Novel: The Cunning Man

Overview
Robertson Davies' The Cunning Man follows the life and practice of Dr. Jonathan Hullah, a physician whose diagnostic gifts verge on the uncanny. Set largely in contemporary Toronto, the novel moves between medicine, memory and moral reflection as Hullah confronts illness, death and the limits of compassion. The narrative balances keen social observation with a humane, wry voice that probes how skill, faith and kindness intersect in a modern urban world.

Plot and Structure
The story unfolds through Hullah's recollections and encounters with patients, friends and family, sketching a lifetime of medical practice and private introspection. Incidents range from striking clinical cases that reveal the depths of human suffering to quieter domestic scenes that illuminate Hullah's personal losses and loyalties. Rather than offering a single plotline, the novel is episodic: each case or memory illuminates some facet of Hullah's character and the moral questions that haunt him.
Underlying the episodic form are a few recurring tensions: Hullah's relationship with the institutions around him, the ambiguities of acts of mercy, and the ways in which a healer's authority can be both sustaining and unsettling. As the narrative advances, the accumulation of episodes creates a cumulative portrait of a man who is as much philosopher and confidant as he is clinician.

Themes and Tone
Healing in The Cunning Man is portrayed as a complex blend of technical expertise, intuition and moral imagination. Davies explores faith and spirituality without dogmatism, treating belief as one of many human resources that can sustain people facing mortality. The novel repeatedly asks what it means to do good: whether kindness can be naive, whether medical knowledge can become a kind of power, and how professionals should weigh compassion against professional boundaries.
Davies' tone moves between affectionate satire and profound seriousness. He brings sharp wit to social observation, especially in his depiction of Toronto's cultural and institutional life, while allowing moments of genuine tenderness and awe when characters confront death, endurance and the mystery of recovery.

Characters
At the center is Jonathan Hullah, charismatic, humane and professionally assured but also reflective about his limitations. His patients function as mirrors and tests, their conditions provoking ethical puzzles and revealing the social contours of illness. Friends, colleagues and family members populate a richly observed social milieu; their interactions with Hullah reveal the novel's interest in friendship, rivalry and the small mercies that sustain everyday life.
Davies pays careful attention to the interior lives of secondary characters, showing how personal histories, prejudices and private hopes shape encounters with disease and care. The result is a community of figures who feel lived-in and morally complex rather than merely illustrative.

Setting and Style
Toronto emerges as more than a backdrop: its hospitals, neighborhoods, intellectual circles and social mores are rendered with affectionate detail. Davies' prose is erudite yet accessible, mixing clinical observation with literary allusion, folklore and quiet philosophical reflection. The narrative voice is conversational and authoritative, inviting readers into the mind of a practitioner who has spent decades balancing the art and science of medicine.
Structurally, the novel's episodic design allows Davies to range widely in time and theme while maintaining a cohesive portrait of professional life. Small, vivid scenes accumulate to form an elegiac meditation on aging, memory and the work of tending to others.

Conclusion
The Cunning Man is a contemplative, humane exploration of what it means to heal and to be healed. It resists tidy moral solutions, instead celebrating the messy, compassionate acts that make life bearable. Through Hullah's eyes, Davies offers a textured reflection on mortality, faith and social responsibility, leaving readers with a sense of the ongoing mystery at the heart of medicine and human kindness.