Book Review: The Deptford Trilogy

By Robertson Davies

Published by Penguin Books

Reviewed by Stephen Keim

In mid-2010, when John, the consultant town planner, recommended The Manticore, the second book of Robertson Davies’ The Deptford Trilogy as the latest task for the Blokes’ Book Club, I was faced with a dilemma. I had little time to spare. However, more long standing members of the book club had read Fifth Business, the first of the trilogy, some years earlier, and would have me at a disadvantage in discussions. Besides, it seemed incongruous to buy the trilogy as a single volume (as Penguin now offered it) and start reading somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps the deciding factor was that three novels, albeit, a trilogy, would give me some defence against the repeated domestic criticism that I never read any novels. And, so, I waded in from the beginning.   

Robertson Davies is a Canadian writer.1 It seems that Australians, generally, do not have a great knowledge of the literature of their fellow former British colonies. Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables); Margaret Attwood; and, maybe, Leonard Cohen would be the limit of the Canadian writers most of us could call to mind on a typical night of trivial pursuit. Davies was born in 1913. He died in 1995. He was celebrated, not only in Canada, for his essays; literary criticism; humorous writing; and plays as well for his eleven novels.

The Deptford Trilogy is said to be influenced by Jungian philosophy. The characters in Fifth Business are said to be based on Jungian character types. The uninformed reader is alerted to at least some connection with Jung by the start of The Manticore where almost the whole of the text is a patient’s account of his consultations with a Jungian practitioner in Zurich.

Fifth Business commences with an incident in the little town of Deptford. As two friends return home on the evening of 27 December 1908, one throws a snowball which the other evades by anticipating and darting aside. However, the evading friend and narrator of the novel, Dunstan Ramsay, was walking close behind the local pastor and his wife, the Dempsters. As a result, the snowball strikes Mary Dempster, who is both young and pregnant, on the back of the head and she goes into premature labour and remains disturbed for the rest of her life.

This incident reverberates throughout the trilogy. The thrower of the snowball, Percy “Boy” Staunton becomes rich, influential and remains for Ramsay both his nemesis (albeit lacking insight of this and much else) and friend throughout his successful but prematurely shortened life.

Ramsay is the narrator of Fifth Business and spends much of his life as a schoolmaster who is, at the same time, highly regarded and unappreciated. He is a former and reluctant war hero. He has a passion for the study of saints and is highly regarded in that narrow field in which he has published many texts.

The prematurely born child, Paul Dempster, finds fame and fortune in an unusual field.

The three novels depict the relationships between these three characters and others who are close to one or more of them. While still a boy, Ramsay, still racked by guilt for his part in the snowball incident, is close to Paul and his mother with whom he falls in love. Staunton marries Dunstan’s childhood sweetheart, Leola, but Ramsay is, in many respects, closer to Leola than her husband for most of her married life. The reunion with Paul happens much later and in very different circumstances but proves very enriching for Dunstan who not only becomes close again to Paul but also to Paul’s friend and manager, the deformed but strangely beautiful and bisexual, Liesl.

The three novels, from different perspectives, retell significant aspects of the same narrative, namely, how Ramsay, Staunton and Paul Dempster took their respective Deptford heritage into their later lives and how those lives, as a result, unfolded. A mystery develops towards the end of Fifth Business. Each of the three novels throws a little more understanding upon that mystery.

Fifth Business is narrated by Ramsay, the crusty and retiring school teacher, in a letter to his headmaster (who has been given the position that is rightfully Dunstan’s). The Manticore is narrated by Staunton’s son, David, some time after his father’s death, and provides a detailed account of David’s treatment by Johanna von Haller, his Jungian therapist. David is a famous and very successful barrister in Toronto but feels that he had never won his father’s approval. He suffered a breakdown and began acting in an uncontrolled manner while attending the theatre to watch a famous illusionist perform. The novel, as well as taking a new look at past events through David’s eyes, describes his interaction with Dunstan, Paul Dempster and Liesl. This interaction provides the medium by which David takes the necessary steps to go beyond his treatment and discover a new way of resuming life.

World of Wonders is Paul Dempster’s story. A biographical film is being made of his life and, around the events of the film making, he tells his story to Dunstan and Liesl and two of the film makers. Dunstan is the novel’s narrator but the greater part of the narration is merely the recounting of Dempster’s words to Dunstan, Liesl and the film makers interspersed with caustic remarks from the listeners.

World of Wonders is the least satisfying of the three novels. I suspect that this is partially because, despite the new source of information, the detail of Dempster’s experiences does not add substantially to the core truths about Dempster that Dunstan had extracted and told in Fifth Business. The other reason for disappointment is that the further unfolding of the truth of the great mystery that straddles the three novels seems hardly worth the effort. Third, the egoistic personality of Paul Dempster, which shines through his narration and may be intended for comic effect, grated on this reviewer.

Trilogy writing is a difficult business. Each novel must stand on its own feet and must fit seamlessly into the group. Fine judgment is required. Perhaps, those readers who read the third novel as a stand alone would look with wonder upon the criticisms I have expressed above.

The unusual titles of the novels have particular significance. “Fifth business” is meant to be of operatic significance depicting a fifth character after hero, heroine, villain and confidante whose presence is necessary for the plot’s success. A manticore is a mythical beast, with a body of a lion and a face of a man, of Persian origin. In the novel, David Staunton dreams of such a beast and the beast is treated by Dr. von Haller as representing aspects of David’s personality.

World of Wonders represents the world of circuses and illusionism that is described in Paul Dempster’s narration. Throughout the trilogy, but especially in the final novel, Davies paints a picture of the freak as normal human person with normal human passions and obsessions, recalling a little the theme of all of the novels of John Irving but, especially, his A Son of a Circus, published in 1994.

Despite the reservations I hold about the third of the novels, The Deptford Trilogy is informative, thought provoking and entertaining. For those who are wont to brave the world of Canadian literature that lies beyond Anne of Green Gables and the novels of Ms. Attwood, The Trilogy provides an excellent jumping off point.

Footnote

1     The Canadian Encyclopaedia entry for Davies is here.