Fifth Business, The Manticore, And World Of Wonders

Overview[edit]

The trilogy consists of Fifth Business (1970), The Manticore (1972), and World of Wonders (1975). The series revolves around a simple act—a young boy throws a snowball at another, but it misses its intended target—and the effect this act has on a number of characters.
The Deptford Trilogy has won praise for its narrative voice and its use of character. Fifth Business, in particular, is considered one of Davies' best novels.
The trilogy takes its name from the fictional small village of Deptford, Ontario, based on Davies' native Thamesville. Davies takes a different viewpoint in each of the novels, and approaches each in a different style. The sometimes eerie tone and unconventional literary devices have evoked some to identify
The novel takes the form of a letter Ramsay writes to the headmaster of the school, from which he has just retired. He recalls how as a boy, he ducked the fateful snowball intended for him. The snowball hit a pregnant woman who happened to be passing by; she gave birth prematurely as a result. This incident has affected Ramsay's life, and the novel tells how he comes to terms with his feelings of guilt. Intertwined with his story is the life of Percy Boyd 'Boy' Staunton, Ramsay's boyhood friend who threw the snowball, and who later became a wealthy
World of Wonders[edit]

World of Wonders is the story of Paul Dempster, the son of the woman hit by the snowball, who has grown up to be Magnus Eisengrim, a famous magician. Eisengrim is to portray Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin in a television movie. During lulls in the filming, he recounts his life, including the incredible obstacles he has had to overcome, and elaborates on his career as an actor traveling through Canada in the early 20th century. Dunstan Ramsay is again in attendance, and more insight is gained into the characters of Fifth Business.
Dunstan Ramsay[edit]

Dunstan Ramsay is the narrator of both "Fifth Business" and "World of Wonders" (although in "World of Wonders" he is not the main character of the plot). He also appears as a major character in "The Manticore", and appears in several other novels by Davies. Ramsay is a gentle schoolmaster with surprising depths and is probably the stand-in for Davies himself. (Since Davies has said [2] that the main business of a writer is to be an enchanter, a weaver of spells, a magician, it is likely that Dempster/Eisengrim is in some sense a stand-in for Davies as well.) Ramsay counsels his students to write in "the plain style", as Davies does—to highlight the story rather than the writer. Ramsay also appears in the novels What's Bred in the Bone and "The Lyre of Orpheus" of Davies' Cornish Trilogy, and in the later