The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders

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The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders

4.38 of 5 stars 4.38 · rating details · 3,228 ratings · 215 reviews

Who killed Boy Staunton?

Around this central mystery is woven a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived trilogy of novels. Luring the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history, and magic, The Deptford Trilogy provides an exhilarating antidote to a world from where "the fear and dread and splendour of wonder have been banished."

Paperback, 874 pages

Published October 1st 1983 by Penguin (first published 1977)

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Jul 21, 2012 Kinga rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: special-place-in-my-heart

How do I even begin this? I spent about two weeks reading this and that's a lot of time for people to be asking: "so what is it about?"
It's usually non-readers who ask such questions because readers know better than to ask what a 800 page book is about. But I thought about it and decided that it was mostly about subjectivity of experience. Not that it made sense to anyone who asked.

It was three books and each one of them a different kind of wonderful. It all starts in a small village of Deptford...more How do I even begin this? I spent about two weeks reading this and that's a lot of time for people to be asking: "so what is it about?"
It's usually non-readers who ask such questions because readers know better than to ask what a 800 page book is about. But I thought about it and decided that it was mostly about subjectivity of experience. Not that it made sense to anyone who asked.

It was three books and each one of them a different kind of wonderful. It all starts in a small village of Deptford, Ontario.

Fifth Business was like a better version of Prayer for Owen Meany. There were saints, magic and a lot of symbolism but not as heavy handed as in John Irving’s books. It’s the life story of Dunstan Ramsay, a man who has never played the main character. Even as a narrator he reduces himself to a catalyst needed for certain things to happen. As it is, it as much a story about Dunstan as it is a story about Boy Staunton, his best friend and his enemy. Dunstan is an honest and self-aware narrator but as every first person narrator should be approached with caution. After all, he does specialize in myths and likes to attribute more meaning to things than other people think it’s reasonable.

The Manticore looks on many events from The Fifth Business from a different perspective and through a different medium – Jung style psychoanalysis which Boy Staunton’s son is undergoing. It’s clear that Robertson Davies is a big fan of Jung and weirdly enough this was the book I have read the quickest of all three. Nothing more exciting than uncovering different layers of a person’s psyche. It made me want to embrace and explore my own Shadow, i.e. all that’s nasty about me (like that I am a judgmental bitch).

World of Wonders is when the last missing puzzle of Deptford finds its place. It’s a story about illusions and legends that we like to believe about ourselves. It really explores the theme of the first person narrator, the autobiographer – unreliable by definition. It’s also a very bizarre but beautiful love story, although Davies might be falling in his own Jung trap, because his female characters in all three books are more of Anima archetypes than characters but it’s possible he meant them to be this way as every book is written from a male point of view.

Davies writes the hell out of every sentence. There aren’t any false notes. Its perfection left me amazed and I am afraid my hackneyed review won’t do it justice. I don’t even want to use any of the adjectives the blurb writers have cheapened over decades of book marketing. This review is so vapid it makes me want to cry because all I want to do is to get everyone to read this book. (less)

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Aug 28, 2007 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: some humans, but not all

FIFTH BUSINESS
==============

This is a good book. It doesn't belong to my favorite class of artistic works, which I think of as the "Fire and Forked Lightning" variety. But it's quite good.

Roberston Davies tells his tale in a slightly detached, leisurely pace that I'm tempted to attribute to his being from Canada. The story certainly doesn't hit you like a hollywood movie plot ride. It's thoughtful and takes it's time, but it's a good story -- basically the entire story of one man's life, with s...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Ellen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am forever indebted to my friend Donna Durham (Donna, where are you now?) for introducing me to Robertson Davies and The Deptford Trilogy. Some have described these books as examples of magical realism; well, yes, sort of, as written by a Canadian. The trilogy consists of three books: Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders. The books each tell the same story from the point of view of a different character and center around the murder of Percy "Boy" Staunton.

