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51-470: The trilogy consists of Fifth Business ( 1970 ), The Manticore ( 1972 ), and World of Wonders ( 1975 ). The series revolves around a precipitating event: a young boy throws a snowball at another, hitting a pregnant woman instead, who goes into premature labor. It explores the longterm effects of these events on numerous characters. The Deptford trilogy has won praise for its narrative voice and its characterizations. The main characters originate from

102-401: A television movie . During lulls in the filming, he recounts his life, including obstacles he has overcome. He elaborates on his career as an actor traveling through Canada in the early 20th century. Dunstan Ramsay also appears in this novel. More insight is provided into the characters of Fifth Business . Dunstan Ramsay is the narrator of both Fifth Business and World of Wonders (he

153-501: A boy, Dunstable is raised as a Presbyterian, but he also takes an avid interest in Catholic saints. He grows up to develop a more spiritual mode of life that is not reliant on external structures. For Dunstan Ramsay, religion and morality are immediate certainties in life, and the events of the novel show how moral lapses have a way of 'snowballing' and coming back to haunt one. Davies and Dunstan are at pains to illustrate just how fluid

204-511: A brilliant young composition student, Hulda Schnakenburg ("Schnak"), to complete the opera as her PhD. dissertation, while Darcourt is charged with the completion of the libretto , which James Planché had attempted to write. The opera to be completed is King Arthur or the Magnanimous Cuckold . The storyline follows the writing and then production of the opera, and the plot parallels the legend of King Arthur , and in particular

255-581: A close relationship with elderly Jesuit priest Padre Blazon, who specializes in chronicling the earthly side of saints' lives, believing that most saints are much more flawed and human than history might choose to remember them. While in Mexico City on a six-month sabbatical from Colborne College, Ramsay attends a magic show put on by the mysterious illusionist Magnus Eisengrim, who is revealed to be an adult Paul Dempster. Intrigued by Eisengrim's spectacular illusions, Ramsay joins his entourage as he tours

306-467: A fight with Boy. When Leola dies of pneumonia a few years later, Ramsay suspects that she intentionally brought about her death by leaving her window open. Ramsay's deepening obsession with hagiology leads him to travel to Europe to meet with the Bollandists (a society of Jesuit scholars who chronicle the lives of saints) after they agree to publish one of his articles. During his trip, he develops

357-558: A heart attack. The Manticore won the Governor-General's Literary Award in the English-language fiction category in 1972. World of Wonders tells of Paul Dempster, a boy born prematurely who is befriended by Dunstan Ramsay. He learns to conjure and, as an adult, takes the name of Magnus Eisengrim as he establishes a successful career as a noted magician . Eisengrim is to portray Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin in

408-516: A massive influence on the actions in the book. The prominence of matriarchs in Dunstan's life can be linked to Sigmund Freud 's Oedipus complex (Dunstan loves Diana and Mrs. Dempster, despite their motherly positions in his life). Carl Jung's concept of individualisation plays a role when Liesl discusses Dunstan's yet-unlived life and the idea that he must have balance in his life. Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development can also be seen in

459-475: A number of themes, including the pursuit of life beyond the ordinary or comfortable routine, which is exemplified in the artistic quest to produce the opera and in Darcourt's quest to uncover the truth behind the painting of The Wedding at Cana. The theme of marriage is examined through the relationship between Arthur and Maria Cornish, a relationship tested by infidelity. And the modern approach to relationships

510-553: A painting of The Wedding at Cana , previously attributed to an unknown sixteenth century painter known only as "The Alchemical Master", was in fact the work of Francis Cornish himself, as described in the second book of the trilogy, What's Bred in the Bone . A further plotline involves the sexual and artistic flowering of Hulda Schnakenburg under the hand of Gunilla Dahl-Soot, a distinguished Swedish musicologist who serves as Schnak's academic advisor and becomes her lover. The book explores

