Davies - The Salterton Trilogy

For discussion of Davies's Salterton Trilogy consisting of:

Tempest-Tost (1951)
Leaven of Malice (1954)
A Mixture of Frailties (1958)

Here's my review of The Salterton Trilogy.

Salterton is a small, provincial Canadian city, proud of its university, two cathedrals, commercial successes, and attempts at culture, and The Salterton Trilogy is Davies's vivid portrayal of its citizens, their hopes, their schemes, their human nature. The first of his trilogies, it doesn't have the scholarly depth or the allegorical complexity of his later works, but it abundantly reveals his story-telling talents, his ability to create wonderful characters, both likeable and unpleasant, his penchant for skewering pretension, and his comedic genius. It also introduces some of the themes he explores further later, including transformation of characters, the arts, and religion. The three novels are linked through some of their characters, but tell very different stories.

Tempest-Tost, the first in the trilogy, focuses on The Salterton Little Theater, an amateur group, ruled by Mrs. Forrester, a woman who is used to getting her way. She has persuaded her childhood friend, Valentine Rich, who has achieved success as an actress and director in New York, to direct a performance of The Tempest while she is in Salterton settling the estate of her late father. Davies masterfully assembles the cast of characters for the book, many of whom will form the cast of the play, including the lovely but vapid Griselda, whose rich father owns the property where the play will be performed outdoors, and who is sought after by several of the men; math teacher Hector Mackilwrith whose determination and method of life planning has so far brought him every achievement he has sought and who, after years of putting the Little Theater's books in order, has developed the surprising urge to act in the play; the bombastic and self-satisfied Professor Vambrace, who thinks he alone knows how the play should proceed, and his intimidated daughter Pearl; Solly Bridgewater, an academic himself and the son of another professor, who is brow-beaten by his widowed and controlling mother and demoted from director to assistant director when Valentine Rich appears on the scene; the utterly delightful musician Humphrey Cobbler, and many more. Theatrical and romantic complications ensue, and through them Davies provides a compelling picture of provincial Canadian life.

In Leaven of Malice, someone has maliciously placed a fictitious engagement announcement in the local paper, the Evening Bellman, telling the world of Salterton that Solly Bridgewater and Pearl Vambrace are to be married. As the Bridgewaters and the Vambraces have nursed a grudge for decades, and as Solly is in love with someone else (who does not reciprocate his emotions) and Pearl is insecure and unhappy, this notice causes a mess of trouble for Bellman editor Gloster Ridley, who already has both problems of his own, with aging writer Swithin Shillito and publisher Mr. Warboys, and ambitions for an honorary degree as thanks for his role in establishing a journalism program at the university. Pearl's father Professor Vambrace, believing the ad is a plot to humiliate him, is determined to sue the paper for libel; Solly's mother is equally outraged. As the plot thickens, other people are drawn in, not just Solly and Pearl themselves, but also Ridley's housekeeper, who lives with her sister and brother-in-law and their lodger, the slimy voice instructor Bevill Higgin; elderly, meddling Puss Pottinger, who briefly appeared in the first novel; Dean Knapp of St. Nicholas's Cathedral; and, happily, the delightful Humphrey Cobbler. The story gives Davies the opportunity to depict the world of small-town journalism, and of small-town lawyers, as well as the interactions of various community "leaders" with each other.

In the final novel, A Mixture of Frailties, Mrs. Bridgewater has died and, out of spite for her son Solly, who married against her wishes, she has left her house and all her money to a trust, specifying that it should support a young woman who wants to study the arts outside Canada, and should only come to Solly if and when he and his wife produce a son and name him Solomon Bridgewater after her husband. The trustees have been chosen apparently for their difficulty in getting along with each other. Eventually, they select a young woman proposed by Humphrey Cobbler, who sings on a local religious radio program. Despite coming from a working-class family which belongs to a religious cult and looks down on anyone who tries to get ahead, Monica truly loves music and has ambitions of her own, although quite buried. The bulk of the novel involves Monica's studies in England, the people of all sorts she encounters there, her transformation into a poised, professional singer, and her changing feelings about love and loyalty. Here Davies extends his scope to the world of music and music criticism and illustrates class differences and the snobbishness of some of the English people towards Canadians; I did feel my interest lagging a little bit for parts of this section. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this novel almost as much as the first two. Also, in this novel Davies begins to show some of the depth that appears in the later trilogies.