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Copy/paste the text below into your blog. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41098.World_of_Wonders?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="World of Wonders (Penguin Classics)" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1169579036m/41098.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41098.World_of_Wonders?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">World of Wonders</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23129.Robertson_Davies">Robertson Davies</a><br/><br/> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21860642?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a> rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>Robertson Davies uses a few different tricks throughout the Deptford Trilogy to write each novel in the first person. Fifth Business is actually one long autobiographical letter written by Dunstan Ramsay in response to a news article about his retirement which he felt was too dismissive. The Manticore is mainly a journal kept by David Staunton as he goes through psychotherapy after the death of his father, Boy. And World of Wonders is a series of monologues told over a succession of dinners by the magician Magnus Eisengrim, who was born Paul Demster. These monologues are transcribed by Dunstan, who is the true first-person narrator of the third book, although he yields most of the narrative responsibilities to Paul/Magnus - but at the end of the book things come full circle and Dunstan closes things off. It's a nice technique. <br/> <br/>So is the mystery of "Who Killed Boy Staunton?" ever resolved? It is and it isn't. The trilogy isn't some kind of police procedural with the D.A.'s office uncovering a crucial clue in the final act. All three books provide pieces of the puzzle, and the one person who should know the truth - Paul - gives his final account, and perhaps he's telling the truth, and perhaps he isn't. There is a web of interconnected causes and effects woven through the trilogy, and ultimately the reader will interpret them in the way that makes the most sense. But if the trilogy emphasizes anything, particularly in the third installment, it's that illusions can be more real than actualities, and belief has power to overcome many things, and identity is both the most important thing to realize and also the most difficult. Maybe the central question answers itself - it was 'who' that killed Boy Staunton, the perilous attempt to define and understand himself. <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/329383?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>