Howard Norman's The Bird Artist

The Bird Artist

Howard Norman is the author of the highly regarded novel THE NORTHERN LIGHTS (1987). In Norman’s second novel THE BIRD ARTIST, Fabian Vas lives in the remote village of Witless Bay, Newfoundland. As the narrator of the novel, the reader is presented with the matter-of-fact world that Vas inhabits. Because of the harshness of the environment, there is a toughness required of the citizens of Witless Bay. The terrain punishes anyone who is weak of body and/or of spirit. The novel’s action takes place in 1911. Vas does his best to make a living by drawing birds. He has talent, but there are so few people willing to pay money for his art. Vas, though, is more than an illustrator of birds. He admits to having murdered Botho August,

There is no pretension in his approach to the story. The characters he has created are gruff, no-nonsense types of people. Margaret Handle is a hard-drinking woman who speaks her mind and passionately loves Fabian Vas. She also has an affair with the lighthouse keeper. Vas’s mother Alaric is another strong-willed female who takes up with the lighthouse keeper when her husband is away for the summer. In this cruel environment, the people seem to act upon their passions without much regard for the consequences. Jealousy and revenge torment Vas as well as other characters in the novel. THE BIRD ARTIST is a wonderfully vital creation. Men and women struggle against a brutal locale, against one another, and against themselves in order to survive with some degree of

It opens with a highly intriguing first paragraph which sadly only partially delivers what it promises to do. The display of Norman's naturalist tendencies and fascination with birds is subtle and well judged in as far as they helped define the character of Fabian Vas. Having said that, I feel he got a little carried away with scene setting which caused the story to drag on a bit in the first half. The novel only started to take off with the murder, but from there, the writing is so uniformly excellent you readily overlook the deficiencies that went before. Norman writes with a restraint and economy that is unusual in thrillers. The dialogue of his characters is similarly spare and understated but with a bitterness and unpleasantness which underlie their true feelings. I found this to be especially true of Margaret and Alaric. By the end of the novel, you wonder whether Fabian's weakness is any less forgiveable than the whiskey swigging Margaret's upfront ruthlessness. Probably not. The novel has all the human interest elements to make a great story and it succeeds for much of the time. The highlight for me was Fabian's redemption via the painting of the church mural depicting coastal life and the dramatic events which altered the course of their lives. "The Bird Artist" is a very accomplished piece of work. It is