Robertson Davies – The Deptford Trilogy
At first glance this book seems to be about a lion-man hybrid who collects things, e.g. a pink egg, an animal skull. And and he has a speartail and lives in Deptford? He doesn’t seem very happy so maybe he’s just found out the egg is from a battery hen.
However, I would guess that if these are, as the quote on the front suggests, supposed to be some of the most important novels of the 20th century that this is in fact something I have heard of called metaphor.
Metaphor is where you pretend a book is about something interesting like a lion-man hybrid but actually it is about something boring like feelings. The lion-man is unhappy because using your speartail to collect eggs and skulls is not very fulfilling. Both women and lionesses find him a disgusting freak. He will die alone. Much like BIG BUSINESS? Or CLASS? Or JESUS?
So I would not recommend this book because the lion-man is almost certainly a metaphor, and also because I went to Deptford once and it was pretty rubbish. There is a big anchor on the high street if you like big anchors. Robertson is a stupid first name.