561-436: A schoolteacher, Ramsay earns a reputation as an eccentric due to his interest in hagiology (the study of saints). Meanwhile, Staunton—now known as "Boy," shortened from his middle name—becomes a fabulously wealthy businessman. Despite tacitly resenting Boy for his money and status, Ramsay maintains an uneasy friendship with him and Leola, often accepting his financial assistance. Later, Ramsay becomes convinced that Mrs. Dempster

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612-436: A sickly child called "Paul". Apparently afflicted with severe mental trauma by the incident, Mrs. Dempster's behavior grows progressively more erratic until she is ostracized from polite society after being found having sex with a homeless tramp in a gravel pit, leading Paul Dempster to become an outcast in the village. While Ramsay takes pity on Paul and often keeps him company, Staunton refuses to take responsibility for throwing

663-527: A small Ontario town, family connections with the social and financial elite) into many of his works. He thought of this novel as "autobiographical, but not as young men do it; it will be rather as Dickens wrote David Copperfield , a fictional reworking of some things experienced and much re-arranged." Davies allows us to peer through a window into his childhood in Thamesville , Ontario and through his young life into higher education and beyond through

714-436: A stroke of great luck, he becomes the stunt double for Sir John Tresize, a famous, aging English actor. As time goes by Paul (under the new assumed name, "Fetch") begins to adopt Sir John's personality and appearance until he has almost completely taken on Sir John's persona. Fifth Business Fifth Business (1970) is a novel by Canadian writer Robertson Davies . First published by Macmillan of Canada in 1970, it

765-559: A teacher and serves for decades at a college. The epistolary novel takes the form of a letter Ramsay writes to the headmaster of Colborne College after his retirement. He feels ill used by an article about him in the school paper. He recalls how, as a boy, he ducked a snowball intended for him. It hit a pregnant woman instead, and she gave birth prematurely. This incident and related events deeply affected Ramsay's life. He tells how he came to terms with his guilt. He also tells of his boyhood friend and enemy, Percy Boyd "Boy" Staunton, who becomes

816-690: A wealthy businessman and politician. The Manticore is the story of Boy Staunton's only son, David, who 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 his father's friend Dunstan Ramsay, who happens to be in Switzerland recuperating from

867-407: A world famous stage magician, relates his life story to several friends and colleagues as they work to complete a film about the life of the renowned 19th century theatrical magician Robert-Houdin . As related by Eisengrim: On December 28, 1908, Paul Dempster was born prematurely after his pregnant mother was hit in the head by a snowball thrown by Percy Boyd Staunton. As a result (it is assumed) of

918-567: A worthwhile and fulfilling life, Ramsay pens an indignant letter to the school's headmaster relating the story of his life, beginning with a childhood memory of an incident that occurred in his hometown of Deptford, Ontario in December 1908. During a quarrel with a ten-year-old Ramsay (then known as "Dunstable Ramsay"), Ramsay’s wealthy friend Percy Boyd Staunton angrily hurls a snowball at him, but accidentally hits his heavily pregnant neighbor Mary Dempster, causing her to prematurely give birth to

969-550: Is Ramsay's lifelong preoccupation with the lives of the Saints. The fantastic nature of their stories were always grounded in actual events, but their miracles were given attention and focus based on the psychosocial attitudes and needs of the day, so that what the public wanted had a large measure of influence over what became the accepted canon. Some readers thought that Fifth Business was intended to be semi-autobiographical. Davies projected some of his life experiences (childhood in

1020-639: Is a saint following a chance encounter with Joel Surgeoner—the man who had sex with her in the gravel pit—who miraculously turned his life around after his sexual encounter with her. After successfully tracking Mrs. Dempster to Toronto, Ramsay offers to become her caretaker. Following the birth of her son David, Leola becomes increasingly unhappy with her marriage to Boy, finding herself unable to adjust to high-society life due to her provincial upbringing. The Stauntons' marital difficulties culminate in Leola unsuccessfully attempting suicide on Christmas Eve in 1936 after

1071-616: Is all I have to tell you." Davies discusses several themes in the novel, perhaps the most important being the difference between materialism and spirituality . Davies asserts religion is not necessarily integral to the idea—demonstrated by the corrupt Reverend Leadbeater who reduces the Bible to mere economic terms. Davies, then an avid student of Carl Jung 's ideas, deploys them in Fifth Business . Characters are clear examples of Jungian archetypes and events demonstrate Jung's idea of synchronicity . A stone allegedly thrown at Ramsay when he