Fifth Business, my fav...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Lorenzo rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian, aaa-my-library, 2012-readings

From the snapshots you can find online, Robertson Davies looked like Charles Darwin with a touch of Santa Claus.

The Canadian author had a long white forked beard that was strikingly demode in the 1970s when he delivered the three books of this excellent Deptford Trilogy.
And yet, don't be fooled by the first appearances. You better look more carefully at the photos of Mr Davies. If you do that, you will perceive genuine wit and an eager inquisitiveness in his eyes as well as the intimidating ir...more
From the snapshots you can find online, Robertson Davies looked like Charles Darwin with a touch of Santa Claus.

The Canadian author had a long white forked beard that was strikingly demode in the 1970s when he delivered the three books of this excellent Deptford Trilogy.
And yet, don't be fooled by the first appearances. You better look more carefully at the photos of Mr Davies. If you do that, you will perceive genuine wit and an eager inquisitiveness in his eyes as well as the intimidating irony of his slightly raised eyebrows.

This man knew what he did and always kept himself up-to-date with the long times he lived in. If Robertson Davies chose to look from another age deserting the barbershops of Ontario, that was not a sign of personal carelessness but very much a deliberate intellectual disguise.

Davies' old-fashioned long white forked beard had at the same time the gravitas of the British born naturalist and the bonhomie of the popular gift-bearer. And in between Darwin's meticolous but revolutionary cataloguing and classifying specimens and Father Christmas' magic but punctual efficiency in delivering airborne gifts, Robertson Davies' prose might be found.

No surprises that reading "The Deptford Trilogy" to me has been like embarking on the Beagle with a flying open sleigh on the deck ready to take off at the author's call.
Captain Davies led our brig-sloop time-machine through his story with remarkable confidence and ease leaving the Canadian shores behind with the occasional brat throwing a snowball at us from the quay. During our navigation he always had the first and the last word on board and - to his credit - he managed to keep his whole crew of characters under control without neglecting the needs of his only reader and passenger.

We followed a circular route with a stopover between "Fifth Business" and "The Manticore" to welcome on board a new first narrator looking for psychoanalysis. Then, thanks to the flying open sleigh we brought along on the Beagle, we left the poor fellow on the Swiss Alps between Jung and the Jungfrau.
Just in time to begin the exploration of the third stage of our trip leading us to the illusive borders of the "World of Wonders" together with a film troupe and eventually back to Deptford.

Believe me, folks. You will suffer no seasickness sailing (and flying) with Robertson Davies. This guy never loses the control of his helm and - as a plus - is not afraid of pointing straight into the whirlwinds of history, politics, religion and love. That and the difficult art and consequences of dodging a snowball thrown by a brat.
The magical realism and real magic you will bring back home after embarking on a journey on The Deptford Trilogy with Captain Davies are equally haunting. (less)

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Jul 30, 2011 the review man rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is probably the greatest trilogy I have ever read. I've reviewed each entry in the Deptford Trilogy individually, but the series is just so much better as a whole.

I think Robertson Davies is my favourite writer. Not author, but writer. You know how people wax poetic about how "vivid" the prose is in their favourite book? That's how I feel about Davies as a writer. I think my favourite author might be Pynchon or DFW or Faulkner, but my favourite writer is undoubtedly Davies. He makes everyth...more

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Apr 29, 2008 Tricia rated it 5 of 5 stars

After reading ''A Moralist Possessed by Humor': A Conversation With Robertson Davies" in the February 5, 1995 edition of the New York Times Book Review, I was intrigued by this man of mirth--a literary unknown to me--to give his books a try.

If I recall correctly, the only book available at the library that day was "Fifth Business" the first in this Deptford Trilogy. As is my habit, I cracked the spine open and took in the first page, to see if the style and content piqued my interest.

Needless t...more After reading ''A Moralist Possessed by Humor': A Conversation With Robertson Davies" in the February 5, 1995 edition of the New York Times Book Review, I was intrigued by this man of mirth--a literary unknown to me--to give his books a try.

