Rating: 
Summary: One out of three
Review: "The Fifth Business", the first book in this trilogy, was riveting and beautifully written. Like a few other reviewers, I would recommend that future readers consider skipping the next two books, depending on their fondness for the characters and need to know the exact circumstances of the death of Boy Staunton, as the books become increasingly didactic. For most people, I imagine, the excellence of the first book will push them through the next two. Certainly, there are much worse ways to spend your time.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is an experience
Review: A correspondent recommended Robertson Davies to me as not only a distinguished man of letters, but also a unique and entertaining novelist. After reading this trilogy, I could not agree more. I am delighted with his writing, and the stories. A pure delight from beginning to end. He has been an actor, a publisher, and a university professor, and was educated at Oxford, among other places--all of which would be unimportant to the reader of fiction if he did not also have a genius for storytelling, which he did. His death, in 1995, was a great loss. I say that because I have read these stories, and I'm sorry that there won't be more. From other reviews you will get an idea of the subject matter. No need to embellish what has been so well said by others. I loved this man's writing: his erudition and command of the subjects he covered--the world of the theater, carnivals, legerdemain and illusion, and his obvious depth of knowledge of Jungian psychoanalysis was entertaining and educational. I am going to be looking for more books by Robertson Davies.
Rating:
Summary: "You Never Can Tell."
Review: At 5:58 p.m. on the 27th of December, 1908, a young kid throws a rock-laden snowball at his friend, and hits a minister's wife instead. She falls to the ground... and that's apparently enough to launch Robertson Davies into one of the most intricately woven stories you will ever read! In a 1992 lecture, Davies said that the last book in this trilogy could be summed up by saying... "you never can tell."
The Deptford Trilogy braids the diverse lives of three main characters who achieve their respective fame in wholly different ways. One, as a schoolteacher/hagiologist; one as an entrepeneur/financier; and the other as a master magician/illusionist. Each book focuses in its order on the above mentioned characters respectively. But the theme of "you never can tell" is consistent throughout. It is brilliant how Davies disperses these characters and then brings them back together, and while these reunions sometimes totter on the very edge of the overly contrived (or improbable), they always seem to fall back on the near side of believability. He literally stuffs the envelope of circumstance without lapsing into the absurd. We are left with the sense that the events of these stories could have happened to anyone... yet these events are, in themselves, so magnificent! Does this mean that each of our own simple lives have similar potential for greatness? I believe Davies would answer with a resounding "Definitely!" He once said, "You never can tell where something quite extraordinary and unexpected will come about. In a little Ontario village three men may be born so closely together that their lives run parallel courses, who may influence the world in quite different ways." He shows us in the Deptford Trilogy how (seemingly) insignificant beginnings can lead to tremendous endings. In fact, nothing that happens in life is insignificant. I can't imagine anyone wading into Fifth Business and wanting out before they finished World Of Wonders. December 2nd, 1995 saw the passing of Robertson Davies; the loss of a man of letters whom John Irving considered to be "the greatest comic novelist in the English language since Charles Dickens." Read the Deptford Trilogy, and you will wish, as I do, that there were an answer to the question... "What has Mr. Davies written lately?"
Rating:
Summary: Engaging, entertaining, mystifying and expansive!
