One of the dangers of re-reading a book is that you spoil the connection you had with it the first time around.

I first read the Deptford Trilogy thirty-three years ago. I consumed all three books back to back. The details of the plots have long since slipped through the ever-widening mesh of my memory but I was left with a strongly favourable impression created by good writing and the concept of seeing the same village and events from so many perspectives over the course of the trilogy.

It seemed to me that now would be a good time to revisit the trilogy and see Deptford through older eyes.

I've listened to more than two hours of this ten-hour audiobook and I'm now abandoning the attempt. The book is too dry, the story too slow and told from too great an emotional distance for me to connect with it. I recognise that some of this comes from the slightly cumbersome structure of the book, which is written in the form of a novel-length letter written by a retired schoolmaster to the Headmaster of the school at which he worked for forty-five years, in which the schoolmaster tells his life story from childhood on. This structure seems to create a double distance between the story and the reader, the first being the "this is what I remember" monotonality of the storytelling and the second being the implied didactic motivation for writing the book.

I'm setting the book aside so I can spend time with books that give me greater pleasure.

Thirty-three years ago, I would have felt guilty about that. This is a piece of classic Canadian literature after all. Now, my reading is always accompanied by a sense that the clock is ticking and that there are so many great reading pleasures available to me that I have to use what time I have wisely.

The Deptford Trilogy is comprised of three books. (Go figure!) They are Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders. This is my first outing with the author, Robertson Davies, but apparently he was big on trilogies. He wrote all of his novels as part of a cycle comprised of three books. The Deptford Trilogy, finished in 1975, was his second.

Generally, I do not read multi-volume works (I want the credit for having read each book after all), but in the case of Davies, it seemed appropriate. From the moment I first heard of this book, I thought of The Deptford Trilogy as one complete novel. And maybe that's a mistake, because while the three novels that make up this trilogy tell one complete story, each is done in such a differing manner that thoughts and opinions on each novel vary widely. So let's briefly take a look at each novel...

Fifth Business is superb. Davies created some wonderful characters and placed them in a story that is always moving. This first one is narrated by Dunstan Ramsay, a character who is close to the story and grows with it. Overall, the pace is great, though it drags a little in the second half. So much happens in this first novel. Other than the lack of a fully satisfying conclusion, Fifth Business easily stands on its own as a novel.

The second novel, The Manticore, slows everything down. The narrative switches to a character on the fringe of the story, the son of Boy Staunton. David Staunton, a tiresome attorney, relays the details of his life to his therapist. Doesn't sound that exciting, does it? It's not. Largely, this second book is not needed for the larger story. Sure, it adds some questions about the subjectivity of Ramsay's story, and gives the reader a different perspective. As David is just a priggish bore, however, The Manticore lacks the drive of the first novel.

World of Wonders returns the narrative to Ramsay, but as a channel through which Paul Dempster tells his story. This trilogy is all about the relationship between Dunstan, Boy, and Dempster, so it's nice that it returns to focus on these three in the third book. This final volume is not as riveting as the first, but it adds some dimension to it in providing a perspective previously unseen. World of Wonders is a satisfying conclusion to a story that has its high points and low points.

Looking at The Deptford Trilogy as a whole, what's startling to me looking back is the simplicity of the story. After over 800 pages, I realize this story is really all about the snowball that is thrown on page 2. Sure, it's also a story about myth, madness, and magic, but it's all wrapped up in that snow-covered stone. That single toss of a snowball has a dramatic effect on these characters, and Davies does a fabulous job of allowing that one act to haunt the rest of the story. This is an excellent display of storytelling. I will assuredly have a go at another of Davies’ trilogies, though whether I read it as one volume or as three has yet to be decided

What a brilliant book. hands-down brilliant. I was a little hesitant about it when our English teachers told us how amazing "Fifth Business" is, especially since I have found that my literary tastes and theirs don't always cross paths. And at first I was a little suspicious once I started reading, but about twenty pages in I completely warmed up to the book and was engulfed in the story and its characters.

"Fifth Business" deserves all the praise it gets - there is so much thought and meaning inlaid in what originally comes across as being simple. I think it's books like these that truly show just how easily people can take things for granted and fail to see the beauty in what is simple and surrounds us on a daily basis. The characters in this book are stellar, each one playing such a well-developed and precise role that it's easy to love them when they do something deserving of this love, or dislike them when they have done something deserving of dislike. Especially wonderful was Ramsay's retelling and the way in which his character evolved, through his own memories, and the level of personal recognition and realization he achieved. Apart from Ramsay, Liesl was my second favourite character but the favourite out of the females. I'm still trying to find the history behind her name and the allusion behind it (I'm more than sure there is one) but it is that duality that Ramsay felt towards her, and which she herself exhibited, that was so brilliant, a wise but at the same time frustrating character that in the end is the one who ends up giving Ramsay his major revelation, or at least nudges him on to it.

And the writing itself. What I noticed most was the "of course" and hesitant diction throughout the book that was cleverly used without making it too obvious, but frequent enough that on a subconscious level it becomes easy to recognize and elicits a (very appropriate in the context of the book) reaction from the reader. And so many thoughts as well, the constant religious allusions and themes that our touched upon, the issue of social conventions and memory. This was a feast for the mind, with depth that kept the mind going as well as humour and intrigue on the surface to make reading effortless and interesting.

This, I think, is the best book out of all the ones I have been forced to read for school, and I'm very glad that our teachers, specifically the head of my program, insisted on choosing this from the list of book options. I'll revisit it in years to come to pick up on some more thoughts I'm sure I didn't pick up, the subtleties that'll come with time. For now however I feel quite happy at having read such a fascinating novel and for giving the book a chance, despite my initial skepticism.