Birds and Other Stories

THE BIRDS AND OTHER STORIES -- title of the 1977 and 1992 collection of six Daphne du Maurier (1907 - 1989) stories released by the UK's Arrow Books Limited -- was first published in Britain by Gollancz in 1952 as THE APPLE TREE (name of one of the six yarns). *** Of the six tales, the best known is "The Birds," made into a 1963 feature film by Alfred Hitchcock. Du Maurier's thriller novella about massive, mysterious, coordinated attacks by normally peaceable birds on humans is set on the coast of Cornwall in southwestern England. Its structure is much simpler than Hitchcock's technicolor film (no humor or romantic hi-jinks) which is set on Bodega Bay in California. The novella is understated but (unlike the Hitchcock version) with a plausible suggestion how an incredibly cold and enduring Arctic cold wave might have triggered events which spread all disaster across the United Kingdom at enormous speed. *** In my opinion by far the most orginal and memorable story of the collection is "Monte Verita." Two friends since boyhood, both avid mountain climbers, are swept into mystery after one marries Anna. When Anna without notifying her husband enters an ancient, never visited almost inaccessible mountain monastery in Central Europe and becomes the abbess of men and women who worship the moon, tragedy is set in motion. The ancient connection between mountains, goddesses and worship is explored. *** In "The Apple Tree" an underappreciated wife dies and returns to life as a hitherto barren now blooming apple tree in her garden, apparently to torment the widowed husband who had ceased loving or even noticing her years before. *** In "The Little Photographer," set somewhere on the Continent, a bored marquise on vacation without her husband seduces a simple native photographer. She regards the mousy man as a pastime to be dropped at any time. Before she pushes him off a cliff he has, however, declared his passionate not to be denied love and taken nude photographs of the marquise. When the dead man's sister discovers the photos, blackmail begins. *** In "Kiss Me Again, Stranger," a post-World War II demobilized soldier in London falls madly in love with a beautiful young woman who might well be a vampire. Had he proven to have once been any form of airman, she would have torn out his throat. Why? Because unnamed German aviators had destroyed her flat and her family in a bombing raid. *** The collection ends with by far the shortest tale (11 pages), "The Old Man." In one of the author's famed surprise endings the old man in question, after struggling for food and interacting with his mate and growing children, suddenly leaves the neighborhood where he has been under observation for some time. "... suddenly I saw the old man stretch his neck and beat his wings, and he took off fom the water, full of power, and she followed him. I watched the two swans fly out to sea right into the face of the setting sun ... alone, in winter." Up to that passage I had no reason to doubt that the old man was thoroughly human. Very well done, Miss du Maurier! -OOO-