Fifth Business (The Deptford Trilogy, #1) in Never too Late to Read Classics

Jan 27, 2012 Yair Ben-Zvi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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There's something distinctly lacking in a lot of modern literature that this somewhat more antiquated piece of literature has in spades: enthusiasm. In fact, not since the better prose of Saul Bellow have I experienced a literature so determinedly skillful and driven to a single point, that point being adventurous literary exploration and analysis of themes and ideas fettered smoothly to the act of storytelling; that the depth of theme never overshadows the exigencies of storytelling puts Robert ...more

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Nov 06, 2019 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2019, classics, read-the-world-2018-2020, read-the-world, war, 1001-books, canadian

Fifth Business is the first book of Davies’ Deptford trilogy, and if the other two are half as good as this I am in for a treat because this book was highly enjoyable. I am new to Robertson Davies and was glad to see that he has quite a few other books for me to hunt down. This series centers around the people in the small town, Deptford, Ontario. The main character, Dunstan Ramsay, narrates the story. He is intelligent and witty, and because he seems to have lived as an outsider, he has also be Fifth Business is the first book of Davies’ Deptford trilogy, and if the other two are half as good as this I am in for a treat because this book was highly enjoyable. I am new to Robertson Davies and was glad to see that he has quite a few other books for me to hunt down. This series centers around the people in the small town, Deptford, Ontario. The main character, Dunstan Ramsay, narrates the story. He is intelligent and witty, and because he seems to have lived as an outsider, he has also been a sharp-witted observer. Ramsay is a school teacher at an all boys' private school. Unmarried and childless he is a lonely man with no real friends. It seems the only person in his life is man named "Boy" who is more enemy than friend. Boy is married to the woman that Ramsay once desired. Boy is wealthy and popular. He is everything Ramsay is not; successful in a way that Ramsay has never been. He is also prideful and narcissistic and seems to enjoy reminding Ramsay of his superiority.

When the two were boys they were part of the same tragic moment that caused a woman to give birth to her child very early and led to a loss of cognition in the woman. These events changed Ramsay. He spent the rest of his childhood acting as a helpmate to the family, and his young-adulthood trying to escape the self-imposed guilt. He never really got over it. He lived with the events as a secret in his memory alone, and the guilt wrecked him. This one event shaped the person Ramsay became. Ramsay comes to think of this woman as perfect; saint-like. And he believes that she performs miracles. Never actually religious he is obsessed with saints and their role in history.

I really enjoyed Dunstan Ramsay as the narrator. As I mentioned above he was shrewdly observant of others but lacking in self-awareness. He is a bit unreliable because of that, and that makes his story more intriguing. Because of his quiet and intelligent observations we experience the realities of life in a small town at the beginning of the 20th century, and then the horror of World War 1.
But what about Boy? He was the person actually responsible, but the moment didn't linger in his consciousness. He shows us how our lives our intertwined with those around us and how every action we take impacts someone else. He quietly reminds us to choose wisely. And as we see how Boy has been impacted - or not - by the same events, we are reminded that even minor events can be major ones for someone else.

I found the book enjoyable, wise and charming. I will definitely read more of Davies' works.

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Apr 07, 2010 Jenny rated it it was amazing

As I read this book, I thought of the carefully drawn characters in Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel and Jest of God, the fantastic circus and journey across Europe in Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus, and the descriptions of the Pentacostal's in Jeanette Winterson's Oranges are not the Only Fruit. Robertson Davies has produced a more intellectual book than the others with its allusions to Freud and Jung and its ironic asides about Canadian politics.

The cover picture with eyes on all of ...more

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