Product Description

Davies triumphantly concludes the trilogy begun with The Rebel Angels. The Cornish Foundation is thriving under the tutelage of Arthur Cornish, art expert, collector, connoisseur, and notable eccentric.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2872521 in Books
• Published on: 1997-02
• Format: Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 11
• Binding: Audio Cassette

From Publishers Weekly
The third volume of the Cornish trilogy revolves around the staging of an unfinished opera by a 19th century composer. "Packed with interesting details of opera history and production, boasting some new, eccentric characters, and pulling together Davies's various themes in a harmonic resolution, the novel should satisfy those who will settle for intelligent observations and playful allusions rather than dramatic momentum , " reported PW. 100,000 first printing.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Old fans will be delighted, and new readers intrigued, as characters from Davies's The Rebel Angels ( LJ 1/1/82) and What's Bred in the Bone ( LJ 11/15/85) reappear in this demanding but worthwhile third volume of "The Deptford Trilogy." With his wonderfully complex yet controlled plot, deft portrayal of eccentric characters, and great wit, Davies effectively satirizes the world of universities and foundations. Members of the Cornish Foundation are forced by Francis Cornish's nephew Arthur into funding the doctoral project of abrasive prodigy Hulda Schnackenburgthe completion and production of E.T.A. Hoffman's opera Arthur of Britain , or, The Magnificent Cuckold. Soon the characters' lives begin to resemble the opera's plot, and the spirit of Hoffman in Limbo, who observes "Let the lyre of Orpheus open the door of the underworld of feeling," complicates the actionall to the reader's delight. Elizabeth Guiney Sandvick, North Hennepin Community Coll., Minneapolis
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Novel by Robertson Davies, published in 1988. The book is the third in the so-called Cornish trilogy that also includes The Rebel Angels (1981) and What's Bred in the Bone (1985). This fable about the nature of artistic creation has two major plot lines. One thread concerns the production of an unfinished opera said to have been written by E.T.A. Hoffmann. The other concerns the discovery that the famous art collector Francis Cornish actually passed off one of his own paintings as a 16th-century masterpiece. -- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Customer Reviews

Fun, But The Weakest of the Trilogy
The Lyre of Orpheus continues the story of the characters introduced in The Rebel Angels -- Maria and Arthur Cornish, Simon Darcourt, Clement Hollier, etc. I read the Cornish Trilogy straight through, and while I very much enjoyed it, I thought Davies ran out of gas somewhere in the Lyre of Orpheus. What I liked so much about the first two books was Davies' delving into the personalities of the characters; What's Bred in the Bone deals more with Francis Cornish, but goes very deeply into the forces that shaped his life. Davies has great insight into human nature. In The Lyre of Orpheus, the characters' motivations are not well explored. For example, we learn that a character's wife has an affair that results in pregnancy, and that the man, with apparently little ado, not only forgives his wife and treats her with undiminished devotion, but also continues to regard her lover as the dear friend he had been. Well, that's great, but uncommon, and Davies makes no attempt to explain this astounding level of generosity other than to analogize it to the Arthurian legend (but that was a legend). Similarly, we learn that Simon Darcourt has taken something of a new path in his life, but for motivation we are told little more than that, after taking a walk in woods, he has decided to view his life differently. Instead of helping us to relate to these characters, Davies spends a great deal of time educating us about how to produce an opera, evidently a great love of his. Opera fans will find this great fun, but it doesn't make for a great story. Finally, the analogizing to Arthurian legend of the characters' lives that permeates the entire work as a leitmotif becomes increasingly heavyhanded as time wears on, almost to the point of self-parody. In short, it's an entertaining read, but not up to the level of the first two parts of the trilogy.

A Mixture of Frailties Remixed
Treats the same subject as the much earlier A Mixture of Frailties, from a different approach (and in a more modern manner). Philosophical, farcical, thoughtful, touching, and even -- gasp - educational. The plot drives ahead almost unnoticed, as usual, until you realize, quite by accident, that you really need to find out how this is all going to come out.

Characters are the Treasure Here
The Lyre of Orpheus is the concluding novel in Robertson Davies's Cornish Trilogy, and it stands as a strong work within the context of that collection. Like The Rebel Angels (the first book), The Lyre of Orpheus is very much dependent upon the two other books and does not do well as a stand-alone.

In many ways, The Lyre of Orpheus was surprising to this reader. Its plot revolves around an Arthurian quest (loosely) to put on a production of a long-dead composer whose opera had fallen short of completion at the time of his death in the early 19th century. The task was to write an opera that was sufficiently of his spirit, so as to be called his, and then produce it according to the conventions of the theatre of the day. Honestly, I would be hard-pressed to think of a plot that would be less likely to rouse my interest, personally (my apologies to all those truly devoted to early 19th century opera!). Having invested myself in the first two books of the trilogy, however, I resigned myself to the task of reading this last installment (lest I have to chastise myself in future years for having gone so far and then turned back). The `round table' of this tale was, for me, the most tedious of experiences (except when a drunken, rude Scandinavian music scholar provided me with some humour to console my page-turning drudgery). Indeed, the book often wanders with Davies's own apparent unclear quest to find his way from one cover to the next. BUT - all of that said, I found myself falling in love with this book, the more I read of it.

Robertson Davies has (though he is gone, he is not really) a delightful gift of making us find joy in the chatter and company of our own lives. This book, perhaps more than many of his creation, takes us through a luxurious indulgence in the meanderings of days strung together whose meaning can only be guessed, or retroactively assigned. The `round table,' though often a great annoyance to this reader, began to feel as beloved (and despised) as the Thanksgiving table filled with family and friends. The treasure of this book is to be found in the characters, not in the plot (which is a mere backdrop - and excuse for the story - just as the libretto is an excuse for the opera's music (according to Davies)).

I give high marks to this book. I expected not to like it; but I did. Very much so, in fact. I commend it to your reading.