A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In

As the clock struck ten, Smew opened the register.

I didn’t see the ‘Comedy Genre’ sticker. Readers know that I’m always careful when it comes to having someone else decide for me what I’m going to find funny and/or laugh about. On the other hand, maybe comedy is more than that, but that comes to close to the philosophical side of things. I guess I just got distracted by the cover and the title.

A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In starts out as funny and pretty absurd. There’s a country with a missing empire, the people of state can’t spend their money and there’s no such thing as efficiency or productivity. The main character and reader are in the same state of bewilderment, and possibly after a few chapters starting off the same way, wondering if any kind of plot is even around.

With a train come changes and the absurd does a 90 to turn into something that could be recognized as satire. Is every kind of process good, does a human being not need anything else but employment and there is definitely no need for a state-figure as long as there is (small/local) authority.

And like that the reader shuffles through this book with a question mark on their forehead and a smile around their lips. Yes, maybe this is comedy.

A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In, Magnus Mills, Bloomsbury 2011

Author: vanferdinandus