If I recall correctly, the only book available at the library that day was "Fifth Business" the first in this Deptford Trilogy. As is my habit, I cracked the spine open and took in the first page, to see if the style and content piqued my interest.

Needless to say, I was swept away. The first paragraph, which I would love to transcribe for you here but won't, just sealed the deal for me; I was in heaven. Davies had me from "hello."

The story in all three books is complex, but let's just say it's about magic, art and religion, and the slippery line of materialism and spirituality. Dunstan Ramsey is the narrator of the first book and it is actually a letter he's composing on the occasion of his retirement from a teaching position. He is writing an autobiography really, excising his personal demons, as one does perhaps on the advent of a new stage in life.

The following two novels, The Manticore and World of Wonders, are from the point of view of other central characters, so you see the arch of the entire story coming together from different points of view. Pretty cool, although Fifth Business remains my personal favorite.

All the novels are definite page-turners (full of mystery!) and Davies' sense of humor makes the text lively and enjoyable. But don't just take my word for it. Here's what the New York Times had to say about Davies and this trilogy:

"Though he was grandly famous by the time he died in 1995, Robertson Davies remained a writer that many readers liked to hug to themselves as a kind of secret. The Ur-Canadian, the white-bearded magus of the north, Davies was a storyteller much preoccupied with the idea of life as a many-faceted mystery. In his novels, including the celebrated Deptford Trilogy (''Fifth Business,'' ''The Manticore'' and ''World of Wonders''), he inscribed in the lives of his characters hidden destinies, patterns of correspondence and connection that--when turned just the right way in just the right light--project vivid emblems of meaning....Davies's best moments will have, I hope, this ulterior effect: they will dispatch readers to his moodily backlighted adventures of spirit, novels, like those of the Deptford Trilogy, that do not recount wisdom so much as simply manifest it."
(less)

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May 15, 2007 Kristen Olsson rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Sam

Shelves: old-favorites

Whenever I mention this book the very few who recognize it ask me if I am Canadian.
No, I am not Canadian.

This book skirts a very fine line between the entirely possible and the gothically surreal. Told in trilogy form the story sprawls in the best possible way. The book is worth reading simply to gain the aquaintance of the narrating character. (I'm not sure I have crushed so hard on a literary figure since Schmendrick the Magician.)
His views and musings are so fresh and well put that I, heaven...more

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Aug 11, 2012 Cheryl Klein rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-fiction, collections, adult, classic, theatre

I picked up a battered mass market paperback copy of FIFTH BUSINESS off the street in May, on the simple principle that I had heard good things about it and it was free, and stuck it in my bag as lightweight (size wise) reading for a trip to Arizona in June. These were both excellent spur of the moment decisions -- the very kind of tiny choices that Davies writes about here as influencing our whole lives.

If Boy Staunton hadn't thrown the stone...
If Dunstan Ramsey hadn't ducked...
If Mrs. Dempster...more

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Mar 13, 2012 Philip Jackson rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As the title implies, this book is actually three novels, Fifth Business, The Manticore and World of Wonders. Although the books differ from each other, they are all linked by the trilogy's central premise. How are we accountable for our actions, however trivial, and how far reaching are the consequences of the decisions we make?
Two boys are snowball fighting in a small Canadian town at the turn of the century. One throws a snowball which contains a stone, and misses its target, hitting the past...more

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Mar 25, 2011 Bookspread rated it 5 of 5 stars

Robertson Davies was a big fan of Jungian psychology, so if you enjoy archetypes in literature this will be a true character identification feast. How each narrator perceives the world around them plays also a big part in solving the Mysterious Death that drives the plot, so you get to play the shrink-detective.

The Best:

* The dialogue. Except when Magnus rambles, where it gets a bit stiff.
* The female characters (except for Leola Cruikshanks and Doctor Jo) and the fact the sexiest woman in the...more

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Sep 16, 2010 Parksy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: must-reads

Wonderful trilogy - my favorite of Davies trilogies...

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From Amazon.com
"Who killed Boy Staunton?"

