BIRD LIFE by Anna Smaill — reviewed by Stella
Dinah has arrived in Japan to teach English. Her apartment is dismal, her job mediocre, but here, in this foreign city far from her suburban New Zealand upbringing, she thinks she can escape and forget about her twin brother. Yet everywhere she looks he is there. Dinah is moving through the city streets on the edge of tipping into despair. This city is what she wants but it is unexpectedly strange. She is at odds with it. Sleeping outside in the grim park outside her building, suspecting she is the only person living in the apartment complex (she never sees anyone) and wary of an overly aggressive crow. Is what she senses real? How far is she removed from herself when she is not playing the role of the foreign language teacher? Can she thrive here or will she be subsumed by her grief? Yasuko, a teacher at the same school, is polished and precise. From her elegant wardrobe to her observant eye, she is an enigma to her colleagues. They are wary but captivated by her charm and daring, while she holds herself separate and aloof. For this world is of little importance to her. She hides a secret self. One which she represses for her adult son Jun. When her son disappears Yasuko begins to unravel. She has powers within her that connect her to another world, a natural world. This supernatural world seems drawn to Yasuko, as much as she is drawn to it, and the carefully manicured roles she plays as teacher and parent are tentative. The animals in her past and present are increasingly close, although it is to the strange young foreigner she leans. She is convinced that the girl can help her reconnect with Jun. This unexpected relationship will take them both on a journey. For Yasuko, she is driven on by a desire to be released from her burdens towards a place where the voices can fly free. For Dinah, in the hope she will come home to herself, she will follow, as she has always done, without understanding the peril or the pleasure. Bird Life examines the forces that allow us to slip from one world to another, the relationship between the internal and external, and the tentative membrane that exists between genius and madness. As with Anna Smaill’s acclaimed previous novel, The Chimes, the writing is taut and evocative with subtle symbolism and a rhythmic beauty. The magical realism hints at Murakami and Allende, while the quotidian observations keep the novel in the here and now, creating a satisfying fracture in this absorbing story.