Product Description

Around a mysterious death is woven a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived trilogy of novels. Luring the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history and magic, THE DEPTFORD TRILOGY provides an exhilarating antidote to a world from where 'the fear and dread and splendour of wonder have been banished'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64893 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Peter Prescott, Newsweek
"Davies' Deptford Trilogy is one of the splendid literary enterprises of this decade."—

Library Journal
"Lucid, concise, beautifully phrased, rich in drama and in relentless penetration of character, this novel is a synthesis of narrative and idea that never ceases to be a superior entertainment as well."—

About the Author
Robertson Davies (1913-1995) was an actor, a University Professor and a writer. He is the author of The Salterton Trilogy, The Deptford Trilogy and The Cornish Trilogy. M.G. Vassanji was born in Kenia and raised in Tanzania. His first novel, The Gunny Sack, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1990. His other books include Uhuru Street, No New Land, Amriika, and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. He lives in Toronto.

Customer Reviews

amazing
An outstanding addition to the trilogy. Davies takes a sidestep here to add a Jungian perspective into his stories. This part of the trilogy is exciting and illuminating as its uniqueness and flair leaves us with the same characters we're learning to know and love and shows them to us from a different perspective, a trip, like a daydream in the middle of a classic!

A Jungian perspective
The story is everything with Davies books. He captured me with the tale of David Staunton, who is only a minor character in Fifth Business.

As with Dunstan Ramsay, the narrator of the first book of the Deptford Trilogy, David Staunton is very much a character who needs to be brought back into balance from an extreme psyche. The book explores his eccentric character through Jungian psychology. Since Davies daugther is a Jungian psychologist, he no doubt used her as a resource in compiling the profile of Staunton.

I really find with Davies books, I find out more about myself, and new ways to view myself, through the characters that he writes about. Perhaps that is why I enjoy them so much.

like Magic Mountain without the politics
Okay, so the comparison to Mann's work is a bit far fetched, but this book is a Jungian exploration of our main character's consciousness. Thanks to the convention of having Davey recount his story to his shrink, we feel a bit detached and disoriented. There is an element of almost-mysticism and we trace all the paths of Davey's mind and experiences. How did this famous criminal lawyer become such an incorrigible drunk and why does he check himself into Zurich for analysis? Unfortunately I read Fifth Business 4 years ago, so I can't remember any of the story line or comment on the relation of this book to the first. It seems to me though that this book does not depend on the first book in the series. I plan to read World of Wonders next, so I'll have more to say about the relation.

Back to this book -- it's extremely engrossing with penetrating descriptions of all the characters in Davey's life and a curiously detached view of his life. I couldn't put it down, even at the end when the mystical element almost gets out of hand and he literally climbs the mountain and crawls through a primal cave. Even if you don't buy all the Jungian stuff, Davies is such a good and interesting writer that most should enjoy the experience. As a social commentator, he reminds me of Thomas Wolfe. A gripping read.