Le monde des merveilles

The Deptford Trilogy #3

by Robertson Davies

This is the third novel in Davies's major work, The Deptford Trilogy. This novel tells the life story of the unfortunate boy introduced in The Fifth Business, who was spirited away from his Canadian home by one of the members of a traveling side show, the Wanless World of Wonders.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Classics, Literature, Literary Fiction, Novels, Canadian Literature

417 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

William Robertson Davies, CC, FRSC, FRSL (died in Orangeville, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is sometimes said to have detested. Davies was the founding Master of Massey College, a graduate college at the University of Toronto.

Novels:

The Salterton Trilogy
• Tempest-tost (1951)
• Leaven of Malice (1954)
• A Mixture of Frailties (1958)
The Deptford Trilogy
• Fifth Business (1970)
• The Manticore (1972)
• World of Wonders (1975)
The Cornish Trilogy
• The Rebel Angels (1981)
• What's Bred in the Bone (1985)
• The Lyre of Orpheus (1988)
The Toronto Trilogy (Davies' final, incomplete, trilogy)
• Murther and Walking Spirits (1991)
• The Cunning Man (1994)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertso...

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Canadian Gothic: The Uses of Illusion

If the first part of the Deptford Trilogy, Fifth Business, explores the bare facts of rural Canada on the turn to a more civilized and ethnicly diverse culture; and if the second part, The Manticore, suggests the fundamental ideas that shape these facts; then this third part, World of Wonders, provides the parallel universe of feeling that is the substrate of both facts and ideas. World of Wonders retells the previous stories, filling in the missing material necessary to understand the comprehensive illusion that Davies has created.

Is there a definable boundary between fictional, or for that matter everyday, illusion and the truth? Illusion demands extreme attention to detail in order to work. If truth is in the detail, then illusion is at least a kind of truth, a truth of feeling perhaps rather than a truth of facts or ideas. It is a truth about what we want to be true. Not all illusion therefore qualifies as truthful. Truthful illusion must be willed by both the illusionist and those who experience him. This is what makes illusion an art form rather than a lie. The highest expression of this art form is theatre, a place where feeling expressed and feeling perceived meet to create an illusory but authentic world.

World of Wonders is about the art of theatrical illusion and how it is produced. It takes an incredible amount of experience as well as talent to touch the unexpressed desires of an audience. Dexterity, timing, memory, and courage are the minimal skills involved. But these personal skills are only a foundation. Theatrical illusion requires sharply honed coordination among a cast that includes at least as many in back of the stage as in front of it. Creating truthful illusion therefore is a social, even a managerial, task of dense complexity.

What is sought by an audience to illusion is wonder, the feeling that there is living mystery in the most mundane of things. Wonder is a spiritual state, an awareness of the transcendent, most thoroughly investigated by the Austrian-American theologian Peter Berger. Berger's book, The Social Construction of Reality, touches precisely the same themes as Wonders of the World: the nature of reality, the feeling of truth, the desire for the 'beyond'. Oswald Spengler called this the Magian World View; Max Weber called it Enchantment. Berger's death earlier this year emphasizes for me both the importance of these themes as well as their datedness in today's Trumpian loss of culture, including its banal degradation of religion.

Davies knows how to keep his fictional illusion about the creation of illusion going at just the right pace. He knows the details that are essential to its credibility. And he knows from experience how his audience will react. In the final section of World of Wonders, Davies has his symbolic protagonists from each of the three books in bed together arguing the merits of facts, ideas and feelings. He is, in short, a master of illusion and its truthfulness, a literally wonderful writer.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 5 star rating of this book really reflects my feelings on how I think Davies masterfully wrapped up the Deptford trilogy than it does an individual rating for this volume itself (don’t get me wrong, it’s great, but I think Fifth Business is the strongest, and best, volume in the trilogy). I guess I’d say that the individual books themselves range from around 3.5 to 4.5 stars, but the series overall is a five star read. As with all of the Deptford books _World of Wonders_ is a personal memoir that gives us further insight, from yet another angle, into the lives and motivations of the characters we met in earlier volumes, most of whom hailed from the small Ontario town of Deptford. The ‘problems’ of the memoir style itself (the inescapable desire to make oneself into the hero, the inability to really understand the motivations and actions of others from one's limited point of view, the unreliability of looking back onto the past from the vantage of the present) are perhaps brought even more to the fore in this volume than they were in the others as we sit back and listen to the harrowing tale of the life of the mysterious magus Magnus Eisengrim, né Paul Dempster.

Magnus, along with our old friends Dunstan Ramsay and Leisl Vitzliputzli, is in the midst of starring in a film in which he is portraying the legendary conjurer Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. During the course of filming, and in a completely characteristic attempt to demonstrate his own personal greatness and provide a ‘sub-text’ to the film, Eisengrim decides to reveal to his friends and the filmmaker’s entourage the details of his life that led to his becoming, in his own words, the greatest conjurer that has ever lived. It is certainly not a story that bears any resemblance to the romantic ‘biography’ fashioned by Ramsay as a piece of propaganda for Eisengrim’s Soiree of Illusions. What we are instead presented with is a tale of abuse, loneliness, and fortitude as we see young Paul Dempster kidnapped from his awful home in Deptford only to have it replaced by an awful purgatory in the travelling carnival Wanless' World of Wonders.

