Rating: 
Summary: It doesn't get much better
Review: Robertson Davies creates honest, interesting characters that intrigue us for same reasons real people intigue us: they are intelligent and thoughtful, but still manage to blunder in big and small ways.The trilogy's three characters have each come to the confessional points of their lives, and share with their audience their life stories, their mistakes, and the elements of their experiences that established their personalities. To me, this trilogy is great for the small things: for the way certain characters can't seem to escape their vices, though they wish to; for the witty exchanges between characters (especially Liesl--I hope I got her name right!) reminiscent of Jane Austen's stagy repartees. It's a about people, not events. In fact, I find The Deptford Trilogy incredibly difficult to explain to people, and more difficult to dress attractively. So don't trust reviewers: read the first book, "The Fifth Business" (it's short: less than 300pp) and go from there.
Rating:
Summary: An unexpected pleasure
Review: Robertson Davies creates honest, interesting characters that intrigue us for same reasons real people intigue us: they are intelligent and thoughtful, but still manage to blunder in big and small ways. The trilogy's three characters have each come to the confessional points of their lives, and share with their audience their life stories, their mistakes, and the elements of their experiences that established their personalities. To me, this trilogy is great for the small things: for the way certain characters can't seem to escape their vices, though they wish to; for the witty exchanges between characters (especially Liesl--I hope I got her name right!) reminiscent of Jane Austen's stagy repartees. It's a about people, not events. In fact, I find The Deptford Trilogy incredibly difficult to explain to people, and more difficult to dress attractively. So don't trust reviewers: read the first book, "The Fifth Business" (it's short: less than 300pp) and go from there.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful Literary Gem!
Review: Robertson Davies has sadly left our world. And what we have is a wonderful corpus of literature that is imaginative, provacative and captivating. Among his excellent writing, the Deptford trilogy is his very best. Of the three, I would say that Fifth Business is the best book, an almost cartain influence upon John Irving's Prayer for Owen Meany. At once, Davies weaves a tale of childhood and tragedy, mysticism and religion. I was enthralled by each book. Davies' wonderful ability to write trilogies that use the same characters, but from the different perspectives of his many characters is brilliant. Here, we have three autonomous stories that intersect and overlap, but one could in fact read the trilogy in reverse order and still find that it coheres. His humour is unmatched. Davies writes with a biting wit that cuts with razor sharpness. He uses an ironic narrative that will always not only make one laugh, but laugh thoughtfully. He makes us think of life and love. Davies was never appreciated as much as he should have been outside of Canada. These books are timeless and worth being on anyone's shelf.
Rating: 
Summary: A rattling good read
Review: Robertson Davies is, above all things, a raconteur, and the greatest pleasure of these three interconnected Bildungsromans is that each offers pure narrative pleasure as they each plow through the events in a different man's life, all of which are connected in some way or another with the miraculous and the fantastic. One of the larger concerns of the trilogy as a whole is made evident in the title of the first book, FIFTH BUSINESS: can people be said to 'star' in their own lives, or are they simply bit players in the lives of the more important? The three books go about answering this question in radically different ways, but each offers its own delights and its own enounter with the "world of wonders" existing at the edge of quotidian life. Along the way, the books also offer the scholarly pleasures that Robertson Davies novels always allow: you wind up *learning* more after reading his books about some arcane lore than you do through reading almost any other (nearly-)contemporary novelist.
