Author: Roberston Davies
Setting, Plot, and Characters:
Dunstan Ramsay narrates his life in a letter to the headmaster of the school he worked at for years. He begins by telling the story of Mary Dempster. Dunstan’s friend Percy Boyd Staunton throws a snowball at Dunstan and misses, hitting Mary in the back of the head. The pregnant Mary give birth immediately afterwards and seems to suffer a loss of sanity as a result of the hit. While caring for Paul, Mary’s premature son, Dunstan introduces him to magic and is himself introduced to the stories of various saints and gains interest in them. Soon after, Mary is discovered having sex with a tramp in the quarry. Her family and Dunstan are all publicly shamed, and she loses all sense of sanity. Around a year later, Dunstan’s older brother Willie gets very ill. While watching him one day Dunstan percieves that he has died. He runs to Mary, who comes to the house and “resurrects” Willie. While doctors say that Willie was never actually dead, Dunstan adamantly believes that he was, and begins to think of Mary as magical and/or saintly. Right after, Dunstan enlists in the army and goes off to fight in World War I.
At the war, Dunstan is somehow not killed, though he loses his leg in combat. He is nursed back to health by a woman named Diane. Diane and Dunstan begin a relationship, but it doesn’t work out. After being awarded the Victoria Cross from King George V, Dunstan promptly returns home to a hero’s welcome. At the celebration, Percy announces his engagement to Leola Cruikshank, Dunstan’s childhood love. Later, Dunny is informed that Paul ran away from home and Mary has left town for good.
After heading off to college, getting a Master’s in history, and getting a job as a schoolmaster, Dunstan searches for Mary. He finds her in the care of his aunt, and decides to visit and take care of her. Percy changes his name to Boy and becomes incredibly rich. He saves Dunstan from the Great Depression by advising him to sell all of his stock. Dunstan then travels to Europe, where he encounters a much older Paul acting as a magician. Paul becomes angry at Dunstan when he tries to talk to him about his life, and steals his wallet.
Boy gets ungodly rich as a result of the Depression, and Dunstan begins to notice a change in his character. Dunstan is appointed the temporary headmaster of the school he works at during the war. He also writes numerous books on saints, and grows more and more famous in the hagiology field. As the war continues, tensions between Boy and Leola continue to escalate until Leola finally breaks and attempts suicide at the Boy mansion. She barely survives and wastes away for a little while before finally succumbing to pneumonia.
Dunstan travels to Central America in order to research a particular saint. While there, he goes to another magic show and again encounters Paul. Now going under the pseudonym Magnus Eisengrim, Paul has become quite famous, and has started his own circus. Joining him is Leisl, who runs the circus. She is grossly ugly, but at the same time incredibly intelligent and charming. Dunstan assists with the group for a while, but slowly succumbs to depression. Then Leisl tells him his true purpose: he is Fifth Business, the person in the background who comes in at the right time to do something incredibly important.
Dunstan gathers Paul and Boy and reveals to them his greatest secret: the snowball
that Boy threw actually had a rock in it. He then gives the rock to Boy. A little while later, Boy is found dead from an apparent suicide. The rock is in his mouth. Dunstan rejoins Paul’s crew and continues to live his life.
Analysis:
The novel is told from the first-person perspective by Dunstan. He is definitely not reliable, and hides some aspects of the truth in order to preserve his image. The novel as a whole is very mystical in tone, constantly stressing the magic in everything around us. Dunstan is not the most vivid describer, so the imagery in the novel is kind of muted, much like the world that the novel is set in. Some symbols in the novel include the rock, which represents past misdeeds coming back to confront you, and magic, which represents the wonder in the world that only a select few can truly appreciate.
Cool Quotes:
"He was killed by the usual cabal: by himself, first of all; by the woman he knew; by the woman he did not know; by the man who granted his inmost wish; and by the inevitable fifth, who was the keeper of his conscience and keeper of the stone." (272) -
This is the Brazen Head’s final comment on Boy’s death, and it wraps up the novel as a whole and shows how everyone is affected by everyone they meet.
“If you don't hurry up and let life know what you want, life will damned soon show you what you'll get.”
Percy’s outlook on life, shows how focused he is on personal success.
THEME:
Davies urges readers to accept the possibility of the unknown despite one’s fears.
The mystical tone of the novel contributes to the idea of the unknown being everywhere around us. The imagery is muted in order to show how the world has rejected the unknown and replaced it with boring stuff.
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