Eisengrim (only the last in a long line of many aliases) is truly a ‘self-made man’. As he himself mentions, the treatment and conditions under which he lived from the age of ten onwards were of a kind that would either have killed him early or strengthened him beyond expectation. Luckily for Paul Dempster the latter proved to be the case. We see how a lonely, frightened boy could be transformed into the monster of ego and talent that was Magnus Eisengrim, and once again observe how the ripples of effect from one small action (the throwing of that fateful snowball on a cold winter day in Deptford in 1908) helped shape yet another life. Eisengrim, for all of his suffering, is not a sympathetic hero (though hero he is, in all of his outsized grandeur) and once again it is fascinating to see the same characters and actions from the previous volumes of the trilogy as viewed through a completely different lens. Luckily (in my opinion at least) we once again have the voice of Dunstan Ramsay, that clever old schoolmaster and saint-hunter, though in a decidedly minor key. Eisengrim is certainly not going to let anyone interfere with his own personal hagiography, but Ramsay’s caustic tongue is given some range of expression and his scholar’s eye is always on the look-out for ‘the truth’(at least inasmuch as he is able to perceive it).

We discover in this tale the final pieces of the puzzle in the coming together of Magnus, Leisl and Ramsay and the production of that great work of illusion and art, the life of Magnus Eisengrim (as depicted in his own Soiree of Illusions), but I will leave the details of Paul Dempster’s ‘hero’s journey’ to you. Rest assured that the culmination of it is a thoroughly entertaining, one might even say enlightening, tale that takes us very far indeed from the environs of little Deptford but still manages to come full circle and comment on the series that was born there as a whole. Boy Staunton, that unchallenged giant and yet largely obscure figure in the lives of others, makes his final appearance and we can now look back on the many stories of the Stauntons, the Ramsays and the Dempsters in order to get a much fuller (though still never really complete) picture of those intertwined lives that affected each other in such significant ways. So, I would guess, do all of our lives (knowingly or unknowingly) intertwine and create an inextricable web of story and interdependence, whether we realize it or not.

Also posted at Shelf Inflicted

[Darwin8u · Rating 4 out of 5]

So bizarre. So perfect. So Canada.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yay, Ramsay is back! Not that David Staunton was a terrible narrator, but I will always, always have a soft spot in my heart for that irascible old teacher, descended from Scots and obsessed with saints. And now here he is, back to narrating the book. Sort of.

Although Ramsay is technically the narrator, he is consigned to the frame story, and Magnus Eisengrim (or Paul Dempster, back when he was from Deptford) takes centre stage. World of Wonders is notable if only for the fact that most of the paragraphs begin with an opening quotation mark, as the majority of the story gets retold via dialogue—almost a monologue, in fact, though there are crucial points where the listeners to Eisengrim's tale interrupt and interject.

The book takes its title from the carnival that abducted Paul on that fateful day back in Deptford. This event, combined with the interest in prestidigitation that the young Ramsay had awakened, would set Paul on the trajectory for the rest of his life. We get to learn what makes Magnus Eisengrim so different from anyone else, especially when it comes to his utter lack of a formal education and his ignorance of any culture or literature that is not Biblical. Much as various characters entered and exited the lives of Dunstan Ramsay and David Staunton in the first two books, each one shaping the narrator in some way, we see the effects each character in Magnus' autobiography have on his own life.

Yet I should not neglect the frame story. Ramsay explains that they are all at Sorgenfrei, Liesl's estate, to finish filming a biopic about the famous French conjurer, Robert-Houdin. Magnus happens to be portraying Robert-Houdin, and they determine that it would be best if he provides some subtext, in the form of an autobiography. Magnus is at that point in his life, Liesl observes, where he is feeling confessional, and so they gather around him to hear his tale. We hear an interesting life story, but we also get a meditation on the art of autobiography.

I think it's fair to compare the Deptford trilogy to the works of John Irving, in that both Davies and Irving tend to focus on recounting the lifetime of a single main character, subsuming plot to the character's own development. However, the Deptford trilogy is a lot more meta and self-aware. In Fifth Business and The Manticore, this is particularly obvious in Ramsay's discussion of saints and David's flirtation with Jungian psychoanalysis. Now with World of Wonders Davies focuses on how we perceive ourselves, and, in particular, how we tell our life stories. Throughout Magnus' confession, his listeners interrupt him to discuss not only what he tells them but how he tells it, how he portrays his younger self and how he editorializes the story. It just so happens—through one of those miracles of coincidence owing to an author's creative license—that the producer of the film, Ingestree, knew Magnus in one of his previous lives. Magnus recognized this the moment he saw Ingestree, but Ingestree only realizes it as Magnus starts telling his story. So we get a parallel account of parts of Magnus' life through Ingestree's eyes. Each of them potrays the other in a rather unflattering light, and each admits his own past self was an ass. Whether you wish to believe such contrition or choose, instead, to believe that each is secretly fuming at how the other portrayed him is ultimately up to you.

So the art of autobiography is ultimately an unreliable one. That probably isn't a big shock, but Davies does explore this theme in a masterful way. And he connects the main story and this theme to the overarching plot of the trilogy. Other reviews insist that the central question—the "mystery," if you will—of the Deptford trilogy is, "Who killed Boy Staunton?" I have to disagree, however, because I just can't get worked up about that. The Deptford trilogy is not a mystery series, and while the question is of interest to some of the characters, it's of little relevance to us as readers.

No, what I find more interesting is how the death of Boy affected the other characters: David, Ramsay, and even Magnus. In the coda to A World of Wonders, Ramsay broaches the question again as he, Liesl, and Magnus are having a nightcap in bed. They discuss Liesl and Magnus' roles, for Liesl was the voice of the Brazen Head of Friar Bacon that answered the question David shouted in that crowded theatre. Magnus was probably the last person who saw Boy Staunton alive, for Boy gave him a ride back to his hotel after Ramsay introduced them on that fateful night. And Magnus recounts what Boy said about Ramsay. I really liked hearing that, because it provided access, albeit second hand, to a narrative perspective we had lacked so far: the voice of Boy Staunton himself. Ramsay portrays him in an unflattering light in Fifth Business, and as much as I love Ramsay, he is hardly an unbiased narrator. It was good to hear another perspective on my favourite character in this series, especially one that suggests alternative motives for why Ramsay introduced Magnus to Boy and why he had kept that stone for so long.

