Deptford Trilogy - Robertson Davies

Written by Robertson Davies
Read by Marc Vietor
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

• Fifth Business
• Series: Deptford Trilogy, Book 1
• Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
• Release date: 12-02-11
• Publisher: Audible Studios

All three books are linked by Deptford, the home village of two of the men, and also the home village of Boy Staunton, the lawyer’s father, and linked by the death of Boy Staunton under odd circumstances. And each book contains unhappy men powerful in their own ways, and women who are influential but rarely comforting.

Fifth Business, is a letter from a school teacher to his old headmaster, attempting to show that his life was much more than anyone ever saw at school, and it touches on saints, war, madness and artificial legs.

Who killed Boy Staunton?

Around this central mystery 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.”

This first novel in the trilogy introduces Ramsay, a man who returns from World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross but who is destined to be caught in a no man’s land where memory, history, and myth collide. As we hear Ramsey tell his story, we begin to realize that, from childhood, he has influenced those around him in a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious way. Even his seemingly innocent involvement in as innocuous an event as throwing a snowball proves to be neither innocent nor innocuous in the end.

A reader’s comment….”You don’t have to be interested in saints or Jung or British theatre to love these books. The most notable thing about any Robertson Davies novel is the generous and intelligent spirit which gleams out of them.

Some books make you feel the author’s intellect and learning but also make you very aware of your own lack of learning; these humane erudite books make the reader feel clever too. I didn’t feel patronised as a teenager when I read these, though I am now aware that I must have missed at least 90% of the references! As I reread them every new decade of my life, I get new mythical, religious, literary and historical references every time! I wonder if I will ever live long enough to get every single one of them?
These are fabulous books, by an amazing writer. Please discover him for yourself!”

• The Manticore
• Series: Deptford Trilogy, Book 2
• Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
• Release date: 12-02-11
• Publisher: Audible Studios

The second novel in Davies’ Deptford Trilogy, The Manticore focuses largely on the life of Boy Staunton’s son David. Like Fifth Business before, this novel contains amazing prose and a caste of characters that are not quite loveable, but amazingly human at the same time. The structure of the novel is largely a diary David Staunton keeps while undergoing Jungian analysis after the suicide of his billionaire father. This flashback analysis allows Davies to deal with an unreliable narrator by having the Jungian therapist (Johanna Von Haller) jump in occasionally to explain, uproot, twist, and interject architypes into the unrolling life of David Staunton, his relationship with his father, nurse, mother, sister, and early love. It also allows Davies to explore issues around the subconcious, Jungian architypes, myth, history, etc.

The third and final chapter of the novel exits the diary and brings in some of the characters from the series (Dunstan Ramsey, Liesl, and Magnus Eisengrim).

• World of Wonders
• Narrated by: Marc Vietor
• Series: Deptford Trilogy, Book 3
• Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
• Release date: 12-02-11
• Publisher: Audible Studios

The third, World of Wonders, is the life story of a performer, told to a film crew as they search for a subtext to their film, touching on circuses, kidnapping, clockwork, and a very British theatrical tour.

World of Wonders, follows the story of Magnus Eisengrim - the most illustrious magician of his age - who is spirited away from his home by a member of a traveling sideshow, the Wanless World of Wonders. After honing his skills and becoming better known, Magnus unfurls his life’s courageous and adventurous tale in this third and final volume of a spectacular, soaring work.

It is a story full of symbols and family tragedies, that, if you can follow it, leads to interesting epiphanies on heartache and love.