SOURCE: "'A Moralist Possessed by Humor': A Conversation with Robertson Davies," in The New York Times Book Review, February 5, 1995, pp. 24-5.

[Gussow is an American journalist, nonfiction writer, and critic. In the following essay, which was based on an interview with Davies, Gussow discusses Davies's career and most recent novel, The Cunning Man.]

Robertson Davies, unceasing in his creativity at the age of 81, fervently makes a case for the place of melodrama in our lives. "Very few people live in a mode of tragedy," he says, "and when they do, we pity them deeply. Very few people live in a mode of real comedy; they laugh a lot but their lives are not comic. Comedy is almost as cruel and exclusive as tragedy. Most of us live in a world of melodrama, a world of mingled laughter and tears, gain and deprivation and excitement—the hurly-burly of normal...