Fifth Business (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Robertson Davies
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Magic or magicians, Virginity or virgins, Miracles, Saints or sainthood
- Locales: Canada
Taking the form of a first-person memoir, Fifth Business is the life story of Dunstable (later Dunstan) Ramsay, a retired school teacher whose life has been guided by the conviction that there are saints in the contemporary time period, and that his childhood neighbor is one such person. The novel's title refers to a figure in an opera who is not directly involved in the action but exists only to observe and comment on it; clearly, Ramsay is such a figure. His story begins when, at the age of ten, he dodges a snowball thrown by Percy Boyd Staunton; the snowball hits Mary...
[The entire page is 722 words long]
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