Ultimately, the trilogy is not about answering, "Who killed Boy Staunton?," though in the end, it does answer the question. It is instead an incredibly intricate, interconnected telling of lives, love, and relationships. It has a subtext grounded firmly both in Jungian analysis and in interesting perspectives on the flexibility of art, autobiography, and education. Each book in the trilogy is amazing in its own peculiar way, and though I think Fifth Business remains my favourite, its dominance is by a small margin. The Manticore was a fascinating look at psychoanalysis and how our mind casts others as characters in our own stories. World of Wonders continues this autobiographical theme, always questioning its own premise for existing: that of a single, central character relative to whom everyone else has a mere supporting role.

This is the type of book where there are few passages I feel like quoting outright, mostly because they are not as profound when taken out of context, but I wish I could somehow distill the entire book into a quotation-sized passage for others to read. It's just that good, that essential—by which I mean, this trilogy conveys emotions and meaning that seem obvious when one encounters them, but that, until one encounters them in this form, might never occur to one at all. World of Wonders and the rest of the Deptford trilogy is a labour of love that in turn has taken on a life of its own. What Davies has done here is what literature should do, what it does best: tap into something deep, dark, and true about the human psyche and dredge it up for the world to see. He has exposed us, all of us to the light of introspection and critical thought. His characters are neither good nor bad but complex quagmires of passions, obsessions, recriminations and doubts; they are people, and through them we think more about ourselves.

I started re-reading Fifth Business because I remembered liking it. I had read the other two books, but they had not left as much as an impression. Now, having finished the entire trilogy for a second time, I cannot overstate my appreciation of it enough. This is a work I consider a truly timeless classic, and I am very glad I took the time to re-experience it at this stage in my life. In a year, or five years, or a decade from now, however long it is before I re-read it again, I suspect I will get something different out of it. I am certain, however, that its importance and significance to me will not diminish.

My Reviews of the Deptford Trilogy:
← The Manticore

[Caro the Helmet Lady · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I thought that maybe third book in Deptford Trilogy will save it all after the underwhelming (for me) second installation.
Nope. No more daddy issues thanks god, but still, nope.

And I must say most of the reasons for me not liking it are very personal - reader personal, I'll mark. I don't like stories about traveling shows of Great Depression era, I just don't and if can choose I choose not to read these. But I had no choice here, I just had to finish this trilogy. I don't like stories about child abuse. Especially sexual abuse. The light tone narrator (former abused child) takes on it doesn't make it less horrible.

Davies being a great writer weaved his story all right but at some point I realized I just didn't care for it all anymore. There's nothing new to learn about the old characters - most important things happened in the book one and everything else felt like a long, very descriptive cotton filler. I really get what Davies was trying to do here but for me it just didn't work.

I still find the first book just great and I wish he made it a bit thicker and the story in it longer and avoided writing number two and three. But if wishes were fishes, right?

[Panagiotis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Με το World of Wonders κλείνει η τριλογία του Ντέπτφορντ – μια επική διήγηση, μέσα από τις φωνές τριών διαφορετικών χαρακτήρων, στην οποία το καθημερινό και το ανθρώπινο αποκτά διαστάσεις μύθου. Ο Ρόμπερτσον μοιάζει να λέει πως η ζωή είναι ένα μεγάλο θεατρικό, ένα έργο στο οποίο ο καθένας βλέπει τον εαυτό του σαν πρωταγωνιστή. Είναι, όμως ελάχιστοι εκείνοι που κινούν τα νήματα, αυτοί οι λίγοι με το χάρισμα του πρωταγωνιστή, του αστέρα, στους οποίους τα φώτα πέφτουν πάνω. Οι υπόλοιποι είμαστε κομπάρσοι. Οι συμβολισμοί στο βιβλίο, οι μύθοι, τα επαναλαμβανόμενα μοτίβα που μας κάνουν να δίνουν ένα νόημα στο πανηγυράκι που αρχίζει και τελειώνει για όλους μας ακριβώς με τον ίδιο τρόπο, είναι ένα βασικό στοιχείο του βιβλίου, που δίνει κάτι το μαγικό στις ζωές των πρωταγωνιστών του.

Βλέποντας κανείς τον βαθμό θα θεωρήσει πως είναι ένα βιβλίο αντίστοιχο των προηγούμενων, πως τίποτα δεν με προβλημάτισε, και τελικά έκλεισα τις σελίδες χαρούμενος και ικανοποιημένος. Και όμως! Τα φαινόμενα απατούν, και τα τέσσερα αστέρια έπεσαν με βαρύ, προβληματισμένο χέρι. Γιατί, θα αναρωτηθεί κανείς, μήπως δεν ήταν αντίστοιχα καλό με τα προηγούμενα; Τι μπορεί να πήγε στραβά με το τρίτο μέρος μιας τριλογίας, ενός εξαιρετικού συγγραφέα; Και αν στράβωσε, γιατί δεν αξιοποιώ την δύναμή μου ως βαθμολογητής, παρά αξιολογώ ανεπαρκώς, σα να έχω το πιστόλι στο κεφάλι;

