A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In
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Review
`Quirky, curious and very funny - a Magnus opus from the master of idiosyncratic peculiarity' --Ben Schott
`Magnus Mills's seventh novel is a grown up fairytale with a hint of political allegory ... a beautiful, singular book; funny and acutely observed'
--Independent on Sunday
`Mills creates a world full of Swiftian comedy as he pushes the rigidity of the social system to the limits of absurdity ... [he] has produced a tale that is brave and original yet also accessible, written in his characteristic, pared-down comic style ... A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In is an imaginative triumph' --Literary Review
`This philosophical satire is told in Mills's deceptively simple narrative voice, with the allegories running through adding depth to his characters' simple lives. A smattering of well-placed humour makes this a very well-told story'
--Yorkshire Evening Post
`Just when you think Magnus Mills couldn't possibly get any better, off he goes. This is a masterpiece'
--Dan Rhodes, author of Timoleon Vieta Come Home
'A Cruel Bird is as utterly odd, as endearing and as disturbing a book as anything that has come before ... The wonderful thing about the outlandish world of Magnus Mills is that it always sounds familiar'
--Guardian
`Magnus Mills's seventh novel is a grown up fairytale with a hint of political allegory ... a beautiful, singular book; funny and acutely observed'
--Independent on Sunday
`Mills creates a world full of Swiftian comedy as he pushes the rigidity of the social system to the limits of absurdity ... [he] has produced a tale that is brave and original yet also accessible, written in his characteristic, pared-down comic style ... A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In is an imaginative triumph' --Literary Review
`This philosophical satire is told in Mills's deceptively simple narrative voice, with the allegories running through adding depth to his characters' simple lives. A smattering of well-placed humour makes this a very well-told story'
--Yorkshire Evening Post
`Just when you think Magnus Mills couldn't possibly get any better, off he goes. This is a masterpiece'
--Dan Rhodes, author of Timoleon Vieta Come Home
'A Cruel Bird is as utterly odd, as endearing and as disturbing a book as anything that has come before ... The wonderful thing about the outlandish world of Magnus Mills is that it always sounds familiar'
--Guardian
Review
Mills is a true original who has always ploughed his own - occasionally surreal - furrow in a series of comic gems. His latest, a quirky mix of fairy tale and political satire, offers clear parallels between the fictional world and our own. It's like Orwell's 1984 rewritten by Tolkien. **** Mail on Sunday 'Comedy's blackest, funniest and most astute practitioner' Daily Telegraph Just when you think Magnus Mills couldn't possibly get any better, off he goes. This is a masterpiece. Dan Rhodes, author of Timoleon Vieta Come Home A beautiful, singular book; funny and acutely observed. Independent on Sunday One of our finest comic stylists on top form. Financial Times Magnus Mills is Britain's most original writer, so forget everything you've been told about fiction - he has never even heard of the rules that apply to everyone else The Times
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The Empire - so-called - of Greater Fallowfields has dwindled, and now even the Emperor has gone missing. In his absence, a Cabinet of Ministers meets but with no business to carry out, they amuse themselves instead by rehearsing a play. There is a feeling of unease. There isn't even a real crown - that is missing too. An imitation one is to be used for the Coronation, because "nobody makes anything here anymore". The Ministers stumble through their days, encountering a range of customs that might be at home in Gormenghast (though they are much less gothic). Their stipendiary sixpences cannot be spent: the post takes days to deliver because the postmen return home mid morning for their breakfasts: the Imperial Orchestra is staffed by serfs who endlessly rehearse the National Anthem (with daring variations, though this is apparently treason).
As in other books, Mills achieves a pleasantly defocussed tone by being non specific about references to the real world. For example, composers are mentioned, and we may guess who they are, but their names are not given. The approaching winter festival is the "Twelve Day Feast". The play that the Ministers are rehearsing may be MacBeth. Above all, the "I" who narrates the book - Composer to the Imperial Court (though the actual composition is carried out by one of the serfs in the orchestra) and one of the Cabinet - is never named, nor is his (they are all male, and indeed I don't think there is a single female character in the book, save perhaps for the dancing girls who are mentioned a few times but never appear) background (or any of the others) given. We are not told how or why they were summoned to join the Cabinet (in the absence of the Emperor) or where they came from. The creates a dreamlike atmosphere that is only intensified when Mills' narrator, browsing the Imperial library, encounters a book of fairy stories illustrated by what look like the cover art from his earlier books.
I suspect the effect this creates may divide readers: I rather liked it, as I liked the similar effect in The Maintenance of Headway where the city may have been London but equally may not. Possibly others may look for greater clarity about the book's setting.
What I did find slightly disappointing was the ending, which brings a rather abrupt resolution to the story. It wouldn't do to give too much away about this, but - as the title hints - Greater Fallowfield's musty existence is under threat. It is a threat which the ineffectual Cabinet is ill equipped to meet (or even recognise). As a result the horizons of the book open out rather - but then, almost at a stroke, the Empire is restored. Or so it seems. I think there is a hint of unease, a sense that the Empire may now be something of a theme park (signified by the restoration of the Cake - don't ask) but even so it all seems a bit hurriedly done.
