Fifth Business

Rating:
Summary: The Finest
Review: I first read Fifth Business as a course requirement in college 25 years ago. To this day, that very same copy sits on my bookshelf, dog-eared and well worn. This is truely one of the finest books I have ever read and I recommend it most whole-heartedly. Robertson Davies was short-listed for the Nobel Prize in 1986 and when you read Fifth Business I'm sure you will understand why.

Rating:
Summary: FIFTH BUSINESS cornerstone of Great Canadian Trilogy
Review: No one has yet written the Great Canadian Novel, but in Fifth Business, World of Wonders and the Manticore, Robertson Davies may have given us something like the Great Interlinked Canadian Trilogy.

Fifth Business is the novel with which to start. The book's central figure is schoolteacher Dunstan Ramsay, who grew up in the tiny village of Deptford in the sugar-beet growing district of Southwestern Ontario. The town's pretty boy-slash-bully Percy Boyd Staunton hits the minister's wife with a snowball containing a rock, which causes her to go into premature labor and give birth to the underweight Paul Dempster. (This is an early 20th Century level of obstetrics, you understand.)

The rest of the book is a fascinating weave of Canadian social and political history from the 1910s thru the 1960s as Dunstan, Paul and Percy Boyd (now the raffish "Boy") Staunton are pushed together by the whims of fate. Boy and Paul become world famous in very different ways. Not bad for two kids from the sticks and Dunstan, the humble schoolteacher, has reason to envy them. Or does he? A "fifth business" is theater talk for a leavener, a kind of enzyme agent that, while not significant in itself, makes other things happen.

As the amazon-dot-com reviewer from Singapore so brilliantly pointed out, the novel contains elements of magical realism. Don't confuse Fifth Business with your basic American sprawling bestseller. This is heady yet subtle stuff. Not for nothing is Fifth Business required reading in Grade 13 of the Ontario public school system. (Yes, Grade THIRTEEN--no wonder Canadian kids are so smart.)

I would recommend you buy the paperback Fifth Business/World of Wonders/Manticore trilogy. It only costs a little more than buying Fifth Business by itself, and more than likely you'll want to read the other books once you've finished Fifth Business.

Rating:
Summary: Great Beginning for the Trilogy
Review: Robertson Davies' Fifth Business is the beginning of a trilogy that has become legendary in Canadian literary life. It took moving to America for me to finally begin these novels and I am glad that I have done so. This first book begins the series of novels off on a strong note. Dunstan Ramsay weaves a wonderful narrative as he explores the life lived below the surface of this staid history professor at a boys' school. The novel moves through geography and chronology as the various people in his life become twice born, dropping one identity and taking another (demonstrated by the creation of a new name). Things are never quite so simple as the past lives come crashing in at odd times into their new lives. It is a wonderfully magical and mystical (in many senses) journey and will be a delight to the reader. I look forward to the other two books in the Deptford trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: A compelling finish.
Review: The best way to approach Fifth business is to read it in small installments. This is definitely not a read until sunrise book. This is a true Saga, leaving out plenty of unnecessary detail. It covers the life of one man, almost desperately trying to prove that he has lived a full and interesting life. As the reader, you are to judge this by paying attention to his bizarre but captivating hobbies in life. Most people don't want to read about dubious sex scenes, nor sinners and saints. Davies draws on our own feeling, we all have our own unique interests in life and find that relating to Ramsay is easy. The ending is not so much of a shocker as a pleasant conclusion to a story which nearing the finish has been dragged out somewhat. None the less what makes this book a great read is how it sets the scene for the next installment of the Deptford trilogy (The manticore) which is twice as wonderful, though pointless without reading fifth business. None the less there are great lessons of life to be learned, and a vaguely true generalisation of Canadians. A fair read, though a great trilogy. Three stars.