History Literature / FifthBusiness

* AwesomeMcCoolname - Magnus Eisengrim!

* ParentalBlamelessness: In ''Fifth Business'', when Dunstan is in hospital recovering from wounds sustained in World War I, he receives notice that his authoritarian and somewhat narcissistic mother and his pushover father who had been her enabler have died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. His initial reaction is to be "...ashamed because I felt the loss so little." He goes on to describe how "It was years before I thought of the death of my parents as anything other than a relief; in my thirties I was able to see them as real people, who had done the best they could in the lives fate had given them." This comment is left as a bald statement for which Dunstan does not provide any justification for why his parents couldn't have done better than they did. In ''The Manticore'', David Staunton decides to undergo psychoanalysis following the untimely death of his arrogant millionaire father, who had resented David's going into law instead of business and his never marrying, ultimately disinheriting him in favor of his second wife and daughter. Before beginning the psychotherapy in earnest, David claims to the psychoanalyst that he does not hold a grudge against his father, criticizes the recent trend toward putting blame on parents, and states that, as a lawyer, he believes there has to be a statute of limitations[[note]] i.e. a final date after which a crime cannot be prosecuted[[/note]] for every crime. His argument doesn't take into account the fact that he wasn't really given a chance to have the wrongs wrought by his father righted while the latter still was alive. Later in the book, though, the author provides an aversion to the trope as well, specifically in the backstory of Liselotte Naegeli, who blamed her grandfather, whose ward she was, for her deformed appearance. Specifically, [[spoiler: as an early adolescent, Liselotte had started growing uncontrollably; she was subjected to medical treatment presumably consented to by her grandfather and about which she was not consulted, which arrested her growth but left her with ungainly, unfeminine features]]. Out of bitterness, she took her revenge on him by [[spoiler: smashing her grandfather's prized collection of mechanical toys, and for a period of time acted like a vicious, unkempt, antisocial domestic pest.]]

* ProfessionalSexEd: In ''The Manticore'', David tells his psychoanalyst that some time after he had started dating Judy as a teenager, his father Boy Staunton, who was looking forward to futher continuation of the family, was delighted to learn that David had gotten himself his first girlfriend. Boy has David join him on a trip to Montreal, where he introduces him to a lady friend of his. Not long after, David finds himself in quarters adjacent to her at the hotel; she entices him toward her and brings about sexual intercourse between them. However, this initiation backfires; shortly afterward, the woman comes up in conversation between David and Boy; [[DidntThinkThisThrough the latter ventures to make a thinly-veiled remark]] to the effect that she can teach David a lot of things to do to Judy - David sees right through this and realizes that his father has set him up. It plays a not insignificant part in his becoming a sex-averse bachelor and thus, fast forward to the time of Boy's death, his son has not given him the grandchildren he desired.

* ProfessionalSexEd: In ''The Manticore'', David tells his psychoanalyst that some time after he had started dating Judy as a teenager, his father Boy Staunton, who was looking forward to futher continuation of the family, was delighted to learn that David had gotten himself his first girlfriend. Boy has David join him on a trip to Montreal, where he introduces him to an (obviously adult) lady friend of his. Not long after, David finds himself in quarters adjacent to her; she entices him toward her and brings about sexual intercourse between them. However, this initiation backfires; shortly afterward, the woman comes up in conversation between David and Boy; [[DidntThinkThisThrough the latter ventures to make a thinly-veiled remark]] to the effect that she can teach David a lot of things to do to Judy - David sees right through this and realizes that his father has set him up. It plays a not insignificant part in his becoming a sex-averse bachelor and thus, fast forward to the time of Boy's death, his son has not given him the grandchildren he desired.

* ParentsAsPeople: The trilogy is positively thematic in its treatment of characters whose parents or substitute parental figures demonstrate failings to various degrees. There is hardly any parent or guardian to be found within the pages of the three novels who can really be called competent in this regard or who can easily be said to have fully done right by their offspring.

* ProfessionalSexEd: In ''TheManticore'', David tells his psychoanalyst that his father was delighted when he learned that a teenage David had gotten himself his first girlfriend (Judy).

* RapeAsBackstory: The protagonist of ''WorldOfWonders'', world famous illusionist Magnus Eisengrim (born Paul Dempster), tells how as a boy he was lured to a circus by its magician "Le Solitaire", who kidnapped and molested him. Paul toured with the circus as "Le Solitaire's" captive apprentice and effective sex slave, eventually asserting himself as he got older. Finally, in his evil mentor's old age, Paul/Magnus became the former's caregiver, and got some measure of revenge by not treating him as well as he could have.

* ParentalMarriageVeto: Happens to David as a teenager with regards to his first girlfriend, Judy Wolff. She comes from a Jewish family and oddly, her parents encourage the relationship in its early stages. But once they have been together for some time, Judy's father has a man-to-man talk with David, in which he tells him straight out that Judy is not meant for a gentile, that she is to be sent to Europe to further her education, and that while he may keep coming around on social calls, he had better not try anything more serious than that.
* ParentsAsPeople: The trilogy is positively thematic in its treatment of characters whose parents or substitute parental figures demonstrate failings to various degrees. There is hardly any parent or guardian to be found within the pages of the three novels who can really be called competent in this regard or who can easily be said to have done right by their offspring.