Τα πράματα δεν είναι αυτό που δείχνουν. Αυτό μου μαθαίνει η λογοτεχνία, όπως και πολλά άλλα όμορφα πράγματα και αναπάντεχες διαπιστώσεις, όπως φερειπείν πως η ανάγνωση ενός βιβλίου είναι ό,τι κοντινότερο σε μια μικρογραφία των ανθρωπίνων σχέσεων: ξεκινάει με συγκεκριμένες προσδοκίες και κατά την διάρκειά της θα νιώσουμε πολλές φορές προδομένοι, ενίοτε απόλυτα ικανοποιημένοι. Πιθανώς να εκπλαγούμε ευχάριστα. Υπάρχουν και εκείνες οι φορές, που κατά στιγμές, έχεις κάποιες αμφιβολίες. Σκέψεις που εμφανίζονται, αλλά συνήθως, όταν περνάς καλά, δεν τους δίνεις τον χώρο να αναπτυχθούν. Και όσο περισσότερο έχεις καταλήξει σε μια ετυμηγορία –πως περνάς καλά δηλαδή-, τόσο περισσότερο θα αγνοείς τις σκέψεις. Μόνον όταν ο καιρός περάσει, όταν έρθει η ώρα του απολογισμού, όταν κλείσει η σελίδα, θα εμφανιστούν μπροστά σου: γιατί να διαβάζει κανείς αυτήν την τριλογία; Πάει κάπου; Δεν ξέρω που πήγαινε ακριβώς η τριλογία του Ντέπφορντ. Ήταν σχοινοτενής, με διάσπαρτες μικρές νύξεις για κάτι μαγικό που ποτέ δεν ήρθε. Και στο τρίτο βιβλίο ένιωσα να θέλω να γυρίσω πιο γρήγορα τις σελίδες. Παρότι είχε τα χαρακτηριστικά εκείνης της αξιομνημόνευτης διήγησης, με του ήρωες που τους νιώθεις δίπλα σου, ήταν τελικά όλοι τους αχώνευτοι. Κι αν ακόμα αυτό, έτσι όπως το χειρίζεται ο Ρόμπερτσον, είναι ένα ακόμα χάρισμα του βιβλίου, κάνοντάς το διφορούμενο, αινιγματικό, ρεαλιστικό και παραμυθιακό ταυτόχρονα, ίσως εμένα να με κούρασε.

Αυτά και άλλα τόσα σκέφτομαι, έχοντας κλείσει το βιβλίο. Ωστόσο θα βάλω τέσσερα αστέρια, θα πω πως την λάτρεψα την τριλογία, πως θα ξαναδιαβάσω σίγουρα Ρόμπερτσον και τίποτα άλλο δεν θα παραδεχτώ σε τρίτους: σε εσάς, τους συν-αναγνώστες. Κλείνω τα μάτια στις ενδεχόμενες απογοητεύσεις; Δεν πήρα το μάθημά μου; Ίσως ο Ρόμπερτσον είναι καλός αλλά όχι για μένα, αλλά εγώ θέλω να τον κάνω δικό μου; «Ανόητος αναγνώστης», ακούω μερικές φωνές. Γιατί, σάμπως είμαστε καλύτεροι, πιο συνεπείς με τους εαυτούς μας, ως φίλοι, εραστές, συγγενείς και συνεργάτες;

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing trilogy, all taken together. Ramsay was by far my favorite character and was glad to see him back in this last story.Also loved learning how Paul became an amazing magician. More of Liesel was in this book and I found her character fascinating. Of course the big question of who killed Boy Staunton is solved in this ending piece.

Wonderfully well written this whole trilogy pinpointed the small minds that can live in a village, where everyone knows everything about each other. Judgments are formed and never changed. Yet, for some all points still lead to home.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This third installment to the Deptford Trilogy is essentially a monologue by Magnus telling his life story, but it contains scattered interruptions reminding the reader that it’s actually a daily session with a movie-crew after a day of shooting scenes for a movie. Of course Mr. Ramsey from the previous parts of the Trilogy is present for these sessions and curious to see what Magnus has to say about the death of Boy Staunton.

Magnus’ story is long and drawn out with much detail and the story consists to two major phases. First are the years after he was kidnapped by a traveling circus and made to perform as part of their show. Second are his years in London where is was hired by a theater production company to be a double for the leading actor. From this he emerges in an epilogue section with his own traveling magic show and finally confronts the mystery of his own life in the show in Canada described at the end of The Fifth Business, the first book of the trilogy.

His life story finally addresses the question of who killed Boy Staunton. Magnus makes a convincing case that it was indeed suicide with the other named suspects as contributors to his life which led to his end. (I’m not convinced.)

Links to my reviews of the first two books of this Trilogy:
Fifth Business (The Deptford Trilogy, #1) , by Robertson Davies
The Manticore (The Deptford Trilogy, #2) , by Robertson Davies

[path · Rating 4 out of 5]

“[M]yth explains much that is otherwise inexplicable, just because myth is a boiling down of universal experience” (135)

Book three of the Deptford trilogy — this one focused on the character I have been most eager to learn about, Magnus Eisengrim (aka Paul Dempster). The bulk of the novel is a story, told by Magnus Eisengrim, about his coming of age, through a variety of aliases, but initially as Paul Dempster, born prematurely after his mother was struck by a rock packed in a snowball, thrown by Boy Staunton and ducked by Dunstan Ramsay. Paul and his mother come to mean something to both Dunstan and Boy throughout the first two books as the aftereffects of the snowball ripple through the years and events in their lives.

