After reading Daphne du Maurier's short story "The Birds" I'll never look at another one of our feathered friends in the same way ever again. This is one of the most excruciating stories that I've ever read. Excruciating in the fear that arises as you sit inside a tiny cottage on the Cornish coast with the Hocken family listening to the tapping of beaks and scratching of talons trying to get in. The second story in the NYRB collection, it's considered by some to be her short story masterpiece, and before I read it I might have disagreed (having a certain fondness for "Don't Look Now"), but now I'm inclined to think it's just about as perfect as they come. Another longish story (about forty pages), I had thought to split it up over the course of a couple of days to read at my leisure, but once I started it I couldn't possibly put it down. The psychological tension is so intense I think my heart was actually racing by the end. I honestly think this is the sort of story that nightmares are made of (and before I read it I would not have thought that of it).
I don't really want to say a lot about the story as the structure is pretty simple and I don't want to give away too much of the plot. First, though, you need to erase from your mind the famous movie adaptation by Alfred Hitchcock, as the two bear only the faintest resemblance. Apparently Daphne was not pleased with the movie, which many people are probably more familiar with. I think the movie is a classic in its own right, but really should considered on different grounds. In the story it's what's left unsaid and left up to the reader's imagination that is so terrifying.
"Although Ned Hocken was married, with children, his was a solitary disposition; he liked best to work alone. It pleased him when he was given a bank to build up, or a gate to mend at the far end of the peninsula, where the sea surrounded the farm land on either side. Then, at midday, he would pause and eat the pasty his wife had baked for him, and sitting on the cliff's edge would watch the birds. Autumn was best for this, better than spring. In the spring birds flew inland, purposeful, intent; they knew where they were bound, the rhythm and ritual of their life brooked no delay. In autumn, those that had not migrated overseas but remained to pass the winter were caught up in the same driving urge, but because migration was denied them followed a pattern of their own. Great flocks of them came to the peninsula, restless, uneasy, spending themselves in motion; now wheeling, circling in the sky, now settling to feed on the rich new-turned soil, but even when they fed it was as though they did so without hunger, without desire. Restlessness drove them to the skies again."
Almost overnight autumn turns to winter and the cold east winds bring a hard freeze. A black freeze, not a white one, so no snow. The cold is bitter, almost unknown in the area. It's the cold that's blamed for the odd behavior of the birds. During the night Ned was awoken by birds pecking at the window, and when he opened it they seemed to almost attack him. The window in the children's room was left open and bird after bird flew in going for his son's eyes. Having lived through and been disabled by the recent war, Ned is pretty savvy when it comes to batting down the hatches and preparing for the worst circumstances, which is what he does when he realizes that the birds are acting odd for a reason.
Perhaps it is the bitter cold air that's traveled down from the Arctic creating this strange behavior. Others say the Russians have poisoned the birds. Whatever the cause Ned boards up the windows, builds up the fire and makes sure there's enough food to last a few days and waits with his family for a solution to come from the government, or more likely the scientists. So they sit by the wireless and wait. It's like sitting out an unrelenting storm that you're not sure will ever end and waiting got help you aren't sure is ever coming. I'll leave it at that.
The story was written in 1952 and could probably be read as a cautionary tale either politically or ecologically. Very much a product of its time with the Cold War on everyone's minds, it still looks forward. However the critics like to analyze it, it's a chilling read. The Gothic/suspense genre really has much to thank Daphne du Maurier for, as she laid some amazing groundwork. I've snagged a cover illustration from a Virago edition of short stories, as it matched what I was reading, though I don't actually own that one. Although not for the faint of heart, I do wholly recommend this one. She had such a knack at unnerving her readers! Next weekend: "Escort".