Yeah, the mass suicides also didn't fit, because you want to live as long as possible to postpone the ants. I handwaved it as them not actually knowing what was in store, but being mind controlled via exposure to the secret electricity, especially as they also killed their loved ones. But a fakeout along the lines of the force in Pet Seminary, that dangles the carrot of resurrection without mentioning that only the body comes back, makes a lot of sense.
I also find eternal damnation or any bad afterlife really scary, also due to childhood issues. I had my parents and their cult telling me that after death some essence of me would live on eternally but my personality would be erased, which I found HORRIFYING, and the nuns at my abusive Catholic school telling me I'd go to Hell. So Revival should have been much scarier to me than it was.
I love Robertson Davies. He has a very specific point of view and some strange opinions, including on Womanhood, but makes up for it by writing some really great female characters.
He has two trilogies; in both, oddly, the middle book is the best. They both involve myth in the contemporary world, and have touches of magic realism. The Deptford trilogy starts with Fifth Business but my favorite book is the middle one, The Manticore, about Jungian analysis and the roots of myth. It made me expect reading Jung himself to be fascinating. (Jung is totally impenetrable.) The third book is about a spooky carnival. The Cornish trilogy is about art and academia, art forgery and spying and the production of an ambitious opera about King Arthur. The first book has some very funny parts but is not my favorite; the second book is wonderful; the third book is also really funny, has fantastic backstage drama (it's mostly about producing the opera) and has really great lesbian and bisexual characters. (The first book has major gay and bisexual characters, but not depicted in a flattering way, though I did enjoy the bisexual antihero.)
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Date: 2018-06-20 07:38 pm (UTC)I also find eternal damnation or any bad afterlife really scary, also due to childhood issues. I had my parents and their cult telling me that after death some essence of me would live on eternally but my personality would be erased, which I found HORRIFYING, and the nuns at my abusive Catholic school telling me I'd go to Hell. So Revival should have been much scarier to me than it was.
I love Robertson Davies. He has a very specific point of view and some strange opinions, including on Womanhood, but makes up for it by writing some really great female characters.
He has two trilogies; in both, oddly, the middle book is the best. They both involve myth in the contemporary world, and have touches of magic realism. The Deptford trilogy starts with Fifth Business but my favorite book is the middle one, The Manticore, about Jungian analysis and the roots of myth. It made me expect reading Jung himself to be fascinating. (Jung is totally impenetrable.) The third book is about a spooky carnival. The Cornish trilogy is about art and academia, art forgery and spying and the production of an ambitious opera about King Arthur. The first book has some very funny parts but is not my favorite; the second book is wonderful; the third book is also really funny, has fantastic backstage drama (it's mostly about producing the opera) and has really great lesbian and bisexual characters. (The first book has major gay and bisexual characters, but not depicted in a flattering way, though I did enjoy the bisexual antihero.)