Word: daimon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...From "Daimon-Gyne" by Farai Chideya...
Francis Cornish is another one of those great Davies characters, a child of the old world lost in the new. Cornish is dead before the book begins and his story is told by the Daimon Maimas and the Recording Angel, two medieval creatures who have overseen his life. Under their influence, Cornish has lead a decidedly bizarre existence. His parents essentially abandon him at the beginning of this century to be raised in a miniscule Canadian town by his Catholic great aunt who bootlegs Catholicism to him against the wishes of his resolutely Anglican father...
...other aspect of Davies' novel falls flat. In The Rebel Angels Davies populates the novel with the unseen but mysterious forces of medieval angels. But in What's Bred in the Bone Davies brings them to life. The Daimon Maimas and the Recording Angel narrate the novel. This little conceit provides the structural premise of the book, and it wilts fast...
...these two characters could be forgiven if they weren't used in such an amateurish way. Throughout the novel they interrupt every once in a while to explain the most recent occurrence in the life of Francis Cornish. "If you wish to talk of Chance', said the Daimon Maimas. 'But you and I know how deceptive the concept of Chance--the wholly random, inexplicable happening--is as a final explanation of anything...
...through his novels in an enchanting rather than imposing way. So it's a shame to see this talent wane in this novel. For in his other novels the magic of the devils and angels lives in the characters who understand and discuss their own magic. In separating the daimon and angel from Cornish through this conceit, he takes away the magic from Cornish and the humanity of the angels...