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1122-493: Is fated to play the part of "fifth business," a term for a supporting player in a stage show whose role can’t be easily classified, but nonetheless plays a vital role in resolving the plot. Ramsay's recollections ultimately reach their climax in 1968 after Ramsay and Eisengrim both cross paths with Boy following a show in Toronto . In a tense conversation, Eisengrim reveals his true identity to Boy, and Ramsay tells Eisengrim about

1173-402: Is found dead in his car after apparently driving into a river, leaving the police unsure whether his death was murder or suicide . Curiously, a stone is found placed in his mouth, which Ramsay believes to be the rock that Boy threw at Mrs. Dempster as a child. Later, while watching a fortune-telling display at Eisengrim's magic show, Ramsay collapses from a sudden heart attack after someone in

1224-574: Is mocked in the dysfunctional common-law situation of two minor characters, Al and Mabel, who present themselves in Toronto to monitor and record the production of the opera from start to finish. As often happens in Davies' novels, all is not simple; for example, the ghost of Hoffman, trapped in Limbo as a result of the unsatisfactory state of his artistic work, attends and comments on the proceedings. Nor

1275-570: Is not the protagonist in the last novel). He also appears as a major character in The Manticore and as a supporting character in several other novels by Davies. Ramsay is a gentle schoolmaster with surprising depths and is probably a stand-in for Davies himself. (Since Davies has said that the main business of a writer is to be an enchanter, a weaver of spells, a magician, Dempster/Eisengrim may stand for Davies.) Ramsay counsels his students to write in "the plain style," as Davies does—to highlight

1326-615: Is that Boy becomes the chair of the board of Governors which runs the school at which Ramsay teaches, much as Robertson Davies spent his career at the University of Toronto as the Master of Massey College . But the Staunton character is highly fictionalized. Davies has said that aspects of the character are more reflective of his father. Those roles which, being neither those of hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were none

1377-561: Is the first installment of Davies' best-known work, the Deptford Trilogy , and explores the life of the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay. It was the novel that brought Davies to international attention. Dunstan Ramsay, an aging history teacher at Colborne College, becomes enraged by the patronizing tone of a newspaper article announcing his recent retirement, which appears to portray him as an unremarkable old man with no notable accomplishments to his name. Hoping to prove that he has lived

1428-625: The Battle of Ypres in World War I , losing his left leg in the process. Upon awakening in a military hospital from a six-month coma, he learns that he was initially presumed dead and posthumously won a Victoria Cross , and that his parents died from Spanish Influenza before learning that he was still alive. While recovering in the hospital, Ramsay has an affair with nurse Diana Marfleet, but breaks up with her after rejecting her marriage proposal, prompting Diana to playfully nickname him " Dunstan " after

1479-472: The 10th-century English saint who supposedly resisted the temptations of the Devil ; this conversation later inspires Ramsay to have his first name legally changed to "Dunstan". Upon returning to Deptford, he learns that Staunton has become engaged to Leola, while Mrs. Dempster has been taken in by a relative after apparently going insane, and Paul Dempster has run away from home to join the circus. After becoming

1530-770: The Bone (1985). In The Lyre of Orpheus , the executors of the will of Francis Cornish (the subject of What's Bred in the Bone ) find themselves at the head of the "Cornish Foundation". The directors of the Foundation, who are the three remaining Frank Cornish's estate executors, being Professor the Reverend Simon Darcourt, Arthur Cornish, and Maria Cornish, plus Professor Clement Hollier and Stratford , Ontario actor Geraint Powell, are called upon to decide what projects deserve funding. They decide that an unfinished opera by E. T. A. Hoffmann will be finished and staged at Stratford; to this end, they hire

