How do I even begin this? I spent about two weeks reading this and that's a lot of time for people to be asking: "so what is it about?"It's usually non-readers who ask such questions because readers know better than to ask what a 800 page book is about. But I thought about it and decided that it was mostly about subjectivity of experience. Not that it made sense to anyone who asked.It was three books and each one of them a different kind of wonderful. It all starts in a small village of Deptford, Ontario. Fifth Business was like a better version of Prayer for Owen Meany. There were saints, magic and a lot of symbolism but not as heavy handed as in John Irving’s books. It’s the life story of Dunstan Ramsay, a man who has never played the main character. Even as a narrator he reduces himself to a catalyst needed for certain things to happen. As it is, it as much a story about Dunstan as it is a story about Boy Staunton, his best friend and his enemy. Dunstan is an honest and self-aware narrator but as every first person narrator should be approached with caution. After all, he does specialize in myths and likes to attribute more meaning to things than other people think it’s reasonable.The Manticore looks on many events from The Fifth Business from a different perspective and through a different medium – Jung style psychoanalysis which Boy Staunton’s son is undergoing. It’s clear that Robertson Davies is a big fan of Jung and weirdly enough this was the book I have read the quickest of all three. Nothing more exciting than uncovering different layers of a person’s psyche. It made me want to embrace and explore my own Shadow, i.e. all that’s nasty about me (like that I am a judgmental bitch).World of Wonders is when the last missing puzzle of Deptford finds its place. It’s a story about illusions and legends that we like to believe about ourselves. It really explores the theme of the first person narrator, the autobiographer – unreliable by definition. It’s also a very bizarre but beautiful love story, although Davies might be falling in his own Jung trap, because his female characters in all three books are more of Anima archetypes than characters but it’s possible he meant them to be this way as every book is written from a male point of view.Davies writes the hell out of every sentence. There aren’t any false notes. Its perfection left me amazed and I am afraid my hackneyed review won’t do it justice. I don’t even want to use any of the adjectives the blurb writers have cheapened over decades of book marketing. This review is so vapid it makes me want to cry because all I want to do is to get everyone to read this book.
