Mr. Basilier’s novel, The Black Bird is a very dark comedy about a very, very dysfunctional family having a very, very , very bad year.Mr. Balilier takes great liberty with the facts of that “defining moment in Canadian History” that this novel plays with. I had to look up the facts about The October Crisis because at the time ( Fall of 1970) I was a first year university student at UofA in Alberta, Canada..and happily (or sadly??) , politics were the farthest thing from my mind! I do remember talking on the phone with my parents about the War Measures Act and being told that if things got worse, I would have to move back home!!Facts:FLQ – Front de liberation du QuebecOctober Crisis: Canada in 1970, Montreal, QuebecOctober 5 –British Trade Minister, James Cross, was kidnapped by the FLQOctober 10 – Quebec Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte was kidnapped by the FLQOctober 16 – Then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, introduced the War Measures Act to deal with the FLQ threat. I remember his now famous quote “Just watch me” when told he couldn’t do that.Oct. 17 –The body of Pierre Laporte was found in the trunk of a car.Nov. 6 – Bernard Lortie was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of Pierre LaporteDec. 3 – James Cross was released unharmed by the FLQDec. 28 – The FLQ kidnappers of Pierre Laporte were caughtNow back to the novel. We are in the city of Montreal, Quebec. 1970 is not going to end well. There is a sense of doom and gloom. The FLQ are terrorizing the English and anyone who gets in their way. The hapless, wayward “Family Desouche”, composed of three generations of English and French Canadians, struggle to put food on the table and to heat their shabby, old relic of a home. When the youngest (unbeknown to her family: a militant separatist) murders one of the oldest (her Mother’s Anglo Montrealer grandpa ) the family, tightly held together by their dirty secrets, begins to fall apart.We see the under belly of Montreal: bars, prisons, doctor’s offices, churches. We meet a very ugly group of characters :grave robbers, patriots, rebels, abortionists, poets, murders, mad scientists, a Frankenstein, ghosts, and last but not least, a big black crow named Grace.I have to admit, if I had a better understanding of Quebec politics in the 70’s, I would probably have found this story much funnier than I did. It is not a happy story and it is not even a true story, yet I found myself going back to it time after time, wanting to know what was going to happen to this unhappy, misguided, mixed up family. When all was said and done, I actually liked the book and I am glad I picked it up to read.
I really enjoyed this novel. I couldn't put it down. I was a bit afraid because it got some mixed reviews from us common folk, but I read ahead anyway. I'm so very glad I did. It's entertaining and irreverent. It makes some interesting political points, paints a fabulous picture of a dysfunctional family in a city where "death is at the center of everything," argues about the virtues of action vs. art and vice versa. Yet, I still found it very funny and quirky. Well done.Working in the theft of St. Andre Bessette's heart was really something. That scene is beautifully written, and I found myself really feeling for an ostensibly unlikeable character for the first time. Then his story is told. Never judge a book by its cover, let alone the characters inside the book.A great, hugely entertaining read.
Do You like book Black Bird (2004)?
I liked this novel. It seemed like it would be the sort of novel I would love: dark humour, magic realism, surreal scenes...a ghost who doesn't realize he's a ghost, a mad scientist creating monster like Frankenstein, a mysterious crow, grave-robbers...all set against the backdrop of Montreal in 1970. It was an enjoyable story, with some great passages, but overall it seemed to fall short of its mark--too many characters whose voices were inconsistent, mixed with a breezily omnipotent narrator and a lot of telling instead of showing. I appreciated the book, mostly enjoyed reading it, but didn't love it.
—Oliver Ho
I was, and still am, very ambivalent about “Black Bird”, which does not happen very often. There are many details that I liked a lot: the view of identity in which certain characters have no first names and their own perception of themselves, the shift of perspective through an omnipresent narrator, the dynamic style and rich plot, the macabre ways of the family and other characters as a contrast to a relatively realistic background, the social and political aspects incorporated into the story, the first and last sentence which create a narrative within the narrative and a general film-noir-quality.The protagonists keep swinging between being characters and being types. They are often more than mere types, but hardly ever develop fully into characters. I did not mind that though, for in a story like this types would have done just fine. Even though I know not much about the social conflicts in francophone Canada, the larger socio-political context is a very interesting part of the novel. Still I believe that the antagonism is much better depicted (or rather could have been depicted) in the confusing self-perception and identity of the mixed anglophone and francophone family. On community level though I find the tensions to simplified and unilateral. My impression is that on all levels, rather than on pillars creating three-dimensional depth in characters and plot, the novel rests on a vast variety of topics and images distributed in a wide range yet superficially. More than once did I feel the need for clearer motivation or consistency.This lack of consistency was quite visible formally as well. Although magical realism is probably my favourite genre and Verfremdungseffekt my favourite concept, in this case the hint of estrangement seemed like nothing more than an experiment gone wrong: It was too insisted upon to go unnoticed, but still too incoherent to leave a mark. In the end all the things I liked and those to which I had objections cancel each other out. I would have preferred to see a smaller number of completed ideas than this range of semi-developed elements in the novel.
—Jelena