One of the persistent images of the book was of people inhabiting other bodies. Not literally, really, but not exactly figuratively either. After the circumstances that led to Paul leaving home with the traveling carnival, he acquires his first job, as Cass Fletcher. The job was to sit inside of a hollow, papier-mâché body/construct described as something that was a cross between a Chinese shaman, The Buddha, and a robot that was, inexplicably, called “Abdullah.” Abdullah was a prop in a card magic show, billed as an automata that could complete a card trick with the audience. After the carnival, Paul joins an acting troupe, as a body double for Sir John Tresize, where his job, this time as Mungo Fetch, was to inhabit Tresize, in mannerism and speech and movement, to be Tresize to the audience that wanted him to be able to juggle and fence and walk a tightrope when they knew very well that the actor, Tresize, was unable to do. Then Paul inhabits the role of Magnus Eisengrim, named after the wolf of Reynard the Fox … who appears to be something of a foolish, schemer of a character. And then later in life, where this book picks up, Magnus has just wrapped filming in which he plays the role of another person, Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, an illusionist and clockmaker just as Magnus has become. Who is Paul/Cass/Mungo/Magnus? He appears to be an illusion himself.

As with the previous books in the trilogy this one also seems to reflect on how lives unfold and how coincidences and happenstances, small things, can become significant and lead to big effects. The book also seems to bring into focus the roles played by people in each others’ lives. Whereas in the first two books of the trilogy Dunstan Ramsay and David Staunton (Boy Staunton’s son) dealt more directly with Jungian archetype figures (e.g., The Hero, The Magician, The Shadow, &c.) and their symbolic meaning, this third book focuses more on the archetype itself as a mechanism. The archetype is a floating signifier that means something in the abstract but how it fulfills that role depends on who occupies it. The archetype is a vessel of meaning that appears to have significance to the perceiver and can be a great catalyzer of action. But is that archetype something real or a construct that contributes to the illusion of meaning? Maybe the illusion is all that there is. Maybe that’s enough.

I wanted more of the mysticism and the mystery of the first book in this trilogy, which remains my favorite. Strangely, though perhaps by the author’s design, this book focuses on an illusionist through whom so much is revealed, made plain, and exposed for what it is. As Magnus warns his interlocutors at some point during the narrative, the illusionist’s tricks are more mystifying when they are first encountered and their significance is floated on magic, curses, and divine intervention rather than the forces, sleights, and mechanical gaffs that are the things in the world the audience is actually experiencing.

It’s a tidy end to the trilogy.

[Michael E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who killed Boy Staunton? I still don't know, but I have my suspicion. How important events follow people throughout their lives and never get resolved, except perhaps by death. Davies concludes his great trilogy of psychological examinations of three characters with his usual brilliance. A stone in a snowball ...

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

World ofWonders completes Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy, giving the reader a third window on the same period of time—after Dunstan Ramsey and David Staunton, now Magnus Eisengrim aka Paul Dempster. Although this book is nominally narrated by Ramsey, it is Eisengrim’s story that is highlighted, with Ramsey reporting [the recording angel?]—the trip from being Nobody to being very much Somebody.

This is very much a universal trip, that of being Nobody within our mothers’ wombs to becoming Somebody in wider world. Not all of us will become famous, rich or even well-known, but we will make our presence felt in our corner of the world, be it a traveling carnival, the law courts, a boy’s school or any other workplace. Davies’ time spent as an actor really shines through in this novel—he knows what will work with an audience and shows how Eisengrim/Dempster acquires this knowledge. At the same time, he is well aware of what a reading audience requires as well, and the book ticks along well, with well placed pauses where one can put down the book and get on with one’s own life for a while.

His observations on small town life in Canada during the early 20th century are spot-on: the self-righteous religiosity, the gossip, the petty competitions, the clash of personalities and philosophies. Having come from a rather religious small prairie town myself, I can recognize all the types Davies plays with. These people, of course, occur in the wider world as well—I have often observed, as I have changed workplaces, that all the same people are in each office, they just have different names. Human nature is not as limitless and varied as we flatter ourselves to think it is.

My only complaint about WoW is a matter of biology, namely Rango, the primate used in the carnival act. Davies cannot seem to make up his mind which primate species Rango is. We are told that he is an orangutan (and at one point he appears in the dress of a female member of the company, indicating a good size), but at various times he is also described as having a tail. Now, I know from Mr. Davies’ novel What’s Bred in the Bone, that he knows a little something about monkeys [Old World vs. New World and prehensile tails, etc.], so how could his knowledge not include the well known fact that apes, such as orangutans, do not have tails? It drove me crazy.

Although not as wonderful as the first book, Fifth Business, WoW is a delightful way to pull all the strings together and provide a sense of completion for the reader. Still one of my favourite books, despite the monkey business.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first hundred pages seems to drag as we delve into Paul Dempster's early life as a carny. However, World of Wonders finally begins to take off as Dempster arrives in Europe and we are introduced to some interesting new characters with whom we can sympathize
Davies saves the last fifty pages of the trilogy to finally give us some tidbits into the life and personality of Liesl whom, for myself, was one of the most interesting characters in the entire series.

As to the Deptford trilogy itself, World of Wonders should be read as part of the Deptford trilogy and not as a stand-alone title. Although it is a good book on its own, neither this book nor Manticore was as interesting as the initial title, Fifth Business. A person could stop after reading Fifth Business and be satisfied in knowing they have read the best of the series. One could easily skip the second title, The Manticore, and move immediately to World of Wonders and not lose much in terms of continuity. As to the question we are left with as Fifth Business comes to an end, "who killed Boy Staunton?", World of Wonders gives a conclusion with which we can be satisfied.