Rating:
Summary: Rich
Review: The Deptford Trilogy is a rich, rewarding read, encompassing layers upon layers of plot, theme, character. Liesl is one of the most singular characters I've come across in fiction. At the backbone of this trilogy is a mystery, yet Davies' prose is so sprawling (yet concise!...all three books total under 900 pages!) that the mystery seems almost peripheral to everything else that is going on. When you begin Fifth Business, you'll be fooled into thinking it's another standard coming-of-age narrative. You'll soon realize how wrong you are. Sadly, World of Wonders is the weakest, seeming rather unnecessary, and exposing the story of a mysterious character perhaps better left mysterious, but it's still a good read. Fifth Business and Manticore, however, are stunning works of literary fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Rich
Review: The Deptford Trilogy is a rich, rewarding read, encompassing layers upon layers of plot, theme, character. Liesl is one of the most singular characters I've come across in fiction. At the backbone of this trilogy is a mystery, yet Davies' prose is so sprawling (yet concise!...all three books total under 900 pages!) that the mystery seems almost peripheral to everything else that is going on. When you begin Fifth Business, you'll be fooled into thinking it's another standard coming-of-age narrative. You'll soon realize how wrong you are. Sadly, World of Wonders is the weakest, seeming rather unnecessary, and exposing the story of a mysterious character perhaps better left mysterious, but it's still a good read. Fifth Business and Manticore, however, are stunning works of literary fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: A classical novel in a Canadian setting
Review: The Fifth Business describes the life and feelings of Dunstan Ramsey, a schoolmaster and a religious writer whose aim in life is to explore its limits and live a moral life. His friendship with Boy Stauton - a successful businessman, socialite and an amateur politician - presents moral dilemas and opportunities for personal advancement. His association with Paul Dempster, an accomplished magician whose career Dunstan launched, introduces and pursues an element of mystery and deeper meanings in life. Fifth Business is highly readable and presents a broad panorama of life over the span of one's life, in the tradition of European novels such as those written by Thomas Mann or Hermann Hesse. In its broad scope the novel treats its characters as stylized creations that - by design - lack the intensity and vulnerability that one expects from a true-to-life piece of fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Davies' Deptford Trilogy - A MUST-read!
Review: The only bad thing about Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy (FIFTH BUSINESS, THE MANTICORE, WORLD OF WONDERS) is that it had to end! Sparklingly clever, bawdy, poignant, erudite, and laugh-out-loud funny, Davies entertains in a wonderfully rich, old-world style. A friend of mine (who recommended the books, and to whom I will be forever grateful) put it this way: "Reading Robertson Davies is like sitting in a plush, wood-paneled library--in a large leather chair with a glass of excellent brandy and a crackling fire--and being captivated with a fabulous tale spun by a wonderful raconteur."
Rating:
Summary: He deserved to win the Nobel
Review: The reading of Fifth Business (of the Deptford trilogy) is a coming of age rite in Canada. No other work of Canadian fiction comes close to the style and psychological depth of the books in the Deptford Trilogy (Stone Angel by Laurence and In the Skin of a Lion by Ondaatje come close). The Manticore was in part responsible for turning me toward psychology as my undergraduate major. Robertson Davies fashioned other fine works after Fifth Business (The Cornish trilogy is sublime) but there is an aura that surrounds the Deptford Trilogy which is unique in literature. My office at the University of Toronto is not far from Massey College where Davies was chancellor, and where he "set" Rebel Angels. I think of him, or perhaps Parlabane from the Rebel Angels, as I pass it on the way to Davies' beloved Hart House. On cold winter nights I wish that I would find Davies' ghost gliding through the Hart House library, or rubbing its hands by the hearth in the reading room. I would beg him to tell me the plot of the fourth novel in the Deptford Trilogy.
Rating: 
Summary: The Depth-less Trilogy
Review: There are two kinds of books: great books and bad books. Robertson Davies has written a bad book. The Deptford Trilogy is a collection of autobiographical accounts from three people about their lives and how they came to care very much about the events surrounding the death of Boy Staunton, a rich sugar magnate who was murdered. The biggest problem with this book is that it lacks a central theme, a crucial element to guide a reader through the book. As a result the reader is left wondering throughout the book, "why am I reading this book?" There isn't much interest as to who killed Boy Staunton either. In fact you don't care that the character Boy Staunton is dead because Davies has failed to develop any of the characters in the book into someone that we could care to know let alone read about. Davies writes about their lives and what happens to them without really sharing with us their fears, ambitions, needs, desires or dissapointments: the very things that would have made this an exciting read. Where are the triumps, the failures, the agonies of defeat, the emotions of love, betrayal, anger? Davies tried to write a book that could transport his readers into another world. One where strange and intriging characters lived and discovered the wonderful theatre of life. Well....at least he tried.
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