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A review by lkedzie
The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson
4.0
The comparable text is The Sound and the Fury, down to the allusions to The Scottish Play, and in the ways that it has not aged well, here around mental illness. The obvious targets are the but what cards my wool is the too cinematic, too Freudian unveiling the trauma as the undoing of the disorder. It makes for great fiction, but it is not the way the world works. Mental illness (carefully putting to the side the way in which , or whether its presentation here has a lick of connection to reality) is. It is sourceless, affects anyone, and even if a particular variety has a specific origin, unlocking the origin is not Thanks I'm Cured. Though, admittedly, since it is a Jackson special of an ending, there is ambiguity about that.
The particular way that The Bird's Nest is like Sound is in its masterful use of perspective and character interiority. That first major perspective jump, from hate-to-love Wright to Betsy, who, up until that point, is a demon, down to the cursed speech and being bound by twisted rules, is all the emotions. Rolling a slow boil that first justifies every bad impression, it turns tragic, terrifying, and even guilt-inducing. And that is only the first time. That Morgen gets a chapter is a surprise in a surprise.
It is fierce artistry. About the only complaint towards it, which, I concede, is likely intentional, is that at points it makes the action hard to track. More than a movie, I'd love to see this staged, where you can still play around with that but also allow the interplay to flow more naturalistically. Yes, you would lose all sorts of what Jackson is best at, but I would be curious at any rate.
I know that there is some question of whether to consider Jackson a horror writer or not. While most of the time I sweep such questions aside, I think it may matter here more than not, in the sense that I think what intent this novel is written with ought to affect the way in which it is perceived, and in specific whether or not we should forgive its iffy moments.
I do not have an answer to that. But I do think that this is Jackson's form on full display and why she gets considered a horror writer. Much like her #1 fan King, she holds such a tight frame on the prosaic, pedestrian, and domestic, and by being fundamentally about the ordinary, it makes the extraordinary and supernatural feel like it is there. Right now.
Spoiler
functional hypnosis and multiple personalitiesSpoiler
dissociative identity is a contentious diagnosisThe particular way that The Bird's Nest is like Sound is in its masterful use of perspective and character interiority. That first major perspective jump, from hate-to-love Wright to Betsy, who, up until that point, is a demon, down to the cursed speech and being bound by twisted rules, is all the emotions. Rolling a slow boil that first justifies every bad impression, it turns tragic, terrifying, and even guilt-inducing. And that is only the first time. That Morgen gets a chapter is a surprise in a surprise.
It is fierce artistry. About the only complaint towards it, which, I concede, is likely intentional, is that at points it makes the action hard to track. More than a movie, I'd love to see this staged, where you can still play around with that but also allow the interplay to flow more naturalistically. Yes, you would lose all sorts of what Jackson is best at, but I would be curious at any rate.
I know that there is some question of whether to consider Jackson a horror writer or not. While most of the time I sweep such questions aside, I think it may matter here more than not, in the sense that I think what intent this novel is written with ought to affect the way in which it is perceived, and in specific whether or not we should forgive its iffy moments.
I do not have an answer to that. But I do think that this is Jackson's form on full display and why she gets considered a horror writer. Much like her #1 fan King, she holds such a tight frame on the prosaic, pedestrian, and domestic, and by being fundamentally about the ordinary, it makes the extraordinary and supernatural feel like it is there. Right now.