My biggest disappointment with the trilogy is that we were never given a chance to see life from Mary Dempster's perspective. Her story would surely have been far more intriguing than that of David Staunton's. Perhaps someday an aspiring young writer will give us Mary's account in the same manner Jean Rhys did for Bertha Mason with Wide Sargasso Sea

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who killed Boy Staunton? That's the question finally answered in this final installment of Davies' Deptford Trilogy. The first book "Fifth Business" is the best of the bunch and worth reading on its own. The second ,"The MAnticore" is a bit dull and this one is somewhat better. It's certainly an interesting bunch of characters but I am not sure it was worth reading the entire trilogy just to tie up the loose ends from the first book.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' -- From the Letter to the Hebrews

Davies' Deptford Trilogy is completed by this, World of Wonders, and like the New Testament phrase from the Epistle to the Hebrews, is about the evidence of things not seen. As is reiterated a couple or more times in these pages, "Without attention to detail there is no illusion," and true to this epigram we focus a great deal of attention on establishing how illusion is created, maintained and, ultimately, dispelled when the eye of faith is put to the test.

Here, after the hiatus of the second volume -- in which the focus is on David Staunton -- we return to the first volume's narrator, Dunstan Ramsay, ensconced in Schloss Sorgenfrei in the Swiss Alps near St-Gall. It is the early 1970s and our attention is held by the illusionist Magnus Eisengrim, who's taking part in a BBC drama documentary about the historical illusionist Robert-Houdin (from whom, incidentally, Houdini took his stage name).

Ramsay is recounting the conversations that took place after filming each day, between Eisengrim, the BBC producer, director and cameraman, plus Eisengrim's colleagues Dr Liselotte Naegeli and, of course, Ramsay, conversations that later continue in London. Through these prandial and post-pradial chats we hear a lot of history, learn a lot of secrets and discover how illusion can fool the eye of the beholder.

As the theatre of the Great War made the greatest impression in Fifth Business on Ramsay's thinking, and the theatre of the mind on Staunton in The Manticore , other theatres dominate World of Wonders. These include the desperate life of carnival people in early 20th-century sideshows and vaudeville, the more salubrious life of a theatre company in repertory and on tour, the private shows that the wealthy could create with automata, and domestic entertainments which viewers were able to enjoy through their television sets.

Finally, as most theatre is predicated on narrative, there is the storytelling that occurs when people get together, in which there are players and audience and in which the substance and many of the tellings create illusions which may or may not be true. In carnival parlance Gaff is the element of deception, the Talent are the artistes and a Rube is an innocent member of the public. Who is to say we readers aren't Rubes when it comes to a gifted spinner of tales like Eisengrim through the mouthpiece that is Davies?

Magnus Eisengrim, with his wolfish grin, is the Talent Extraordinaire of World of Wonders. He goes under many names: Paul Dempster in rural Canada, Cass Fletcher in Wanless's World of Wonders, Jules or Faustus LeGrand in The Soirée of Illusions, Mungo Fetch in the Tresize Company, and finally Magnus Eisengrim, the world's greatest illusionist; it can hardly be surprising that the initials of his final incarnation spell ME, symbolic of the egoist that he has learnt to be. Moreover, he plays Abdullah in the carnival sideshow, Robert-Houdin in the TV documentary: as Scaramouche in the theatre he was

"supposed to be imitating a great actor who was imitating an eighteenth-century gentleman who was imitating a Commedia dell'Arte comedian, that's how simple it was."

Simple it ain't. And like the young Merlin who in the legends is privately amused by what others cannot see Eisengrim laughs at all and sundry, particularly the unfortunate BBC producer who realises too late that he is the archetypal Rube.

Conventional theatre, with its proscenium arch, wasn't experimental but was about the romance of storytelling, of persuading the audience that what they see beyond the fourth wall -- stage set, actions, emotions -- is in some way real:

"Without the uttermost organisation of detail there was no illusion, and consequently no romance."

The problem of such illusioning, a kind of bedevilment, is that the boundaries between what are seen as absolute Good and absolute Evil become fluid, less definable; and World of Wonders touches on this. So, over and over again violence begets violence: a stone in a snowball, a war injury, an apparent suicide, a rape -- what chain of causation and consequence might there be from a single action?

Some evils may be consciously withheld and their impulse kept hidden:

"But do we not all play, in our minds, with terrible thoughts which we would never dare to put into action? Could we live without some hidden instincts of revolt, of some protest against out fate in life?"

On the other hand, some evils cannot help but erupt into human existence:

"Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in."

World of Wonders is a deeply ambiguous piece, entertaining us even as it gets us to question our assumptions. The characters are unforgettable; but the story is unsettling, even as it moves the trilogy towards a resolution. The truths it tells may not be overt but they are there nonetheless, under the surface gloss.

[Daniel Polansky]

In the third book in the Deptford trilogy we are finally privileged to hear the life story of the world's greatest illusionist, an infrequent though critical participant in the previous two novels. After all that build up I was expecting more than a rather tedious depiction of life as a Canadian carnie and a minor theatrical participant, and honestly the thematic heart of the trilogy – that we create meaning in our lives by casting ourselves as heroes in our own stories – is bluntly presented and ultimately not that clever.

[Paul Secor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating should probably be 3 1/2 stars. Read this last volume of the trilogy before I've read the first two. Probably the wrong way to do it, but that's how it went. This volume was enjoyable enough that I'll read the others at some point.

Edited review and rating: Once again, reading the novel in the order in which it was intended to be read made all the difference.
Robertson Davies was the Dickens of the last half of the 20th century.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much as it pains me to say it about one of my favorite writers, this is not my favorite Davies book. Lots of people love this trilogy, but I prefer his later Cornish trilogy.

To be fair: it's still a Robertson Davies book, so it's still beautifully written, and full of oddments of history and philosophy that can leave you breathless. I'm giving it three stars as judged against the very high standards of the Davies oeuvre, not against fiction in general.