This is the question that lies at the heart of Robertson Davies's elegant trilogy comprising Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders. Indeed, Staunton's death is the central event of each of the three novels, and Rashomon-style, each circles round to view it from a different perspective. In the first book, Fifth Business, Davies introduces us to Dunstan Ramsey and his "lifelong friend...more Wonderful trilogy - my favorite of Davies trilogies...

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From Amazon.com
"Who killed Boy Staunton?"

This is the question that lies at the heart of Robertson Davies's elegant trilogy comprising Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders. Indeed, Staunton's death is the central event of each of the three novels, and Rashomon-style, each circles round to view it from a different perspective. In the first book, Fifth Business, Davies introduces us to Dunstan Ramsey and his "lifelong friend and enemy, Percy Boyd Staunton," both aged 10. It is a winter evening in the small Canadian village of Deptford, and Ramsey and Boy have quarreled. In a rage, Boy throws a snowball with a stone in it, misses his friend and hits the Baptist minister's pregnant wife by mistake. She becomes hysterical and later that night delivers her child prematurely, a baby with birth defects. Even worse, she loses her mind. The snowball, the stone, the deformed baby christened Paul Dempster--this is the secret guilt that will bind Ramsey and Staunton together through their long lives:

I was perfectly sure, you see, that the birth of Paul Dempster, so small, so feeble, and troublesome, was my fault. If I had not been so clever, so sly, so spiteful in hopping in front of the Dempsters just as Percy Boyd Staunton threw that snowball at me from behind, Mrs. Dempster would not have been struck. Did I never think that Percy was guilty? Indeed I did.

Boy, however, "would fight, lie, do anything rather than admit" he feels guilty, too, and so the subject remains unresolved between them right up until the night Boy's body is found in his car, in a lake, with a stone in his mouth. The second novel, The Manticore, follows Staunton's son, David, through a course of Jungian therapy in Switzerland, while World of Wonders concentrates on Magnus Eisengrim, a renowned magician and hypnotist with ties to both Ramsey and Boy Staunton.

When it came to writing, three was Davies's favorite number. Before the Deptford books, he wrote The Salterton Trilogy (Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, A Mixture of Frailties), and after it came The Cornish Trilogy (The Rebel Angels, What's Bred in the Bone, The Lyre of Orpheus). Excellent as these and Davies's other novels are, The Deptford Trilogy is arguably the masterpiece for which he'll best be remembered, as the combination of magic, archetype, and good, old-fashioned human frailty at work in these novels is a world of wonders unto itself, and guarantees these three books a permanent place among the great books of our time. --Alix Wilber

Book Description
Fifth Business
Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy in the end prove neither innocent nor innocuous. Fifth Business stands alone as a remarkable story told by a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real.

The Manticore
Around a mysterious death is woven a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived trilogy of novels. Luring the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history and magic, THE DEPTFORD TRILOGY provides an exhilarating antidote to a world from where 'the fear and dread and splendour of wonder have been banished'.

World of Wonders
This is the third novel in Davies's major work, The Deptford Trilogy. This novel tells the life story of the unfortunate boy introduced in The Fifth Business, who was spirited away from his Canadian home by one of the members of a traveling side show, the Wanless World of Wonders.(less)

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Jun 11, 2010 Petra rated it 4 of 5 stars

A wonderful trilogy.
"Fifth Business" is another delightful Davies story. This one follows the life of Dunstan Ramsay as he tells his story. Small events of no apparant importance come back in large, important ways.
I enjoyed "The Manticore", which is told from David Staunton’s point of view. It has some overlap with Fifth Business but David’s point of view and makes them complete. David tries to come to terms with his relationship with his father through therapy. Some of the same characters come...more

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Apr 21, 2008 ES rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Aspiring carnies, german castle owners

Read most of this book under the shadow of Cortez's Cathedral in Mexico sitting by a pool and smoking really bad pot.

Anyways, somebody I barely know suggested it. I'm glad he did...it got me through a tough time. Took my mind to another place when it was in another place to begin with.

