“‘The seeds of me are the seeds of you,’ the Strange Bird said. But you don’t have to have read Borne in order to understand the story, since it is about classic themes, common to all people, all living things. Here are again the Magician “Mord”, the great flying bear “Borne”, the creature found by the rebels “Wick” and “Rachel”, and the murdering gangs of feral children. The setting is the same post-apocalyptic planet and characters as in VanderMeer’s previous novel, Borne. 24)Ĭontrasted with this image are the descriptions of the awful things the “Magician” does to the bird in the ruined and dangerous city. And VanderMeer’s descriptions of these animals are just delightful: “So she sang back silently to them, as a comfort, there in the cell, and when the moonlight lay thick and bright against the gritty cheek of the sand dune, the foxes would gambol and prance for the sheer delight of it and beckon her to join them, would let her into their minds that she might know what it was to gambol and prance on those four legs, then these four legs, to see the world from a fox’s level. And indeed, the “Strange Bird” with her magnificently coloured wings is wonderful, but so are the little ghost foxes that are the Strange Bird’s only companions and that keep her alive when she is captured. In the dedication, he thanks writer Sjón for letting him borrow one of Sjón’s blue foxes, a reference to Sjón’s novel, The Blue Fox. What is love, and how much will we give up and let go of to regain lost love? It is amazing that VanderMeer could’ve packed so much meaning into such a little book. It is comment on what constitutes “home”, and what is at the core of each person’s subconscious. It is also sad, strange, and at the end, transcendently hopeful. Each image is like a painting, glowing with detail. Every carefully chosen word is just right. The Strange Bird is a little gem of a novel.
The Strange Bird – A Borne Story, by Jeff VanderMeer (Paperback publisher: MCD x FSG Originals Feb.
0 kommentar(er)
