Approaches to writing fiction vary as much as tastes in reading it: that's a way of recognizing that The Birds Fall Down disagrees with some readers, in large ways or small. One reason I admired it, when I read it in the mid-90s, was precisely its unusual features. Broadly speaking, it concerns the upheavals in Russia that led to the end of the tsar's court and the triumph of the Communists, but it doesn't take place in Russia. Roughly a quarter of its length is devoted to a long talk on a French train--what the New York Times reviewer in 1966 called a "monstrous conversation"--between an exiled aristocrat and a terrorist, but their talk isn't the kind you or I might have. It presents instead, like some of the speeches in the movie Network, a heightened reality akin to operatic arias, to use a term that's been applied both to this discussion and to those excursions in Network. And despite its discursive qualities, the novel shares something with mysteries and spy thrillers; it's genuinely gripping, featuring clues one might at first have missed and secrets one begins to suspect, finally involving life-or-death stakes.I could even say (though I might be overreaching a bit) that this novel of clashing ideas and ideals is also about the life and death of worlds, not in the science-fiction way but in the sense of entire cultures. Those cultures, as well as the novel's style, are increasingly remote now to most of us in America, so The Birds Fall Down seems to some readers alien rather than comfortable, though for me this is a virtue--it has the appeal of the exotic. That may sound merely aesthetic, so I should add that the foreign realm into which the book transports the reader was entirely real and that what happened there was deeply consequential for the entire 20th century.Anyone wanting more detail can easily consult that Times review I mentioned, but be forewarned: it offers criticism rather than ordinary reviewing, in the sense of assessing virtually the entire story. Spoilers, in other words.A personal note: My recollection is that I discovered this novel during one of many trips with my mother to Half Price Books, a used bookstore, in Dallas, Texas, and that she suggested either this work in particular or at least Dame Rebecca West's writing in general. It was one of many recommendations she made and books she gave me. How she came by her broad knowledge of literature (as it still seems to me) is something I never found time to ask her about, and that part of her past is now beyond retrieving, unlike the history restored by Dame Rebecca in this book. Though my mother had been born into a family much inclined to reading--one of her older relations had founded an important part of the University of Texas library system, if I remember right--she must have been preoccupied from the mid-50s with raising a family and from the mid-60s had been a single parent with a full-time job who nonetheless managed to earn a graduate degree (in library science, not surprisingly). When did she discover all those authors to whom she introduced me? Willie Morris, Ray Bradbury, P. D. James, Barbara Pym, Rebecca West, Thomas Merton… the list is long and wide-ranging. I can say only that I'm glad for it.
Wonderful book, but when I try to summarize it it sounds so trite: a young woman of good family grows up and learns more about herself, her family, and the world. All of that is true, but the book also gives you a good explanation of Hegel's dialectic, a good look at the different sides of tradition and revolution, a truly treacherous villain, an excellent example of showing character bias and dramatic irony as Laura, the main character, completely misses something that's clear to the reader despite everything being told from her point-of-view, and a reason to be grateful for the introduction (but don't read it until after you've read the book) that gives you the historical background, because The Birds Fall Down is Rebecca West taking an interesting and important moment in Russian history in the early nineteenth century that I had never heard about before and making her own history out of it. She took the situation and built up her own plot and characters and moving it around a few years, and I would love to know what happened to Laura and her family afterwards.
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I have collected a number of Rebecca West's books since I discovered her two years ago. She is my favourite author of political historical thrillers and commentary. Each time I re-read her works I am appreciate her intelligence of the intricate plots and machinations of our political systems. She speak of these systems in all their aspects including family. She has a playful and deep sense of humour; gently or sharply apparent through the dialogue or narrative. Her works will always keep me coming back for more. If this is one of your interests, I highly recommended her works.
—Claire Goodbody
Rebecca West wrote some marvelously talented works. But she was not Dostoyevsky. She attempted to do too much here, and so only 3 characters are truly given life; that's a major problem when a novelist is trying to create an epic. The story-telling is erratic. Little rhyme or reason is given for character's actions. Scenes that should take several pages take 40. Events which should be more fully explained take a paragraph. Nonsense side plots, if one can even call them plots, come in and out, as if West was writing stream-of-consciousness, and her own subconscious was distracting and yanking her off-track. Still, she's Rebecca West, and it's at least mildly interesting to read her thoughts on Russian politics. Mildly.
—Tara
