-
sheds, I'll bet.  Undoubtedly a designer and a manufacturer, in
terms of those days.  Otherwise, how did He make his connections?
You know, when He was travelling around, staying with all kinds of
rich and influential people as an honoured guest - obviously He
wasn't just bumming his way through Palestine; He was staying with
people who knew Him as a man of substance who also had great philosophy.
You know, the way those Orientals make their pile before they go in
for philosophy.  And look how He appreciated beauty!  When that woman
poured ointment on His feet.  He knew good ointment from bad, you can
bet.  And the Marriage at Cana - a party, and He helped the host out
of a tight place when the drinks gave out, because He had probably
been in the same fix Himself in His days in business and knew what
social embarrassment was.  And an economist!  Driving the money changers
out of the Temple - why?  Because they were soaking the pilgrims
extortionate rates, that's why, and endangering a very necessary
tourist attraction and rocking the economic boat.  It was a kind of
market discipline, if you want to look at it that way, and He was the
only one with the brains to see it and the guts to do something about
it.  Leadbeater thinks that may have been at the back of the Crucifixion;
the priests got their squeeze out of the Temple exchange, you can bet,
and they decided they would have to get rid of this fellow who was
possessed of a wider economic vision - as well as great intellectual
powers in many other fields, of course.'

                   Robertson Davies
                   _Fifth Business_

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                    -Tim
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