- The Deptford Trilogy
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The Deptford Trilogy is a novel trilogy by Canadian novelist Robertson Davies.
Contents
Overview
The trilogy consists of Fifth Business (1970), The Manticore (1972), and World of Wonders (1975). The series revolves around a simple act—a young boy throws a snowball at another, but it misses its intended target—and the effect this act has on a number of characters.
The Deptford Trilogy has won praise for its narrative voice and its use of character. Fifth Business, in particular, is considered one of Davies' best novels.
The trilogy takes its name from the fictional small village of Deptford, Ontario, based on Davies' native Thamesville. Davies takes a different viewpoint in each of the novels, and approaches each in a different style. The sometimes eerie tone and unconventional literary devices have evoked some to identify the series as a precursor to slipstream fiction.[1]
The main characters of the series have come by twisting paths from their simple village—and each carries a secret that crosses the lives of the others and drives the plot forward. The greatest secret is one that the reader is not even aware of until the close of the last book, but which finally answers questions about the relationships among several major characters.
Fifth Business
Fifth Business is narrated by Dunstable (later Dunstan) Ramsay, a schoolteacher who grows up in the fictional Deptford. The novel takes the form of a letter Ramsay writes to the headmaster of the school from which he has just retired, wherein he recalls how, as a boy, he ducked the fateful snowball intended for him. The snowball hit a pregnant woman who happened to be passing by; she gave birth prematurely as a result. This incident has affected Ramsay's life, and the novel tells how he comes to terms with his feelings of guilt. Intertwined with his story is the life of Percy Boyd 'Boy' Staunton, Ramsay's boyhood friend who threw the snowball, and who later became a wealthy businessman.
The Manticore
The Manticore is the story of Boy Staunton's only son, David. David Staunton undergoes Jungian psychoanalysis in Switzerland. During his therapy, he tries to understand his father and his relationship to him. The novel is a detailed record of his therapy and his coming to understand his own life. It sheds new light on many of the characters introduced in Fifth Business, including Dunstan Ramsay, who happens to be in Switzerland recuperating from a heart attack.
The Manticore won the Governor-General's Literary Award in the English language fiction category in 1972.
World of Wonders
World of Wonders is the story of Paul Dempster, the son of the woman hit by the snowball, who has grown up to be Magnus Eisengrim, a famous magician. Eisengrim is to portray Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin in a television movie. During lulls in the filming, he recounts his life, including the incredible obstacles he has had to overcome, and elaborates on his career as an actor traveling through Canada in the early 20th century. Dunstan Ramsay is again in attendance, and more insight is gained into the characters of Fifth Business.
Dunstan Ramsay
Dunstan Ramsay is the narrator of both "Fifth Business" and "World of Wonders" (although in "World of Wonders" he is not the main character of the plot). He also appears as a major character in "The Manticore", and appears in several other novels by Davies. Ramsay is a gentle schoolmaster with surprising depths and is probably the stand-in for Davies himself. (Since Davies has said [2] that the main business of a writer is to be an enchanter, a weaver of spells, a magician, it is likely that Dempster/Eisengrim is in some sense a stand-in for Davies as well.) Ramsay counsels his students to write in "the plain style", as Davies does—to highlight the story rather than the writer. Ramsay also appears in the novel What's Bred in the Bone of Davies' Cornish Trilogy, and in the later novel The Cunning Man.
He is at times compared with Saint Dunstan and his struggle with Satan.
See also
Notes
- ^ Broderick, Damien (2000); [1] Transrealist fiction: writing in the slipstream of science, p.33
- ^ as quoted in LaBossiere, Robertson Davies: A Mingling of Contrarieties
Categories:- Novels by Robertson Davies
- Series of books
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