Something quaint and imaginative about the way he writes, like a master storyteller with no other agenda than the story at hand.

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May 07, 2012 Lari Don rated it 5 of 5 stars

A wonderful trilogy, by an incredible writer. Each of the three novels looks back on a man’s life. The first, Fifth Business, is a letter from a school teacher to his old headmaster, attempting to show that his life was much more than anyone ever saw at school, and it touches on saints, war, madness and artificial legs.
The second book, The Manticore, is notes from the Jungian analysis of a wealthy Canadian lawyer, touching on archetypes, alcoholism, first love and death-masks.
The third, World o...more

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Dec 03, 2009 Margaret rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian-literature, authors-cd

The Deptford trilogy revolves around the mysterious death (was it murder or suicide?) of businessman Boy Staunton; along the way it tells the life stories of Staunton's boyhood friend, Dunstan Ramsay; of Staunton's son, David; and of enigmatic magician Magnus Eisengrim. Though the books are full of Davies' trademark wit and erudition, I found that they didn't work for me as well as the Cornish trilogy or the Salterton trilogy, and the second and third books didn't live up to Fifth Business. I th...more

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Jun 26, 2010 Donna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Just recalled this author and the best of his trilogies. Read the review...the books are elegant, cleverly funny, inventive, never predicable...great reads! I would love to read and discuss with you!!

THIS IS ANOTHER TRILOGY WE HAD DISCUSSED READING TOGETHER...I AM CURIOUS AS TO HOW I WILL LIKE THE READ, THE SECOND TIME AROUND.

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Dec 17, 2010 Tyrran rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first thing that came to my mind when I finished this books was "thank God that's over with"

I really enjoyed this book when I started it, but around 1/2 to 3/4 of the way I just wanted it to end, for me that's normally a bad sign because when I love a book I'm almost depressed to finish it.

The book definitely has some clever aspects to it which is easily played upon by Roberston Davies the narration is almost a triptych view of the main characters, But it's heavily based around character sub...more

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Jul 25, 2011 August rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own

I guess I was at something of a low point when this book called to me from my shelves. My copy looked awful, bent and blackened, and it was only on a whim that I, a month or so earlier, decided to relieve my parents shelves of it where it had stood for 10years with little hope of being read again.

That my current state should make me call for the Deptford Trilogy made perfect sense. I had read all of Robertson-Davies novels during a 2 year period about a decade or so ago. Murther and walking spi...more I guess I was at something of a low point when this book called to me from my shelves. My copy looked awful, bent and blackened, and it was only on a whim that I, a month or so earlier, decided to relieve my parents shelves of it where it had stood for 10years with little hope of being read again.

That my current state should make me call for the Deptford Trilogy made perfect sense. I had read all of Robertson-Davies novels during a 2 year period about a decade or so ago. Murther and walking spirits fell into my hands by chance and after reading it I thirsted for more. Reading Robertson Davies felt like sitting in a room alone with a compassionate and wise uncle who told you stories that touched upon so many important questions a young man has about life. It was nourishment for the soul as well as a good read.

The Deptford Trilogy did not disappoint the second time around either and it felt great to revisit an important book a decade later. I remember feeling so safe as a reader in RD's fictional world and upon rereading I found that the main reason for this was the cohesive and logical storyline. I am sure that RD spent a good time planning the novel before he started writing it and in an interview for CBC (that is available on youtube) he admits as much.

RD puts a great emphasis on the story which, I suppose, is what makes the books a "good read". He also invests a lot in the characters, but, and this is another reason why one feels so safe and comfortable in his world, he always maintains a certain distance from them, and even when the characters do vicious things the calm, sympathetic tone of the narration is never disturbed.

The style is straightforward and very readable. There is plenty of humour, although wit is probably what RD would have preferred to call it himself.