[Alberto Illán Oviedo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Y por fin conocemos que pasó en la muerte de Boy Stauton, más o menos. Colofón a la trilogía de Deptford, que nos lleva de la mano de Magnus Eisengrim, a través de largas charlas, por el mundo de la farándula, primero de los espectáculos ambulantes en tierras americanas y luego, del teatro y sus entrañas. Estoy casi seguro de que el autor, conocedor de todo ello, ha puesto de su parte sus conocimientos y experiencia. Si hay que poner un pero, diría que en algunos momentos el relato se hace confuso y me suena que haya ciertas incongruencias con lo narrado en los otros dos libros, en cualquier caso, se disfruta de la obra.

[Lahierbaroja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Última parte de la trilogía Deptford, colofón y cierre de la historia de la bola de nieve y la muerte del magnate Boy Stauton.

En esta ocasión, el mundo del circo, la magia, la fama, unido por la maestría de un Davies impecable.

https://lahierbaroja.com/2024/05/16/e...

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the minutiae of carnival life does not make for particularly compelling reading, our entrée into the vita of Magnus Eisengrim, the world-famous magician formerly known as Paul Dempster, rounds out the metanarrative of the Deptford Trilogy and brings it not so much to a conclusion as to a place where the characters—and, hopefully, the reader—might make peace with the impossibility of a conclusion. We learn more about Liesl—to my mind the most fascinating character of the series—and we get some valuable insight on the stone colossus that was Boy Staunton. Despite the brutality of Paul’s childhood (readers should be warned that the novel contains graphic depictions of sexual assault), he seems to be more psychologically healthy than the other principal characters because his lack of education and security leaves him open to the numinosity—the magic—that lives invisibly alongside the depredations of the tangible world. He is an animist, attuned to wonder, unvexed by the tyranny of the visible. Liesl thinks of him, somewhat more systematically, as a Spenglerian Magus.

“You have read Spengler? No: it is not so fashionable as it once was. But Spengler talks a great deal about what he calls the Magian World View, which he says we have lost, but which was part of the Weltanschauung—you know, the world outlook—of the Middle Ages. It was a sense of the unfathomable wonder of the invisible world that existed side by side with a hard recognition of the roughness and cruelty and day-to-day demands of the tangible world. It was a readiness to see demons where nowadays we see neuroses, and to see the hand of a guardian angel in what we are apt to shrug off ungratefully as a stroke of luck. It was religion, but a religion with a thousand gods, none of them all-powerful and most of them ambiguous in their attitude toward man. It was poetry and wonder which might reveal themselves in the dunghill, and it was an understanding of the dunghill that lurks in poetry and wonder. It was a sense of living in what Spengler called a quivering cavern-light which is always in danger of being swallowed up in the surrounding, impenetrable darkness.

“This was what Herr Trousers-Crease seemed to have, and what made him ready to spend his time on work that would have maddened a man of modern education and modern sensibility. We have paid a terrible price for our education, such as it is. . . . We have educated ourselves into a world from which wonder, and the fear and dread and splendour and freedom of wonder have been banished. Of course wonder is costly. You couldn’t incorporate it into a modern state, because it is the antithesis of the anxiously worshipped security which is what a modern state is asked to give. Wonder is marvellous but it is also cruel, cruel, cruel. It is undemocratic, discriminatory, and pitiless.”

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Deptford Trilogy comes full circle with this installment, where Magnus Eisengrim relates the story of his life to Dunstan Ramsey and a handful of others. Through this telling, readers get another perspective on some events from the previous books - especially Fifth Business - but Magnus as a narrator (and a character) is very different from Ramsey and David Staunton.

Ramsey is actually our main narrator, as in Fifth Business, and readers have access to his thoughts and feelings, but his narration is used sparingly, as the framework that bookends chapters where Magnus Eisengrim tells his own story, in a first-person account, to the assembled group. Thus the book’s focus is Eisengrim, and as Ramsey's interludes as narrator are few and far between, it is easy to lose the perspective of Ramsey as the reader is "listening" to Magnus. This is cleverly done - readers don’t have access to Magnus’ thought/feelings in this mode of telling, they only read what he says. He remains mysterious as ever, even as he describes the backstory that fills in gaps from Fifth Business. And when we did get brief returns to Ramsey’s head, to first person narration that is not solely/mainly told through dialog - those respites are very welcome (or were for me, anyway). But the point is, while we as readers are finally getting Magnus' side of the story, we still remain in the dark about his actual feelings and thoughts, other than what he states directly. Which begs the question: what can we believe? This whole series questions how one can expect to get at the “truth” of a situation when different perspectives and life experiences color personal historical narratives. These three books really hit home the fact that every experience will be viewed through the lense of the teller, and every teller will tell a different story. It is difficult if not impossible to tease out the “truth” of a situation when there are as many truths as there are narrators - and you may not be able to trust all of the narrators.

There were wonderful lines throughout: "Also he is not inhibited by education, which is the great modern destroyer of truth and originality." It was wonderful, it makes me want to read Fifth Business again. 4.5 stars.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this final book of the trilogy, Dunstan Ramsay is once again the narrator, but he is just a platform for Magnus Eisengrim (aka Paul Dempster) to narrate his entire life. Basically it’s another book built almost entirely on someone making interminable speeches. Most characters, both those Eisengrim talks about and those who are physically there, are bland at best, despicable at worst, and you don’t feel attached to any of them.

And do we finally get the answer to the “who killed Boy Staunton?” question, you ask? We do, in the last chapter. Honestly, for a trilogy literally advertised as “built around this mystery,” we spend remarkably little time actually speaking of it... And the answer doesn’t make the 800 pages we have to get through to get it anything close to worth it, by the way.