Review: Confession! I have read this triology three times. Once in the traditional order (first book first...), another time out of order (second book first), and a third time in backward order. Why? Because these three novels fit together like an intricate 1,000 piece jig-saw and I am fascinated each time I delve into this magical world to find new connections. Who murdered Boy Stanton? (because on top of everything it's a murder mystery). Or was it murder at all? Who is Mary, the deranged wife (and possible saint) of the Baptist preacher? (because the overarching theme of these books is the soul and its refinement). And what is the true nature of Wolf, the son of the Baptist preacher and Mary who runs away with a circus, who becomes a world-renowned master magician? (because the plot of these books is the development of character over a lifetime). Do I have you hooked? In these pages I have met some of fiction's most endearing and enduring characters, who have become real to me. The giant woman Lisele, the geek, the insane saint, the confused son of the politician, the Shakespearean actors and the locations they inhabit that become the mystical frontier where once they were as ordinary as Canada and a bear cave---OK, bear caves are not that ordinary, but once you read these books, you will feel you've been to that bear cave with Lisele and David and that you too have experienced the power of the bear magic. This triology is about magic! Every character possesses some magic from the magic of political charisma, to the magic of shamanic powers, to the cunning magic of an illusionist. But central, of course is the search for Self that takes on magical and mythical qualities. Is this enough to get you to order this pronto? Let me then, throw this in, Robertson Davies is one of the best writers living today. His style is lyrical, witty, entertaining, probing and flowing. He is Charles Dickens at a higher spiritual level and with deeper plot development. But he IS epic. With this triology, under your belt, you'll be hungry for his others. Although my own judgment is that they are not as deeply probing and consequently not as deeply satisfying as this one, with the possible exception of THE CORNISH TRIOLOGY. Happy reading! And, I'd love to hear what you think of these books, so write me
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't get much better
Review: Davies is one of the best writers living or dead. I read the trilogy one, two, three. The second was a bit slow and I missed some of the characters from the first. But the second is a necessary read and only the lesser by comparison to the other two. The third wraps it up and leaves you satisfied. Davies novels are not a short read, but are always well worth the time.
Rating:
Summary: Deep and moving
Review: Even though this is technically three books, it reads as one, in fact I couldn't imagine reading any of them by itself. Reading only one simply wouldn't give you the depth. The characters in this book are quite well done, Davies has a gift of showing even ordinary characters as interesting, and throughout the trilogy he constantly shines a light on new and hidden qualities of all the characters. He is not an action oriented writer though, so if you are looking for a page turner you best look elsewhere. But if you're looking for intelligent yet accessible writing this set really gives the goods. Of the three books, The Manticore and World of Wonders fare the best, deep yet they still move forward at a steady pace. Fifth Business is good as well, but since this has to pack all the information that you need for the next two books, it loses a bit of its focus along the way.
Rating:
Summary: READ THIS TRILOGY!!! ;0)
Review: Fifth Business is a novel of depth and plot, of success and irony. Davies has constructed a wonderfully imaginative and colourful plot based on his own experiences. He convinces both Dunstan and the reader that life needs a fulfilment that comes through inner peace. I would recommend the trilogy to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: A world of wonders, truly.
Review: Frankly, I regard "Fifth Business" as the best book I have ever read, of any sort. Never have I read a book as fresh, as inventive, as rich in creating its own world, its own spell. "The Manticore" and "World of Wonders" suffer slightly in comparison, but still the trilogy ranks as a high point of imaginative literature in the English language in the 20th century. Never will I forget Dunstan Ramsay's obsession with saints, or with Mary Dempster, to his mind the most perfect of saints; never will I forget the story of how Paul Dempster, uneducated carny and abused child, was tempered like a bottle in the smoke to become Magnus Eisengrim, the magnificent, the nonpareil. Davies creates a magic world here, one I think most readers will not be able to resist.
Rating:
Summary: A world of wonders, truly.
Review: Frankly, I regard "Fifth Business" as the best book I have ever read, of any sort. Never have I read a book as fresh, as inventive, as rich in creating its own world, its own spell. "The Manticore" and "World of Wonders" suffer slightly in comparison, but still the trilogy ranks as a high point of imaginative literature in the English language in the 20th century. Never will I forget Dunstan Ramsay's obsession with saints, or with Mary Dempster, to his mind the most perfect of saints; never will I forget the story of how Paul Dempster, uneducated carny and abused child, was tempered like a bottle in the smoke to become Magnus Eisengrim, the magnificent, the nonpareil. Davies creates a magic world here, one I think most readers will not be able to resist.
Rating:
Summary: One of the finest works in the English language!
Review: How do you talk about a man who can write like a prose Shakespeare, has knowledge of more "trivia" than the host of Jeopardy, and has both a sense of humour and an insight into the agony and splendour of the human condition? Supposedly these works are tracking down the question "Who Killed Boy Stanton?", but that is almost beside the point. Here are mystic journeys in search of obscure saints, the comparison between magic and miracles, the use of stones in snowballs, how to deal with students, psychiatrists, and overbearing boors, and what its really like to run away to the circus. You cannot read this book once; you have to read it multiple times, each time gaing even more than the last. This is brilliance itself, and yet none of these works ended up on the Top 100 Books List of the 20th Century. "Why" is a matter open to criminal investigation!
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