If I had to name some faults (and I suppose I always do) I think they mostly have to do with what I feel is an overemphasis on the storyline. The dialogue in those big dinner scenes and the like also seemed a little contrived and I, for one, did not bother to memorize, or backpedal to reacquaint myself with, the many smaller characters in Eisengrim's circus or theater groups.(less)

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May 08, 2011 Judith Shadford rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a second read, part of checking to see how old favorites stand up after the rigors of RWW and "close reading". I am happy to announce that Robertson Davies stands up very well indeed. His ability to write an entire book within the POV of a single narrator and carry it off--is astonishing. Fifth Business, the first of the trilogy, is mesmerizing, which, given the character is in character. The second, The Manticore, isn't quite as engaging, because the narrator isn't a lovable guy. We ca...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Janice rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've read and thoroughly enjoyed other of Robertson Davies' detailed, leisurely, somewhat donnish books, and decided to make quick work of this trilogy during a slow couple of weeks over the summer. I wasn't as enchanted with this threesome, which felt slightly attenuated to me. Fifth Business was a rich and mostly fascinating start to the intertwined fates of the fusty but sympathetic Dunstan Ramsey, his boyhood nemesis Boy Staunton, and the odd child who will become Magnus Eisengrim, a world-c...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Shilpi Goel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, drama, romance

Truly, the four stars are really for all of "Fifth Business" and most of "World of Wonders" (even though Paul Dempster's story was a little over the top for me). In my opinion, it would be nicer and more continuous if these two books were #1 and #2 in the trilogy instead of #1 and #3. I didn't really enjoy reading "The Manticore". Dream interpretations are all very well but David's dreams' high frequency seemed contrived --- exactly enough to keep his analyst happy. I won't complain too much tho...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Warnie B. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canada, read-in-2012, theatre

I reviewed each of the three books in this trilogy as I finished them, but I figured I'd review the series as a whole as well.

I was not looking forward to reading Fifth Business much at all. And, sad to say, it was in large part due to the fact that I hated the first cover I saw of it so much. It's a stupid reason, I know.

Anyway, almost as soon as I opened the thing up, I was competely hooked. Davies has such a way with words. It's not an action-packed book by any stretch of the imagination. It...more

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Feb 24, 2013 Komal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-most-beloved-books

I adore this book. It's about a thousand pages and I was grateful for every one of them, because I never wanted it to end. The characters became to me like people I truly knew, and they are written with such adeptness and acumen that I was half-convinced they were all real and existed somewhere. The magic of this book lasts a long time after the last page has turned.

This book follows four characters over the course of their lives. It is essentially a character sketch, founded on conversations an...more

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Sep 13, 2007 Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was recommended to me by a colleague years ago. Frankly, I didn't think it would be my cup of tea. I figured it would be a little dusty, a little bloated. But my god, I was wrong. Just fantastic writing, three great books I couldn't put down.

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Dec 08, 2011 Isabel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I had distinct feelings of déjà-vu at times while reading the first two books of this trilogy, so maybe I have read my parents' copy. If so it must have been a very long time ago, as I didn't remember any specifics of the story.

From rural Canada in the early twentieth century, through both world wars, life in travelling fairs and magic shows in North America and Europe, to a castle in Switzerland in the early 1970s, this story is told from several different points of view. I loved it all except...more I had distinct feelings of déjà-vu at times while reading the first two books of this trilogy, so maybe I have read my parents' copy. If so it must have been a very long time ago, as I didn't remember any specifics of the story.

From rural Canada in the early twentieth century, through both world wars, life in travelling fairs and magic shows in North America and Europe, to a castle in Switzerland in the early 1970s, this story is told from several different points of view. I loved it all except for the part of the third book concerning life in a British theatre company in London and on tour in Canada, which came as a bit of a let-down after the magical qualities of the rest of the story.

In "Fifth Business", Dunstan Ramsey, a recently retired teacher, writes a letter to the headmaster of the school he taught at, describing the way his life has been affected by three people he first knew as a child in the Canadian village of Deptford. They are millionaire businessman and politician Boy Staunton, the life-long best friend he never really liked, Mrs. Dempster the older woman he is linked to by feelings of guilt and responsibility and her son Paul Dempster, ten years his junior, whom he teaches conjuring tricks as a small boy and meets under unexpected circumstances many years later.