Yet once again, like in the first books, on paper this book had nothing for it, and yet I didn’t hate it? Something positive to say about the author and his style, I guess.

In conclusion, I’m giving this book (and the series as a whole) three stars, because it pretty much left me indifferent. Didn’t hate it, don’t regret having read it, glad it’s over, will never read anything by Robertson Davies ever again.

[Victor Sonkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, "Fifth Business" keeps its place as No. 1 in the Deptford Trilogy for me, but both of the other books, and World of Wonders especially, are almost encroaching on it. A pseudo-memoir, an extravaganza of unreliable narration, a panorama of carnie life in Canadian wilderness and of theater life in interbellum London, with a couple of twists and turns along the way. The trilogy is a must-read.

[Raúl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gran obra para acabar su trilogía Deptford. Todo un descubrimiento este Robertson Davies. Empezad con su trilogía Deptford. Magnífica.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as psychologically satisfying as the first two books in the series. And, of course, a reminder to appreciate the wonderful which can be found anywhere one is looking for it.

[Michael Bedford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading the final instalment of Robertson Davies's Deptford trilogy a little while ago. This novel is the longest in the series at around double the length of the previous two. Davies's character-driven style is pushed to the limit in this novel highlighting the life and times of Magnus Eisengrim, readers of the previous novels will remember Eisengrim as a close confidante of both Dunstan Ramsay and David Staunton, as described by himself.

Eisengrim's incredibly detailed and personally revelatory description is framed as his description of the subtext of his performance as 19th century conjuror Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin in a film about the same. This subtext is described to the production staff of the film as well as the familiar Liesl, and, Ramsay, inevitably just outside the spotlight, who documents the description and acts as a kind of meta-narrator describing Eisengrim's description.

There are some pretty horrible events described in World of Wonders. Davies has a knack for describing what are probably pretty run of the mill acts of brutality and viciousness as one imagines they would be described by their victims, a lot of the time using a 1st person narrative to his advantage, pulling the reader in.

It's a long read though, and Davies's style of using incredibly descriptive writing at times in this instalment borders on rambling. Eisengrim's fascinating life makes for an interesting read, but I found myself wondering what the payoff was going to be and was ultimately a bit disappointed.

So, as a standalone novel it's got some really interesting parts to it, especially for anyone involved in the theatrical industry and the seamy underbelly of life in the circus in the '30s. Having had an interest in theatre and acting all my life it held my interest for the most part, but there were times when I got bored and confused as to what Davies was trying to accomplish.

As the third novel in a trilogy it did a good job of creating an interesting narrative that is very distinct from the two other novels in the series while also wrapping up most of the loose ends left over from the ends of both The Manticore and Fifth Business. But, like I said before, the circuitous and at times overly descriptive style of the novel weighs it down.

It's a great read for anyone interested in Canadiana, the performing arts, conjuring, or simply the Deptford trilogy's ever-present theme of the nature of incidences of myth and fact. Check it out but be warned, you will want to read the whole trilogy if you pick it up here.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The crux of World of Wonders is the tension between two ways of viewing the world. One is magical, cosmic, mythic, viewing everything as a kind of romantic drama. The other is realistic, cynical, intellectual, challenging. These two approaches are embodied in a kind of dialectic that emerges between Magnus and Roly, an old acquaintance from Magnus's theater days. Magnus defends the romantic worldview, speaking in favor of old-fashioned plays centered around heroes and villains, fantastic coincidences, and noble acts of self-sacrifice--in other words, crowd pleasers. Roly finds these insufferably old fashioned and instead thinks art should be avant garde, full of masks and mime, ironic language, and Freudian imagery. While Magnus undoubtedly has the upper hand in the conversation, the very existence of the Deptford Trilogy itself suggests the obvious: why can't we have a little of both?

[Eugène L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The plot (that's to say Magnus', Roly's and Liesl's stories) is certainly very interesting. And the Magnus-Roly conflict takes us by surprise. Actually, the whole book looks like a theatrical play, where a secondary character who set quietly for a half of the performance suddenly gets up and turns out to be the protagonist's old enemy :) And that's impressive.

The descriptions of the circus' inside world and the Canadian tour of Sir John's troupe are wonderful. The last hour of Boy's life was a strong point, too.

Unfortunately, the text is full of philosophical and religious reflections and discussions which sometimes take pages. It is quite possible that, for Robertson Davies, _they_ were the raison d'être of the whole book, while all the adventurous part was essentially an illustration of some existential ideas. But for me, as a reader, the story is interesting, while the "philosophical-psychological-religious component" is either irrelevant or boring, or both.

[Counsel182 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dree his weird...that's the summation of the 'epic' question to this fascinating Deptford trilogy: "Who killed Boy Staunton?" Like many reviewers, I found this third--and 'unfortunate' ending to this series (unfortunate in the sense I did not want it to end)--a bit more difficult to read as it is at times a rambling monologue of Magnus Eisengrim's point of view of his life. The first section of the book (A Bottle in the Smoke) tells of his travails in the carnival followed by (Merlin's Laugh) a telling of his life in the theatre in England and Canada and the final section (Le Lit De Justice) we get the denouncement a 'final resolution' to this tale of 'egoism.' Robertson Davies was a remarkable writer (an underestimate really). It is a pity he seems to have been so neglected. If you haven't, please read him and do yourself (and perhaps the world) a tremendous favour.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third book of "The Deptford Trilogy" <-----A masterpiece.

Interesting message implies here ,that while one takes accountability for one's actions is imperative to understand that there must be a limitation on your guilt.

"Who killed Boy Staunton ? " -"dree his weird "( his suffering) -What a perfectly and logically mystery resolved at the end .
Bizarre,inspiring ,engaging read.Loved it!!!