Benvenuti
04-06-2011, 12:28 AM
Short Story, by Daphne Du Maurier (Virago, Great Britain 2004, first published 1952)
I love it when a book or short story succeeds in taking me to a different place. This story takes me to a place where I can feel the cold, hear the wind and smell the sea. It is set in England, in a place where one can't help but be in touch with the seasons. In fact, it opens:
"On December the third the wind changed overnight and it was winter".
The strong sense of nature and the elements help to give the book its mood and sense of danger, but there is another aspect to the story. It is set in a time when the war was a recent memory. The main character, Nat, is described as having a war-time disability. When strange things start happening, initially nobody takes it seriously and Nat privately laments that it was "just like the air-raids in the war. No one down this end of the country knew what the Plymouth folk had seen and suffered."
When Nat is boarding up his windows to protect his family, we learn that he had also boarded up the windows for his mother, in Plymouth, and made "the shelter". But, ominously, "not that it had been of any use, when the moment came."
When the birds start behaving in strange and sinister ways, people speculate about causes such as the birds being hungry or cold. These are ideas which fit in with our association of birds with nature. But it is soon clear that the birds are not behaving in any way which would be described as natural. Although their attacks are timed to ebb and flow with the tides, it is soon clear that the birds are at war.
The book has a great sense of suspense and danger. It ends up where the family is alone, abandoned even by the BBC on the "wireless". We are left to imagine and speculate about their fate.
Is the short story like the movie? The short answer is, "no". Both have elements of suspense. Both have birds which go crazy. But the characters are totally different. The settings are totally different. The short story, set in Cornwall is about a quiet man of modest means and his attempts to save his family. The movie, set in California, is about a glamorous, young rich girl and her growing relationship with a handsome, successful young lawyer.
Neither the short story nor the movie provide definitive explanations for the birds' behaviour, which the audience wants. Both leave us wanting to know more at the end about what happens and the final fate of the protagonists. Both provoke feelings of suspense and danger.
But my favourite? I think I like the short story. Its haunting feeling will stay with me longer than any feelings evoked by the movie. The movie was more "entertaining" and shocking. It did have its fair share of suspense. But the short story, as well as giving that sense of place and time that I love, was able to subtly draw on deeper associations we already have about the second world war. For me, this gives it a depth and subtlety which is always going to be harder to invoke in a movie.
I love it when a book or short story succeeds in taking me to a different place. This story takes me to a place where I can feel the cold, hear the wind and smell the sea. It is set in England, in a place where one can't help but be in touch with the seasons. In fact, it opens:
"On December the third the wind changed overnight and it was winter".
The strong sense of nature and the elements help to give the book its mood and sense of danger, but there is another aspect to the story. It is set in a time when the war was a recent memory. The main character, Nat, is described as having a war-time disability. When strange things start happening, initially nobody takes it seriously and Nat privately laments that it was "just like the air-raids in the war. No one down this end of the country knew what the Plymouth folk had seen and suffered."
When Nat is boarding up his windows to protect his family, we learn that he had also boarded up the windows for his mother, in Plymouth, and made "the shelter". But, ominously, "not that it had been of any use, when the moment came."
When the birds start behaving in strange and sinister ways, people speculate about causes such as the birds being hungry or cold. These are ideas which fit in with our association of birds with nature. But it is soon clear that the birds are not behaving in any way which would be described as natural. Although their attacks are timed to ebb and flow with the tides, it is soon clear that the birds are at war.
The book has a great sense of suspense and danger. It ends up where the family is alone, abandoned even by the BBC on the "wireless". We are left to imagine and speculate about their fate.
Is the short story like the movie? The short answer is, "no". Both have elements of suspense. Both have birds which go crazy. But the characters are totally different. The settings are totally different. The short story, set in Cornwall is about a quiet man of modest means and his attempts to save his family. The movie, set in California, is about a glamorous, young rich girl and her growing relationship with a handsome, successful young lawyer.
Neither the short story nor the movie provide definitive explanations for the birds' behaviour, which the audience wants. Both leave us wanting to know more at the end about what happens and the final fate of the protagonists. Both provoke feelings of suspense and danger.
But my favourite? I think I like the short story. Its haunting feeling will stay with me longer than any feelings evoked by the movie. The movie was more "entertaining" and shocking. It did have its fair share of suspense. But the short story, as well as giving that sense of place and time that I love, was able to subtly draw on deeper associations we already have about the second world war. For me, this gives it a depth and subtlety which is always going to be harder to invoke in a movie.