Anyone into Jung will love this. ( )

Extremely enjoyable. As a pscyhology student I took a number of advanced Freud seminars and so greatly appreciate the depiction of the psychoanalysis that is so painstakingly being described. The protagonist is flawed enough to seem human, and much can be gleaned from his choice of words when he is describing the people and places of his past. So far, so good.

I was fairly underwhelmed by this slight novel, the second in the acclaimed Deptford Triology. This one features David Staunton, son of the infamous Boy Staunton whose sensational death closed the first novel, 'Fifth Business.' David flees to Switzerland and recounts his life to a Jungian pschyciatrist and we get to hear him analyzed and read through his diary of that year. He does run into Dunstan Ramsay and the ugly Liesel and learns some truths about his father's death.

The best thing about this novel is Davies' writing which is almost as flawless as in the first novel. Succinct, elegant, in "the plain style." The substance of the book, however, was dull. I couldn't care a whig about the pschychoanalysis of this fairly ordinary guy. The book is quite readable, but one is left with the feeling of "Why?"

I will finish the trilogy as I hear the third book is the best, but for me the jury is still out on Robertson Davies. He is technically, and stylistically good -- his novels are intelligent and sophisticated -- but something just misses the mark with me. A bit obscure, maybe? ( )

Something of a sequel to Fifth Business, The Manticore didn’t satisfy me nearly as much. I found it tedious. Picking up where Fifth Business left off, with the death of Percy “Boy” Staunton, it follows his son David through his Jungian analysis in Zurich and his reunion with his old schoolmaster, Dunstan Ramsey. David’s exploration of his past relationships was occasionally compelling, but not often enough. Even the idea of a “manticore,” a creature with a man’s face, a lion’s body, and a stinging tale, as which David imagines himself, didn’t interest me as much as the idea of “fifth business.” It also didn’t really fill in many gaps in the story, although it does reveal that Boy had expressed a death wish to the mysterious Eisengrim. I will probably get the last book in this trilogy, World of Wonders, to see if it is more on the level of Fifth Business than this book was. ( )

http://books.kenficara.com/2007/11/th... ( )