This book has been my introduction to Robertson Davies, and a very fine one it is. If you haven't already discovered it, ignore the cover and read what's inside because it's a narrative of deceptive ease and fluency but of page-turning force.
The memoir of Dunstan Ramsay, teacher and scholar, as written by him in a letter to the headmaster of the school at which he taught, is in effect an essay on being 'Fifth Business': that is, in theatre, neither hero nor heroine, confidante or villain, but yet the person who is essential to bring about the denouement or resolution of the drama.
"This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries".
The appealingly self-aware Dunstan, a man of conscience, late-flowering, self-sufficient, dispassionate observer of those around him, is nonetheless the star of the story, one which takes him from small town Canada to the battlefields of the first world war, then on to a not undistinguished career in teaching. But it is his life beyond the mere stops and staging posts that is so interesting, and the tale of which Davies spins so beautifully.
Beginning when, as a boy, he ducks the snowball thrown by his friend so that it hits the pregnant Mary Dempster and brings on premature labour, and moving through the years of his complicated relationships with Mrs. Dempster and her son Paul, it's a portrait of an unusual man and an analysis of responsibility, guilt, loyalty and resolve. Contrasting magic with the marvellous, the bizarre with the logical and consequential, it is a book with depths and intricacies, some wonderful lines, and all hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking.
I can't wait to read my next Robertson Davies, but what did you think of this one?
