A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in - Magnus Mills
When I say abstract common themes, I mean that they usually involve men in an routine occupation; a close and closed group of workers in a job that has clearly laid out rules, regulations and timetables that have to be adhered to for maximum efficiency or for the greater good, or sometimes for no discernable good reason at all. Eventually however, outside forces and internal pressures lead to a crisis or complete breakdown of this carefully crafted sense of order. There are exceptions, but mainly all Mills' books are really just variations on this theme.
What also characterises Magnus Mills is his direct, deceptively plain writing style, with a narrator adopting an apparently measured and authoritative voice, but one that has nagging doubts that start to creep in as his previous assurance begins to find it difficult to remain in control or deal with change. There is almost always an undercurrent of dry humour in there, an awareness of the absurdity of what is going on, but with a slightly sinister undercurrent lurking underneath, it's never allowed to descend into complete absurdist comedy.
In the case of A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in, it's very much business as usual then. There is perhaps not so much overt dry humour, but the situation itself certainly has its own measure of surreal comic absurdity. In the Empire of Greater Fallowfields, the new young Emperor is absent, having failed to return from his studies, so it's left to the Officers-of-State who make up the cabinet to manage the important matters of running the state. Well, when I say important, those positions involve being responsible for astronomy, the mail service and the official for music among other departments. Furthermore, none of these positions seem to be adequately funded and the officers in charge appear to have little experience or even knowledge of their briefs.
Things that matter to the general populace and their well-being don't really come into it. This is a feudal system subject to sudden bizarre edicts that have to be carried out. The official orchestra is made up of serfs kept in poverty, but even the unnamed narrator who has been put in charge of them seems to have little freedom to earn or spend money. The barman at the Maypole can't just take money from anyone, and there are not even any dancing girls to enjoy. The Astronomer Royal's telescope doesn't work without having a sixpence to put into it, but within these limitations and poverty of circumstances, everything is tightly controlled, the council seeming to have freedom to deal with affairs in their own way. In the absence of the Emperor, they prepare a play based on Macbeth, wearing a crown and playing at being ruler, and the narrator, as chief composer, gets his conductor to write an overture for it.
Needless to say, even within this simple society, things don't entirely go to plan. As well as apparently not being qualified in their respective fields, there is a certain amount of rivalry or conflict between the cabinet and their disciplines, but mainly it's over who is really in charge in the absence of emperor. There are also, crucially, a few changes that upset the daily rhythm; a troupe of travelling players arrive, smoke is seem in the forest suggesting an unwelcome incursion from the outside, and then a train line links up Fallowfield with the City of Scoffers. Outsiders obviously are to be feared as they are disruptive to the established order - even if (especially if) the established order is not working.
I'm sure you can see how this can all appear to be a satire or a commentary on society, but with Magnus Mills it's usually a lot more open than any allegory that you can apply to a real world situation and it doesn't really appear to be setting out to take a firm position or make a statement. Although A Cruel Bird appears to be a satire of society and politics, or a comparison between a state ruled by an out of touch elite with an apparently more open and freer society that is seen in the City of Scoffers, there is barely anything here relevant here to modern day politics. At every juncture and decision however, you can recognise the truth of human behaviours in reaction to the society and order around them.
It's human behaviour then that is really the focus of Magnus Mills' writing, on individuals and how they behave in a social context, on how they try to establish order and how that order inevitably becomes corrupted and self-destructs, invariably as a consequence of the inherent flaws in human nature. Whether Mills is exploring something profound here (or elsewhere) or is just over-generalising is debatable, but I find his observations - particularly on the behaviour of middle aged white men - very perceptive and insightful. And since they are often the ones in positions of influence or power, that is something worth considering and applying to whatever particular issue you like.
In the differences between the Empire of Greater Fallowfields and the City of Scoffers, you could see A Cruel Bird as a commentary on feudalist society versus a democratic society, as an exploration of the impact of capitalism or communism. The feudal system with its arcane rules and traditions might be abandoned, but there is also a slavery to a place that ticks along like clockwork, where "rules and regulations were applied to the letter; correct procedures were invariably followed; and, of course, the trains always ran on time", but where "perpetual expansion" leads to mediocrity and dissatisfaction.
It's not the social or political construct that matters so much as the nature of people within them that determines how they work, or more pertinently, how they will eventually fail. No matter where you put the Magnus Mills male, they will always revert to form. The delight is in watching what little things start deviating a little club of men away from their beliefs, principles rules and regulations. And often it is the strictness of the rules that makes things difficult when they come up against reality. For all the comic absurdity, there is a lot of reality in the works of Magnus Mills.
Reading notes: A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked in by Magnus Mills was first published in 2011, but I'm only getting around to reading it now. I picked up the original hardcover edition of this book, published by Bloomsbury. I would very much like to catch up with his books that I haven't yet read and maybe revisit a few that I've read before.
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