Though I enjoyed this book, I'm only rating it 3 stars because of that ending (perhaps it would be 3-and-a-half if that was allowed). I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from reading it, though, and I may be missing something clever here.
As in other books, Mills achieves a pleasantly defocussed tone by being non specific about references to the real world. For example, composers are mentioned, and we may guess who they are, but their names are not given. The approaching winter festival is the "Twelve Day Feast". The play that the Ministers are rehearsing may be MacBeth. Above all, the "I" who narrates the book - Composer to the Imperial Court (though the actual composition is carried out by one of the serfs in the orchestra) and one of the Cabinet - is never named, nor is his (they are all male, and indeed I don't think there is a single female character in the book, save perhaps for the dancing girls who are mentioned a few times but never appear) background (or any of the others) given. We are not told how or why they were summoned to join the Cabinet (in the absence of the Emperor) or where they came from. The creates a dreamlike atmosphere that is only intensified when Mills' narrator, browsing the Imperial library, encounters a book of fairy stories illustrated by what look like the cover art from his earlier books.
I suspect the effect this creates may divide readers: I rather liked it, as I liked the similar effect in The Maintenance of Headway where the city may have been London but equally may not. Possibly others may look for greater clarity about the book's setting.
What I did find slightly disappointing was the ending, which brings a rather abrupt resolution to the story. It wouldn't do to give too much away about this, but - as the title hints - Greater Fallowfield's musty existence is under threat. It is a threat which the ineffectual Cabinet is ill equipped to meet (or even recognise). As a result the horizons of the book open out rather - but then, almost at a stroke, the Empire is restored. Or so it seems. I think there is a hint of unease, a sense that the Empire may now be something of a theme park (signified by the restoration of the Cake - don't ask) but even so it all seems a bit hurriedly done.
Though I enjoyed this book, I'm only rating it 3 stars because of that ending (perhaps it would be 3-and-a-half if that was allowed). I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from reading it, though, and I may be missing something clever here.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've come to love Magnus Mills' novels more with each book, and by this one I was reading each sentence with delight. His humour is so quiet, and yet deadly. The books are a paean to British boringness and puzzlement, to the deep desire for a cushy life at work (and he does the workplace better than anyone) that is continually being threatened by the ogres of effiency. Here Britain, or Greater Fallowfields, is shrunk to a dream Greenwich, and the ineffectual political class is the subject of often painful satire and many shaggy-dog jokes. Pointlessness is Mills' forte. If the first half is almost Lewis Carroll in its blissful incoherence, the second half subtly introduces the shadow of war, the threat of dictatorship, the possibility of the destruction of a peaceful, tolerant way of life, where nothing matters very much, and nothing ever gets completed. So ultimately a serious book, but a very funny and lovable one. Also, I should add, very poetic.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Greater Fallowfields is falling apart. The emperor is absent and it remains mired in tradition and past glories. Its currency isn't current, its clocks are out of sync with the rest of the world, the royal astronomer requires sixpence to make his scope work, and a Kafka like world of rules and regulations covers its daily existence.
Mills writes deceptively simply. Taken at surface the novel seems breezeingly uncomplicated. It is easy to read, light on exposition, and characters exist in isolation with little backstory other than their role or personal interests. The plot moves at a good pace and the novel contains few complicated words or sentences.
Yet there is clearly more to the novel than the plot. Like Swift, themes and allegories run throughout the novel and there are clear parallels that can be drawn with current situations. To name just a few it touches on empire, the notion of progress, rights and responsibilities, and the Shakespearean theme of appearance / reality. Think a postmodern Swift.
It's thought provoking, good to read and distinctive.
Mills writes deceptively simply. Taken at surface the novel seems breezeingly uncomplicated. It is easy to read, light on exposition, and characters exist in isolation with little backstory other than their role or personal interests. The plot moves at a good pace and the novel contains few complicated words or sentences.
Yet there is clearly more to the novel than the plot. Like Swift, themes and allegories run throughout the novel and there are clear parallels that can be drawn with current situations. To name just a few it touches on empire, the notion of progress, rights and responsibilities, and the Shakespearean theme of appearance / reality. Think a postmodern Swift.
It's thought provoking, good to read and distinctive.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Imaginative as ever, but a little confusing
Mills' first two novels had a similar theme of someone being a part of a society which appears to accept them, but into which they are never really fully accepted - rather like the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mr. K. H. Cobb
Quirkiness for its own sake with little substance
I have read every book by Magnus Mills since his first novel, The Restraint of Beasts was published - a remarkable piece of work of humour and sinister menace and one of the few... Read more
Published 7 months ago by A Common Reader
A delight
I'm not sure what this book is really supposed to be. Is it a political satire, and if so, which nations are the Empire of Greater Fallowfields and City of Scoffers based on? Read more
Published 8 months ago by Bantam Dave
A sketchy satire
I always look forward to a new Magnus Mills, hoping each time that he will create something with the dark energy of his first couple of books. Read more
Published 8 months ago by P. Milner
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