The novel takes the form of a letter from retired schoolteacher Dunstan Ramsey to his unnamed headmaster; annoyed at being portrayed during his own retirement party as a doddering old geezer who'd never had any sort of life outside of the classroom, Dunstan begins to relate his life's story to illustrate that the younger colleagues who dismiss him don't know the first thing about what he's really like. So he begins with the winter day in his childhood when he and his sometime-friend Percy Boyd Staunton were quarreling more fiercely than usual: Percy throws a snowball with a rock in it, Dunstan ducks, and the snowball strikes a passing woman, Mary Dempster, the heavily pregnant young wife of the local parson. The resulting injury brings her to premature labour, causes her severe mental trauma, and forever alters the lives of three boys associated with the event: Dunstan, Percy, and Mary's premature son Paul Dempster.

Over the course of his long life, Ramsey gradually comes to realize that he's one such person; although he has no great destiny of his own, he spends his life on the sidelines of other people's great world-altering trials. By turns, he becomes a supporting player in the lives of a revered corporate CEO, a godly saint, and a world-class StageMagician. Each of those three figures walks a different path, but they're all the embodiment of a different form of {{power}}: worldly wealth, the grandeur of the divine, and the subtle and mysterious art of mysticism.

* DeadpanSnarker - Dunstan Ramsey. It's actually his trademark and first line of defense as a child.

** Given Ramsey's often uncharitable narration, almost every major character in the book has their share of JerkAss moments, and he's brutally honest about his own shortcomings and petty motivations.

* MyDadCanBeatUpYourDad - Staunton to Ramsey, when they were both 10, at the start of the book.

* POVSequel - ''TheManticore'' mostly covers the same chronological period as ''Fifth Business'', but told from the perspective of David Staunton; key scenes from the first novel take on a completely different perspective in his eyes.

* BiTheWay - Liesl and Faustina. Given the [[CoitusUninterruptus way it was revealed]] and the huge [[DirtyOldMan crush]] he had on [[MayDecemberRomance Faustina]] at the time, Dunstan was really not happy about it.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Is Mary Dempster ''really'' a Saint? Are Magnus Eisengrim's magic tricks more than simple allusions? And--most importantly--[[spoiler:did magic play some role in Boy Staunton's death]]?

* DrivenToSuicide - [[spoiler:it's implied this may have happened to Leola. Later, it happens to Boy Staunton in a very literal sense.]]

Despite its rather dense prose and frequent highbrow allusions, ''Fifth Business'' ultimately explores a rather simple idea. Simply put: not everyone is the hero of their own story. While [[BecauseDestinySaysSo destiny]] might single some people out for momentous deeds and accomplishment, the world is also full of people who are fated to play unacknowledged supporting roles in the lives of the great and powerful, and those people's lives are just as worthwhile and fulfilling as anyone else's. If all the world's a stage, some people will always have to play the part of "fifth business"--that is, parts that don't fit cozily into the four basic roles of "Hero", "Villain", "Lover", and "Confidant", but are nonetheless crucial to resolving the plot. Over the course of his long life, Ramsey gradually comes to realize that he's one such person; although he has no great destiny of his own, he spends his life on the sidelines of other people's great world-altering trials. By turns, he becomes a supporting player in the lives of a revered corporate CEO, a godly saint, and a world-class StageMagician. Each of the three figures walks a different path, but they're all the embodiment of a different form of {{power}}: worldly wealth, the grandeur of the divine, and the subtle and mysterious art of mysticism.

* PunnyName - the pseudonyms that Danny gave to his past lovers: Anges Day, Gloria Mundy, and Libby Doe (puns on the Latin phrases: Agnus Dei, Gloria Mundi, and Libido).

Fifth Business (1970) is the first novel of the Deptford Trilogy, a series of books written by the noted Canadian novelist Robertson Davies which tread a line between normalcy and magic realism, which trace the chaotic consequences of a single act of cruelty on the lives of three young men from the small Canadian village of Deptford.

* AbusiveParents - By modern standards, Dunny's mother is this, and although Paul's father the Reverend Amasa Dempster has decent intentions, he comes off as a combination of this and a passive-aggressive ChurchMilitant. Boy Staunton is also this to his son David to a greater or lesser extent.

* AbusiveParents - By modern standards, Dunny's mother is this, and although Paul's father the Reverend Amasa Dempster has decent intentions, he comes off as a combination of this and a passive-aggressive ChurchMilitant. Boy Staunton is this too to a greater or lesser extent to his son David.

* AbusiveParents - By modern standards, Dunny's mother is this, and although Paul's father the Reverend Amasa Dempster has decent intentions, he comes off as a combination of this and a passive-aggressive ChurchMilitant.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: Davies is extremely interested in the works of Carl Jung, basically every character is a Jungian archetype. For the sequel ''The Manticore'', Davies dropped the middleman and plotted the novel as a transcript of an extended Jungian analysis session.

* StageMagician - Dunstant tries to do this and fails hard. [[spoiler:His pupil Paul Dempster is rather better at it, although he pays a price for becoming Magnus Eisengrim, the greatest magician in the world.]]