Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Book Talk: The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
The Bird Artist finds its setting in Newfoundland of 1911. The village where the story takes place is named Witless Bay. Witless means “lacking in common sense” which in large part gives an idea of the narrator, Fabian Vas, as well as his family, the townsfolk and even the events that transpire in the story. The reader is told right off that this is one tale that lacks wit—or common sense. And it’s true.
Fabian Vas is an artist who sketches wild birds. He is the only son of Alaric and Orkney Vas, who have arranged a marriage for Fabian to a distant cousin. Fabian is already involved with an islander named Margaret but his parents do not want him to marry her. The mother, Alaric just doesn’t like Margaret and the father, Orkney, doesn’t want Fabian to marry someone he grew up with (as he did with Alaric) which is actually a testimony to the troubles in the marriage. Being a bit dim-wittted and loyal to his parents, Fabian goes along with the arranged marriage.
When Fabians father leaves to raise money for the wedding, Alaric Vas begins a love affair with the lighthouse keeper Botho August. And upon return is informed of the goings on. In anger, Orkney asks why his son, Fabian, has not vindicated him. Fabian gets a gun (supplied by Margaret) and kills Botho.
Orkney, Alaric and Fabian flee Witless Bay and go to Halifax, in order to proceed with the arranged marriage. In the midst of this journey, Orkney disappears and just after being married to the unsuspecting Clara (the cousin), Fabian is arrested for murder.
Alaric and Fabian return to Witless Bay and go through a trail, where Fabian is acquitted for the murder, which is blamed on the missing Orkney. Alaric kills herself and in the end, Fabian marries Margaret and is left to reflect on who he is—which is what this book is—a wide open reflection of boy evolving into a man who is both things, an artist and a killer.
I think what makes this book take flight is Norman’s wondrous study of birds via the narrators work as a bird artist and by how he places birds throughout the story as shadows of the plot.
On the first point, the study of birds as a way to add depth, complexity and even a form of quiet wisdom to the narrator, is provided on the first page when the narrator tells us who he is—"I am a bird artist, and have more or less made a living at it." Norman's narrator continues: "I discovered my gift for drawing and painting birds early on. I should better say that my mother saw that someone had filled in the margins of my third-form primer with the sketches of winds, talons and heads of local birds. “I thought this primer was brand-new,” she said. “But its full of these bird drawings. Well, somebody has talent.” After a night’s sleep, she realized that the pencil work was mine and was what I had been concentrating on during my school lessons. Actually, she seemed quite pleased, and at breakfast the following morning said, “awfully nice to learn something so unmistakable about one’s offspring.”
Fabian works at his drawings until he becomes capable enough to be published and secure a mentor who lives off the island. In some ways, Fabians drawing of the birds is a way he goes from being witless to actually being wise. In this description he writes of sketching a rarely sighted bird called a garganey: …and I made my way down to some flat rocks near the water, where I sat watching the garganey for a few moments. Then, moving to a more comfortable rock hollowed out almost like a chair, I sat sketching the garganey for a good two hours. I drew him as he slept. I drew him as he lifted his head, preened, skitted across the surface. He mostly held to one place, though at a certain point he flew off, circled, then lit down on what I thought was the exact same spot, hard of course to determine on a sun-glinted sea. It was as though he has enacted his own dream of flying, then had returned to his body. He fed awhile scooping, shoveling, shaking his head, dipping, drifting, slowly turning with the random eddies. The sea brightened, the wind picked up, and there were whitecaps. I drew. Those were the elements: water, rocks, sun; the garganey, a migrant here for a short stay, whose life I had only happened upon because of that morning’s particular luck. Luck like no other I have ever had, or have had since.
Here, Norman shows us the heart of his narrator and simultaneous uses this bird—the rarely spotted garganey, to shadow the forth-coming marriage (which will last about thirty seconds).
He continues to use birds, in many forms, as a plot shadow. When Botho August (the murdered lover of Fabians mother) appears in the story Norman writes: Botho August had contributed a dozen roasted puffins, those clown faced birds the locals called sea parrots. There was a small population of them on the cliffs beneath the lighthouse…By that time I had earned a reputation in the village for painting and drawing birds…Botho turned a puffin over on its platter with a fork and said “Ever draw one of these, Fabian.”
“Not a dead one. I only draw from life. From the wild.”
Botho stared at me, a hostile squint, as though I had talked down to him.
Just after Orkney leaves to raise money for the arranged marriage, Botho is in the family home and Fabian immediately knows of his mother’s infidelity. He writes: I had to flee my own house, where suddenly I could not breathe the same air as Botho August. I did not know how to think of all this. I did not know how to think about anything, except that I discovered minute by minute. I stopped drawing. I sat there. The owl picked apart the mouse. It got totally dark in the barn.
We don’t have a dead bird but we have a bird pulling apart a tiny mouse.
Another Botho August appearance, accompanied by a disturbing bird appearance is at a funeral, where Botho shows up drunk and angry that he has not been invited to the wake. He trips over a table and comes up, grabs a breast of quail from a plate and calls over to Fabian—“ever draw one of these, Fabian?”
When the marriage is arranged and Orkney agrees to pay for it, he does so by going off to kill hundreds of wild birds—and act which, in itself, lets us know that the father is not honoring Fabian but rather doing what he thinks is best for his son. The writer doesn’t leave the reader hanging about Orkney’s though—but rather lets some dialogue show that the man is struggling with his own choices, even as he makes them. He writes: "It can’t please you, the particular fact that I’m off to kill birds,” he said. “A lot of birds, mostly puffins and suks...” “Anyway, about the birds, Fabian. I am going to shoot any number….I am saying this because I want you to hear that I know exactly what I am doing and why. It’s my choice, this way, to earn money. Your wedding is the beneficiary, but you don’t have to like that.”
At the end of this novel, when all of the story is wrung out and the plot has been unwound to its conclusion, the lessons of character continue to emerge via the study of birds. Fabian’s mentor comes to the island, to say goodbye to his student (as he is dying of cancer) and Fabian shows him a large mural he has been commissioned to paint by the local minister as kind of creative spiritual penance.
The mentor comments on Fabian’s work but is also talking about his character, as well as giving him instructions on how to live: “My best guess is that you’ll continue to contribute. You’ll place your ducks, sandpipers, crows perhaps and a few others in journals. For practicality’s sake, you might specialize in those.”
“You’ve got a knack. And while you may never wholly earn a living from bird art—difficult for anyone—your mergansers, teals, all of your ducks, and if you work at it, a garganey or two, may secure you some small reputation outside of Witless Bay. I’m sure, anyway, you’re highly valued at home.”
I’m intrigued by all the attention to the birds in this book, which is never subtle. We know from the beginning what we are getting into, after all the book is titled The Bird Artist but still, the use of the bird—the pure saturation in the winged creature—would initially present me with some worries. Would writing about birds—so many and so often—be like covering all the surfaces of your house with flowered wall paper? Would it be suffocating to the writer and the reader? I—tending towards more subtly and more focus on humans—wouldn’t consider such a complete bath in feathers. I would think that all the “bird” focus would distract from plot and take away meaning but in this book, it’s not true. Bird is theme—mirror—shadow—and messenger. But it is also just what it is, a silent mystery that can only be deeply observed but never quite understood. Like man? Like life?
1 Comments:
Excellent review! I've just read this book and I really enjoyed it. A large part of the appeal for me was the amount of focus given to the birds.
Post a Comment
<< Home