Life-changing book for me. Everyone should read it once, and those who have read it will return to it over and over again. ( )

Right from the beginning Robertson Davies' incisive writing caught me -- lean, wry, and insightful. He ranks among the literary giants of history. If you haven't read Fifth Business, you should. And you should invest in a hardcover edition, as it is a staple for anyone's library. ( )

An awe-inspiring, if brief, novel about the wondrous mythology of life. Davies seamlessly weaves in the miraculous with the tapestry of one ordinary man's long life in such a real, believable way that one is forced to ponder the nature of the miracle and what it means to the everyday person. Davies takes a loving, intelligent look at what it means to live in a world where saints and God are all around, if only we can see them. Not fun, per se, but enlightening in a way that is rare and satisfying. ( )

My fav of all Robertson Davies's work ( )

A highly enjoyable read so far with outlandish characters that have a touch of the miraculous in them, creating a story that peeks under the veil a bit. ( )

Best fiction I have read in the last year. ( )

Very metaphysical. Shows the unseemly underbelly of the magic profession. It kind of reminds me of that movie "The Prestige" with Christian Bale. ( )

What a delightful book! Published in 1970, this has the old-fashioned flavor of books one seldom sees today: excellent structure and pacing, but without the manipulative aspects of current formulaic writing. Here we have the fictional memoir of an elderly school teacher, as told in a letter to his headmaster. It begins in a small village in Canada in the early years of the last century, at the scene of a crime committed by a small boy. This crime haunts the story until the final pages of the book. The tale has something for everyone: fascinating characters finely drawn, unusual twists and turns, a touch of magic and of war, love and betrayal, sex and mystery. And a few lessons about life. I highly recommend it! ( )

By rights, this ought to be the story of Percy Boyd “Boy” Stanton, whose death the Deptford trilogy hangs on. He’s clearly the “hero”—the romantic hero, the successful businessman who becomes an only semi-successful politician and a truly terrible husband. But instead, it’s the story of Dustan Ramsay, who, as the title reveals, ought to be a side character. “Fifth business” is the theater term for a male character who is important to the action of the plot, but stands outside the core four of hero, heroine, villain, and rival/confidante/villainess. Ramsay lives a small life, indulging a peculiar scholarly interest in saints (to be fair, he is well-respected in this field), teaching at a boys’ school, never marrying. His often-sinister influence on others begins when he’s ten years old and Percy throws a snowball with a rock inside at him. He steps out of the way, and it hits Mrs. Mary Dempster. Her son, Paul, is born prematurely—and she never recovers mentally. His life and Mrs. Dempster’s will be everafter entwined; he comes to believe she is herself a saint who has worked miracles, and he provides for her care. He changes little Paul’s life by teaching him card tricks. And it will be he who brings together the adult Boy Stanton and Paul Dempster, with mysterious and sinister results.

It’s a compelling read—different, unusual without being off-putting. Written as a memoir composed in response to a patronizing send-off written upon his retirement, the book is a kind of plea for the importance of secondary characters everywhere. ( )

It’s a fictional memoir of Dunstan Ramsay, born in a small town in Ontario, not an exceptional figure, neither a villain nor a hero, more Fifth Business- which is to say a nevertheless essential figure, for whom a boyhood happening dictates how his whole life will unfold.

In many ways it’s a perfect novel which works its magic through an excellently executed plot seamlessly weaving a great dose of reality and satire with Jungian psychology, and mythology and its archetypes with its bearded ladies, magicians and saints. It is all told in intelligent, witty and elegant narration, and dazzling enough masterful storytelling. ( )

3026 Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies (read 24 Oct 1997) This book came out in 1970 and is the first volume of his trilogy known as The Deptford Trilogy. I could not get excited by this book and do not intend to read the rest of the trilogy. I could not find much significant in the book, though it is well-written. But it did not "speak" to me of anything I felt significant. ( )

http://books.kenficara.com/2007/11/fi...
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I first read this book on a much delayed night flight, and finished as we landed. I was left in mid-air flight, for the book is amazing in detail and mesmerizing in character. I sat there wide-eyed, while the rest deplaned. The ending comes rushing at you all at once: truly an opera with a thrilling crescendo. ( )

Synopsis: Schoolteacher Dunstan Ramsay looks back over his life, intertwined with that of a childhood friend and inextricably linked with a madwoman he desperately wants to believe is a saint. Review: I had no idea what I was in for when I began Fifth Business, the first book in Canadian novelist Robertson Davies’s Deptford trilogy. I have an older paperback and the copy on the back just says, “the story of a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real.” As a one-sentence description, it’s just as vague as the one that I provided, because this book refuses to be categorized or summed up neatly. http://superfastreader.com/fifth-busi... ( )

http://books.moonsoar.com/archives/20... ( )

Although a slim volume with much critical acclaim - it took me awhile to get through. It is not particularly because I didn't like it; at times it was just not compelling. Not a page turner.

What it is is a very well written bildungsroman (I love that word) of Dunny Ramsay - an odd boy who becomes an odd man. I enjoyed his childhood; the war; his care of Mrs. Dempster -- and his musings on the role of religion and 'miracles' in our lives were fantastic. Davies turns a phrase nicely - intelligible, direct, and somehow conveys just the right thing. I think the writing more than the story will keep me reading the rest of The Deptford Trilogy. ( )

http://www.leftfield.org/~rawdon/book... ( )

Ramsay is a man born twice, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross, and destined to be caught in a no-man's land where memory, history, and myths collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood he has exerted a mystical, perhaps pernicious influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy proves, in the end, neither innocent or innocuous.

brilliant ( )

A quick, well-worded read, though non-substantive. A story of a man reflecting on his life, a saga of small town life, world war one, and its impact on the narrator. I would have liked to see more explicit literary themes and emotional character development. ( )

The first of the Deptford trilogy. Dunstan Ramsay the schoolteacher writes his memoirs, including the story of Boy Staunton who threw a snowball one day, hit Mary Dempster and caused her son's premature birth.
A classic, and often used as a text in highschool or university Canlit. ( )

Part of the outstanding Depford trilogy - a real treat for its depth of characters, ideological themes, and diversity of ideas ( )

I read this book for an independent study in English and it proved to be quite enjoyable - not at all what I was expecting. It's really rather interesting how he works in the concept of fifth business in such a way that you can see it fitting into your own life. Davies is definately one Canadian author I'll read again. ( )