In the first book, Ramsey commented that it was their children who were most badly affected by the disintegration of Boy and Leola's marriage, and in "The Manticore" we find out the truth of that statement. Their son David tells a Jungian analyst about his life-story and his relationship with his family, while undergoing therapy in Zurich after the mysterious death of his father.

In "World of Wonders", Paul Dempster tells his story over the course of several meals to a group of old friends and film-makers, and by the end we finally understand the riddle of the Brazen Head's answer: "He was killed by the usual cabal: by himself, first of all; by the woman he knew; by the woman he didn't know; by the man who granted his innermost wish; and by the inevitable fifth, who was keeper of his conscience and keeper of the stone."(less)

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Jan 07, 2012 Kenzie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wanted to give the trilogy five stars because I love Robertson Davies' thesis (that myth, magic, and dreams are an often cast aside in modern society for lighter, sanitized, and more rational versions of reality, or something like that). I really loved Fifth Business and The Manticore. I would have loved World of Wonders, but there was a point where the story lost its momentum. Thankfully, Davies had set up enough of a mystery that I was determined to see how it would be resolved.

I wouldn't r...more

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Jan 01, 2010 Don rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-novel

This got off to a great start, with the story of the snowball and the premature birth of Paul Dempster, and his mother's descent into sainthood, but the latter novels in the trilogy never worked quite so well as 'Fifth Business'. Maybe because the central narrative characters in the subsequent novels weren't as sympathetic or interesting as Dunstable Ramsey. 'The Manticore' was readable as a case example of Jungian analysis, and that sort of thing is always intringing, but it didn't add a huge a...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Sue Tincher rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wasn't enthralled with this trilogy that has to do with big themes of saintliness, illusion, friendship, and betrayal, played out on the little stage of a few people's lives, people who all started out in the tiny Canadian town of Deptford: Dunstan, the bachelor academic; Boy Staunton, the powerful businessman; David, drunken but brilliant lawyer and Boy's son; and Magnus, the world-famous magician. Each book in the trilogy re-examines the same lives from a different point of view. I came away...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Pam Jessen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this for a Literature class in college. It was certainly not the sort of book I would have chosen to read if I were browsing the library shelves. Yet I liked it enough that I went back and re-read it a few years later. I don't remember a lot about it anymore, but the basic premise that sticks with me (and I've always liked books and movies based on this) is how the rest of our lives may be changed/shaped by one seemingly minor incident. I may even re-read it again someday! (at least one r...more

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Dec 12, 2010 Julia Phillips rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I am going to confess up front that Robertson Davies generally sits at the top of my list of favourite authors and he has some talented writers breathing on his neck.

The Deptford Trilogy, which comprises ‘Fifth Business’, ‘The Manticore’, and ‘World of Wonders’, is outstanding. It's a fantastic (in all senses of the word) mix of magic, mystery, and myth that grabs the reader on page one and simply never lets go. Almost impossible to describe, this book is truly amazing in its breadth and scope....more

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About Robertson Davies

William Robertson Davies, CC, FRSC, FRSL (born August 28, 1913, at Thamesville, Ontario, and died December 2, 1995 at Orangeville, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is sometimes said to have detested. Davies was the founding Ma...more

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What's Bred In The Bone (Cornish Trilogy, #2)

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Quotes from The Deptford Trilogy: ...

“This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.” — 11 people liked it

“A boy is a man in miniature, and though he may sometimes exhibit notable virtue, as well as characteristics that seem to be charming because they are childlike, he is also a schemer, self-seeker, traitor, Judas, crook, and villain - in short, a man.” — 5 people liked it

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title link	preview: The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/74403.The_Deptford_Trilogy?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327968603l/74403.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/74403.The_Deptford_Trilogy?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders by Robertson Davies[/url]

The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders

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