1581-601: The Good Time Girl, and Libby, the energetic go-getter". Agnes Day is a play on the Latin religious phrase agnus Dei , "lamb of God". Libby Doe is a play on the word "libido", borrowed from Latin by Freud to mean the inner impulse-driven part of the psyche. Gloria Mundy is a play on the Latin religious phrase Sic transit gloria mundi , or "Thus passes the glory of the world." There is sectarianism in Deptford dividing

The Deptford Trilogy - Misplaced Pages Continue

1632-435: The audience cries out "Who killed Boy Staunton?" Onstage, the fortune-telling " Brazen Head " cryptically replies that he was killed by five people: by himself, by the woman he knew, by the woman he did not know, by the man who granted his inmost wish, and by "the inevitable fifth, who was keeper of his conscience and the keeper of the stone." With that, Ramsay concludes the story of his life, saying only, "And that, headmaster,

1683-462: The character of Ramsay and the novels of the Deptford trilogy. In Fifth Business, Davies provides an account of his spirit, his memories, and his deeper life experiences. Or, as Diane Cole wrote in the New York Times soon after Davies' death, "Davies used his personal myths and archetypes to probe the possibilities of human good and evil, but always with a wickedly humorous wink." Some of

1734-471: The choices Boy makes compared to the choices Dunstan makes (e.g. Boy chooses intimacy while Dunstan chooses isolation). A genuinely learned man, Davies wrote a prose that both poked fun at pretentious scholarship and enjoyed joking allusions, as in the names of Ramsay's girl friends, Agnes Day, Gloria Mundy and Libby Doe. He explained these later as "Agnes, the Sufferer – a type well known to all men; Gloria,

1785-469: The concept of historical fact really is, and that it is not so distinct from the suppositions of mythic thinking. Dunstan questions the extent that he can provide an accurate account of the events of his childhood or his participation in World War I campaigns, because what he recalls is surely distinct from the 'consensually accepted reality'. One aspect of this blurred distinction between myth and history

1836-468: The elements of character Percy Boyd Staunton's life resemble that of Davies' friend Vincent Massey . Both men became rich from their father's agricultural businesses. Both men enlisted in World War I, went into politics afterward and held cabinet positions, and strengthened Canada's ties with the mother country . Massey was appointed as the first Canada-born Governor General, Boy is likewise appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario. The most convincing parallel

1887-435: The events in December 1908 that led to his premature birth. Recalling the incident, Ramsay states that the snowball that Boy threw at Mrs. Dempster had a rock concealed in it, and claims that he still has the rock. Boy, however, still refuses to admit to throwing the snowball, denying any responsibility for Mrs. Dempster's misfortunes. After Boy and Eisengrim storm out of the room, Ramsay finds the rock missing. Hours later, Boy

1938-408: The fact that no one comes to her aid when her son runs away. However, she is the only member of Deptford society that Dunstan views as truly 'religious' in her attitude because she lives according to a light that arises from within (which he contrasts with her husband's 'deeply religious' attitude, which 'meant that he imposed religion as he understood it on everything he knew or encountered' (46)). As

1989-470: The frontier townsfolk between five Christian churches that do not associate with each other under normal circumstances. It takes emergency situations for them to lend aid to each other, but this is conditional aid based on the assumption that certain moral codes will be preserved regardless of faith. For instance, Mary Dempster is a daft-headed girl who habitually flouts the norms of the society, and so she finds herself ostracised and ridiculed by it, evidenced by

2040-539: The less essential to bring about the Recognition or the denouement were called the Fifth Business in drama and Opera companies organized according to the old style; the player who acted these parts was often referred to as Fifth Business. Pressured by his publisher to define "Fifth Business," Davies added this opening quotation. Queried later by the book's Norwegian translator Sigmund Hoftun who failed to find

2091-474: The main characters in Davies' novels, Paul Dempster undergoes a series of symbolic rebirths, each of which is accompanied by a name change. Magnus Eisengrim is the final name taken on by Paul Dempster in the course of story told in the Deptford trilogy. The name is derived from 'Isengrin', a wolf in the stories of Reynard the Fox . In "World of Wonders", the final book of the Deptford trilogy, Magnus Eisengrim, now

