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Title: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, Gail Godwin ISBN: 0-14-118615-1 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 02 January, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.48 (48 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Finest
Comment: I first read Fifth Business as a course requirement in college 25 years ago. To this day, that very same copy sits on my bookshelf, dog-eared and well worn. This is truely one of the finest books I have ever read and I recommend it most whole-heartedly. Robertson Davies was short-listed for the Nobel Prize in 1986 and when you read Fifth Business I'm sure you will understand why.
Rating: 5
Summary: undeservedly unknown
Comment: Merciful heavens, what a novel!! The implications of a thrown stone-loaded snowball is the basis of this book, and indeed an entire trilogy. From this simple premise comes one of the most profound and multi-layered stories that I have come across. Magically brilliant. Dunstan Ramsey is the narative voice of the book and is a nicely fleshed out character. Ramsey is moved by his unfounded guilt because of his part in the fateful snowball toss. His guilt and dedication is nicely played against the carelessness of Boy Stanton. A very thoughtful novel. Truly a great and important work.
Rating: 2
Summary: A disappointment
Comment: The story has a very intriguing and promising start, but goes downhill after that. It is barely readable in the end.
Mr. Davies should have followed the promising start and focus on Mrs. Dempster as a fool-saint. Rather he sprawls and branches out into narcissitic nonsense and sheer contrivances (meeting Paul twice by pure chance? In two different continents? For no useful purpose other than showing off the author's knowledge of conjuring and magic? Come on!)
My first exposure to Mr. Davies was the Rebel Angels. I thought it an excellent and tightly written book. The next in the Cornish Trilogy, What's bred in the bones, was a significant step down. And Fifth Business sealed my judgment of Mr. Davies as a severely flawed writer, despite his talents. He seems to love trivias too much to think clearly what makes sense to a story and the reader. In spite of his erudition, he doesn't seem to have deep philosophical insight or position to move the reader to deep thinking. He is limited in character building (other than the slightly anti-social, eccentric types), especially so in the treatment of female characters. His narrative voice is not rich (three flavors, cynic, pedantic, and sentimental)
All in all, a minor talent who has a larger-than-deserved reputation. I am disappointed.
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Title: The Manticore by Robertson Davies ISBN: 0140167935 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: November, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: World of Wonders by Robertson Davies ISBN: 014016796X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: April, 1977 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Deptford Trilogy: Fifth Business/the Manticore/World of Wonders by Robertson Davies ISBN: 0140147551 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: October, 1990 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o ISBN: 0435908308 Publisher: Heinemann Pub. Date: 30 April, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Origins of the Cold War 1941-1949, Seminar Studies in History (2nd Edition) by Martin McCauley ISBN: 0582276594 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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