World of Wonders
This, the third and concluding book of Davies’ trilogy (Fifth Business, 1970, The Manticore, 1972) is one of those rare works which does not require a knowledge of the first two books for its appreciation. In fact, new readers coming upon Davies’ characters for the first time in World of Wonders have an added thrill of discovery as the author ties together the threads of the apparently disparate lives and careers of many of the characters.
The underlying premise of the three books is an incident which altered the lives of all those involved in it: a young boy threw a snowball with a stone embedded in it at his playmate; his companion ducked and the snowball struck the pregnant wife of the Baptist minister, causing her to give birth eighty days early and ultimately causing her to go mad. Fifth Business, the first novel in the trilogy consists of a lengthy letter written by Dunstan Ramsay, the boy who averted the snowball and is now an elderly Canadian schoolmaster, detailing his lifelong remorse over the incident, and introducing the mysterious circumstances of the death of Percy Boyd (Boy) Staunton, the snowball thrower, with the same stone in his mouth, decades later. The Manticore presents a psychological study of Boy Staunton’s son who has become a drunken lawyer. World of Wonders traces how Paul Dempster, the unborn child, grew to become Magnus Eisengrim, a world-renowned magician who is now called upon to portray the life of the legendary French magician, Robert Houdin, for a B. B. C. film.
As in his previous books, Davies is more interested in ideas than in the simple narration of plot. This novel presents a story within a story, the framework of which is related by Ramsay. While working on the film, the various principals gather to listen to Magnus Eisengrim relate how he became the world’s greatest magician to provide a kind of “subtext” for the proposed film of Houdin. This subtext idea permeates the entire novel under various guises. Underlying all is the question of what is the truth. The narrator, Dunstan Ramsay, a historian, sees truth in the documentary records left behind by a society. To Jurgen Lind, the Swedish film director, it is an era’s “music, the way its clothes ought to be worn, the demeanour of its people, and its quality of life and spirit.” Lind’s cameraman, Harry Kinghoven, sees reality as something he can manipulate by camera angles and the intensity and shading of light. Eisengrim the magician is primarily concerned with illusions created by attention to details. Author Davies’ narrative technique lets his characters dole out bits and pieces of truth as they see fit; but the interruptions and differing interpretations of others bring the reader to realize that objective truth is ultimately attainable only through looking at the same details through every possible point of view, or as Liesl says, from God’s point of view.
Within this frame story, Magnus Eisengrim takes over and relates his life’s experiences which led to his present position. But the same problem the filmmakers have found with Houdin’s autobiography arises with Eisengrim’s relation. As an autobiography is self-serving, it is often used to hide the inner person, sometimes unwittingly. Eisengrim’s narration is an exciting tale beginning in Canada where, as a boy of ten, he was sodomized and kidnaped by a second-rate village fair carnival magician named Willard. As the magician’s assistant he was forced to hide in the inner workings of a mechanical man and work the mechanism to trick the fairgoers. To keep up the illusion of the...
(This entire section contains 1316 words.)
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creature being entirely mechanical, he was required to spend long hours alone in the dark cramped quarters. It is here that he learned his magician’s tricks, practicing in the dark between shows. Since Eisengrim repeatedly insists that Willard was not very skilled and that he made no effort to add to his repertoire beyond perfecting his pocket-picking technique, it is questionable exactly how Magnus could have developed beyond a limited point in these endeavors. Yet, in his very full later life, there is little indication that he even spent much time practicing his old tricks, much less learning new ones.
Davies’ recounting of the life of the Wanless’s World of Wonders carnival troupe rings a responsive chord for anyone who has witnessed a traveling carnival. His tale combines the exotic intimate details of the life of these freakish vagabonds and misfits with the familiar mundane petty jealousies and quarrels which afflict all coworkers in what is finally an extremely boring job. From Eisengrim’s description of the Fat Woman pathetically reciting biblical verses to the audience to counter the double-meaning jokes of Charlie, the barker, to the digressions in his tale, and arguments among the film crew, there is an undercurrent running throughout the novel questioning the nature and extensiveness of evil in our life. Ramsay (who comes closest to being the author’s mouthpiece) says, “I have been wondering if humour isn’t one of the most brilliant inventions of the Devil.... It diminishes the horrors of the past, and it veils the horrors of the present, and therefore it prevents us from seeing straight, and perhaps from learning things we ought to know.” One illustration of the nature of evil explored is Eisengrim’s admission of his sadistic pleasure in taking over the magician’s role when Willard degenerated to a helpless, fawning morphine addict, and was exhibited as a Wild Man or a geek in the side show.
Following his experiences in carnivals and the vaudeville circuit, Eisengrim next became an actor in London, serving as a double for Sir John Tresize, an elderly actor of the old school still trying with some success to keep romance alive in the theater despite the changing tastes of the times. Again, the plot serves Davies’ thematic analysis of the truth of one’s existence. Here, Eisengrim admits to his role of losing his own identity by “getting inside” Sir John, aping his every gesture. Eisengrim is used as Sir John’s double to perform acrobatic feats which would be beyond Sir John’s ability. Through these experiences Eisengrim learns the theatrical side of his magician’s trade. It is at this time too, that he meets the youthful Roland Ingestree, one of his present auditors who is currently the executive producer of the film being made. Eisengrim and Ingestree have widely divergent opinions stemming from their experiences with Sir John. Here we see that Eisengrim’s interpretation of reality is not the only one possible.
The final segment of Eisengrim’s apprenticeship is his being hired to fix a priceless collection of mechanical toys which had been destroyed by the grotesque, monkeyish Liesl Naegeli. Liesl, a withdrawn, almost autistic child because of her hideous appearance, is reached and befriended by Eisengrim, and when she inherits her father’s wealth, she joins him in setting up a magic show.
After the film company disperses, Ramsay brings up the question of who killed Boy Staunton, and all the events of the three books are finally drawn together in this mystery-like final section. For the reader who has not read the earlier two novels, the mystery does not receive enough emphasis to make it a major concern; but the solution marvelously draws together all the philosophical concerns of appearance and reality and our varying viewpoints regarding it.
Davies’ style has been compared to that of Dickens, but with an added depth of psychological insight. Indeed, his romantic plot and Dickensian characters on the carnival circuit are most impressive, but the main characters tend to be one-dimensional, serving as mouthpieces for the author’s ideas. Ultimately, it is the author’s skillful interweaving of bits of life to come up with the complete fabric of truth that is most satisfying.