The Deptford Trilogy - Misplaced Pages Continue

2142-540: The mishap, she went insane. Paul is raised by his strict and religious father, but at age 10 Paul visits the traveling 'World of Wonders' circus, where he is raped by Willard the Wizard, a performing sleight-of-hand magician with the troupe. To protect Willard, the troupe abducts and renames Paul. Traveling with the troupe under the assumed identity of Cass Fletcher, Paul endures a long period of continued psychological and physical abuse by Willard, but he also manages to learn

2193-496: The quotation in the (authentic) Danish book, Davies wrote to him 13 August 1979, "it is not from Overskou, because I invented it." The Lyre of Orpheus (novel) The Lyre of Orpheus is a 1988 novel by Canadian author Robertson Davies first published by Macmillan of Canada . Lyre is the last of three connected novels of the Cornish Trilogy . It was preceded by The Rebel Angels (1981) and What's Bred in

2244-575: The rudimentary skills of pick-pocketing, sleight of hand, and watch-repair. After eight hellish years, Paul escapes the World of Wonders and travels to France where, under a new assumed name, Faustus LeGrande, he becomes a traveling magician. Eventually, Willard dies. Although penniless, uneducated, and psychologically wounded, Paul, finally rid of his sodomizing tormentor, is at last able to begin shaping his own life in whatever way he wishes. After several years later, Paul makes his way to England, where, by

2295-458: The same small village. Each carries a secret that crosses the lives of the others and drives the plot forward. Fifth Business is considered one of Davies' best novels. The second novel, The Manticore , won the Governor-General's Literary Award in the English-language fiction category in 1972. The trilogy was named for its setting in the fictional village of Deptford, Ontario . This is based in part on Davies' native Thamesville . Davies takes

2346-466: The snowball. The rift between the two deepens after Staunton begins a romantic relationship with Ramsay's crush Leola Cruikshank. When Ramsay's gravely injured brother Willie apparently makes a miraculous recovery after Mrs. Dempster prays at his bedside, Ramsay comes to suspect that Mrs. Dempster is capable of performing miracles, which is seemingly confirmed after Ramsay himself has a vision of her shortly before miraculously surviving an artillery blast at

2397-421: The story rather than the writer. Ramsay appears in Davies' novels What's Bred in the Bone and The Lyre of Orpheus , two of his Cornish trilogy , and in the later novel The Cunning Man . Ramsay is not religious but he is fascinated by the lives of the saints. He writes several well-regarded treatises on saints. In the novels he is compared with Saint Dunstan in his struggle with Satan. Like several of

2448-419: The triangle of King Arthur, his queen, Guenevere , and Lancelot . Geraint Powell, using deception, fathers a child by Maria Cornish, forcing Arthur Cornish to choose between a generous or vindictive response. The Lyre of Orpheus not only explores the world of early eighteenth century opera, but also follows Darcourt's research into the life of the benefactor and artist Francis Cornish. Darcourt discovers that

2499-456: The view of different characters in each novel, and expresses each in a different style. The tone and unconventional literary devices of metafiction have led some later critics to suggest the series was a precursor to what has been called " slipstream " fiction in the 21st century. Fifth Business is narrated by Dunstable (later Dunstan) Ramsay, who grows up in Deptford, a fictional town in southwestern Ontario, Canada. After World War I, he becomes

2550-417: The world with his magic act, and gradually becomes close to Eisengrim's wealthy patroness Liesl, an eccentric woman with a bizarre androgynous appearance. Liesl, who becomes Ramsay's lover, senses that he has never been truly happy, having spent most of his life being overshadowed by other people whose lives have intersected with his own. To help him make sense of his role in the world, Liesl suggests that Ramsay

2601-474: Was a child reappears decades later in a scandalous suicide or murder. Ramsay's character is a classic introverted personality, contrasted throughout the book with the extroverted sensuality of Boy Staunton. Ramsay dedicates his life to genuine religious feeling as he saw it in his 'fool-saint' Mary Dempster, whose son grows up to be the very archetype of the Magician. Robertson Davies' interest in psychology has

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