Liesl is the Deptford Trilogy's most intriguing character - so brilliant she belongs in a list of my all time favourites - but Magnus is not far behind, and this is effectively their combined story. I was disappointed at first by the original narrator's return in its opening pages, but this is only a framing device (like the therapy sessions of the previous book) and soon Magnus Eisengrim is describing how he ran away with the circus - or how the circus ran away with him.

The mystery that initially compelled me was wondering how he ever comes to harbour a grudge against Boy Staunton, since he begins with no knowledge about what triggered his birth and cares little for the family he's left behind. This is never explored until the end and winds up as window dressing, a bit disappointing in that respect; I like a "trilogy" to be tied more firmly together. This is still a strong story on its own two feet, in its exploration of Oswald Spengler's "magian world view": the medieval concept of the world as populated by angels and demons rather than the seemingly dull science-laden world we understand today, when only our most advanced scientists perceive the wonders still to be explored. The response to this loss of wonder in our time has been the move from superstition to conspiracy theories, but Davies in the 1970s was looking at a different challenge in his fiction: the necessary replenishment of wonder through clockwork, illusion and sleight of hand, as sustenance for the starving adult desire to be confounded. Perhaps the answer to social media is more stage magicians. ( )

I loved--LOVED--the first two books in this trilogy, [b:Fifth Business|74406|Fifth Business (Penguin Modern Classics)|Robertson Davies|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170852646s/74406.jpg|603433] and [b:The Manticore|114496|The Manticore|Robertson Davies|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309286341s/114496.jpg|1336039], but I was a bit underwhelmed by this final installment. I think what bothered me about it was the way in which it was told, which is as a series of monologues. I would suggest, also, not waiting years and years between books. If you're going to read the trilogy (and they come all bound in one volume) read them straight through. I think my experience suffered because I didn't do that. ( )

Explaining how Paul Dempster became Magnus Eisengrim, this last book in the Deptford trilogy is an account of how personality develops. The title "World of Wonders" seems ironic to me, as it explores the dingy reality behind a seemingly magical façade. A fine metaphor. The ultimate conclusion that myth, illusion, and faith are our desperate attempts to reconcile the cruelness of the world (and are pretty effective) left me with a sense of tragic fulfillment. Autobiography (the vehicle for Davies' thematic explorations) is seldom truth, or maybe there is no truth, or maybe there are far too many truths floating around to find such a word useful at all.

Concealment runs through this story as well, manifested in the frightening automaton Abdullah, in Eisengrim's un-billed work as Sir John's double, as the giant head that prophesied (posthumously) the death of Boy Staunton. These are all symbols for how we clothe ourselves inside our own fabrications, whether consciously or not, with the result that our true (there's that word again) selves are withheld from those around us. ( )

As I got closer and closer to the end of this book (and the trilogy), I kept thinking what a contrived book. Consistent with the middle book, The Manticore, this book is a seemingly endless and highly unrealistic monologue where the telling of the tale takes significantly longer on the page than it would have taken in real life.

Paul Dempster, the son of the woman Boy Staunton hit with a rock-filled snowball in book one, entrances his listeners (but not his readers) with the tale of his life. First as a ten-year-old who was anally raped by a carnival performer and then kidnapped by the same man, he was forced to live for eight years inside a mechanical dummy performing vaudeville tricks. Next he is the doppelganger of an aging theatre actor. Finally, he is the world's greatest conjurer, Magnus Eisengrim, the role we first met him in at the end of Fifth Business.

Where Fifth Business was an entertaining book, this one was its antithesis. An egoistic blowhard talks for nearly three hundred pages, and at the end of it you still don't know why the people who listened to him wasted all that time listening to him (to say nothing of why you the reader listened, too). His tale just isn't that interesting. I also don't understand why Robertson Davies chose to tell this part of the story through Dunston Ramsay in first person (a fact easily forgotten, because the book is 90% Eisengrim's first-person narration).

If you slog through this entire trilogy, prepare yourself for disappointment. While the final ten pages of the book return to the question asked at the end of Fifth Business - who killed Boy Staunton - the answer/ending feels like one of Eisengrim's illusions, one that is not very convincing and definitely not on a par with the magic of the first book. ( )

“Have you ever seen him read a book? He really thinks that whatever has happened to him is unique”. P 18

From the cover: "The lynchpin of the Davies trilogy is a winter staple – two boys and a snowball. After an an exchange of the merits of their respective fathers, Percy Boyd Staunton thows a snowball at his friend Dunstan Ramsay, but strikes the Baptist minister’s pregnant wife instead. "

Book #3 of the Deptford Trilogy follows the path of Paul Dempster, the boy born prematurely and befriended by Dunstan Ramsay. Dempster was mercilessly teased and outcast by the town’s inhabitants until he disappeared after a traveling circus visited the town. Although widely assumed to have run away with the circus, the story is much more sinister than that.

Dempster, now a world renown magician known as Magnus Eisengram recounts his life story to a group including Dempster Ramsay.

Beautifully written, and a great ending to the story (and yes, we learn the answer to Boy Staunton’s mysterious death). This one includes child abuse, including child sexual abuse and so is much harder to read. ( )