Review: A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in – Magnus Mills

A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in

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 books I have read several times.   Like many readers I feel that Mills has never managed to surpass The Restraint of Beasts although, his second novel All Quiet on the Orient Express came close. While Mills’ subsequent novels came close in the quirkiness stakes, they never quite equalled the first two books in building a sense of suspenseful malice, relying instead on novelty and “oddness”. 

A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in is definitely in the quirky category, but once more, lacks that slow-building sense  of threat which gave readers of The Restraint of Beasts the need to finish the book in the day they started it.

We find ourselves in the Empire of Greater Fallowfields, where a new ruling Cabinet has just been elected. The book opens with the roll being called for the first meeting and for reasons unknown, all the members have bird names:

Chancellor of the Exchequer?
Present, said Brambling.
Postmaster General?
Present, said Gargeney.
Astronomer Royal?
Here, said Whimbrel.

. . . and so on.

We soon learn that the Cabinet Members wear silly clothes (dandy coats) and have no knowledge of the subjects they have been allocated.  The Astronomer Royal doesn’t know what a planet is, and the Chancellor seems to guard a huge chest of mixed coins.  The story is told in the first person by the un-named Principal Composer to the Imperial Court, and when he leaves his first Cabinet Meeting to find out what he is supposed to do, he walks across to the “cake” (the building the orchestra rehearses in) and finds a “perfectly round building with smooth yellow walls rising to a creamy-white domed roof.

The orchestra are rehearsing inside, playing endless renditions of the Imperial Anthem.  The Principal Composer finds that when he opens the door to the auditorium they stop playing, but when he says “Good!”, they carry on.  He marches to the podium and discovers that when he waves his hands about, the orchestra keep time with him. After a while, the Principal Composer realises that the orchestra is being led by a violinist, called Greylag, who it turns out has remarkable gifts of composition.  Over the next few weeks, the Principal Composer encourages Greylag to perform his self-penned works, but in accord with tradition, the Principal Composer gets the credit for them.

We soon find that Greater Fallowfields is a serfdom, ruled by a clique of self-appointed Barons who serve under an absent Emperor.  The young Emperor went to study in a an adjoining nation and never returned, but this does not hinder the Cabinet who enjoy exercising their positions of power.

Needless to say, trouble is on the way.  This backward Empire has been resting on its laurels for many years and the Cabinet discover that a neighbouring country, “The City of Scoffers” has been building a railway right up to the border of Greater Fallowfields.  We now get to the heart of the novel as Greater Fallowfields is forced to confront its backwardness and deal with a modern economy with a free labour market where talent is rewarded and the old social structures no longer work.

The publisher’s blurb says that A Cruel Bird is Magnus Mills’ most ambitious, enjoyable and rewarding novel to date.  I think I would challenge all three of those superlatives and say that this book is spoiled by a basic silliness which while amusing at times, fails to satisfy for a whole novel.

One oddity about the book which is particularly strange is the complete absence of women (other than a reference to “dancing girls” appearing at an Inn).  The Cabinet members seem to be totally asexual, being happy to have cups of tea with lemon curd and toast as a treat.  This is just one of many peculiarities about the book, but I eventually stopped asking the many questions that arose as I read it and put it down to Mill’s “oddness”.

I suppose its an enjoyable read so long as you read it quickly but in retrospect I feel I wasted my time on this book.  Magnus Mills is a bit of a mystery to me – obviously capable of far more, but spending his time writing almost childish stories with little in them that makes any impact.  I think he needs to return to the real world rather than writing even more books about imaginary places in which he fills his blank pages with too many flights of fancy.  My rating is only: