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| some good books |
This is just a blog post to send you to another blog post. I have a personal blog which I post to roughly once per year (it’s been running for nearly 22 years now, so is older than some of the readers of this blog).
Over on t’other place I’ve just posted a list of my favourite books of 2022.
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I'd be interested to see what you made of Davies's Cornish Trilogy. Somewhat more picturesque than the Deptford Trilogy (which has to me, if unfairly – I did enjoy it! – a faint 'Oscar-baity' gloss).
I have done my initial read on The Vorrh (et al), and must one day return.
I first read the Cornish Trilogy not all that long after Deptford (so: well over 20 years ago) and my memories of it (lots of professors, a room full of art [looted?]) are even vaguer than my memories were of the other trilogy (small town in Canada, a magician, somebody called "Boy"). I managed to pick both of them up in the same charity shop, so will hopefully get through Cornish this year.
I also have a copy of The Cunning Man, which I've not read before. Will probably read that one this year as well. (I'm especially interested in it as I only learned of the phrase "cunning man" fairly recent, via a friend who self-identifies as one).
I've still to read the rest of the Vorrh trilogy and, yes, I'm certain it will benefit from re-reading.
You're not far off in your memories – I reread the Cornish Trilogy recently and there's much of that in there. It helps that from (without checking) the late 60s or so Davies was in Canadian academia – he even did a set of MR James style ghost stories.
There's a trilogy he did preceding Deptford and Cornish – the Salterton Trilogy. I liked it, but it's a different beast to the latter two. More of a Classical Comedy.
There's a lot of that "lecturers writing about lecturers" stuff about (often lecturers writing their fantasies of getting off with students), and it can be very tedious – Malcolm Bradbury comes to mind. But, yes, the Cornish Trilogy definitely isn't that. I've not read Salterton, one to look out for.
I also read, years ago though not nearly as long ago as the trilogies, The Merry Heart – Davies's book on writing. My two memories from that are him talking about the ghost stories, and about his love of Dickens.
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