Reading Matters

'A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In' by Magnus Mills

Fiction - hardcover; Bloomsbury; 276 pages; 2011. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

If we ever needed a novel to satirise the current malaise of the British Empire — complete with unhappy public sector workers, crippling debt and politicos looking after their own interests — then who better than to offer it up than Magnus Mills? A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In is Mills' seventh novel, and it's typical Mills fare.

If you've never read anything by Mills before, you need to prepare yourself in advance. I promise that you will have never encountered anything quite like a Mills novel before.

He writes in a completely stripped back way, using short, simplistic sentences. On face value, these may seem dull and monotonous, but you can never accuse him of being boring. That's because it's up to the reader to figure out what's going on — in many cases, it's the things that Mills doesn't say that make his stories so powerful.

Mills' stories are also peopled entirely by men, there is little or no characterisation (although you will probably recognise people you know — officials and jobsworths primarily), little or no descriptions of people or places, and the plots are superficial.

But as allegories or fables, you can't get any better. And as far as black comedies go, you're in for a real treat.

Poking fun at the feudal system

In A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In Mills' tackles the feudal system, which is not a topic you'd generally associate with humour. Yet in Mills' hands it becomes the funniest thing since, well, the feudal system.

The story is told through the eyes of an unnamed character, who is Principal Composer to the Imperial Court. Despite never having played a note in his life, he is "supreme leader" of the imperial orchestra. He clearly isn't up for the job, but it doesn't matter, because the conductor, a very talented musician, does all the work for which he can take credit.

The Principal Composer sits on an eight-member cabinet presided over by his Exalted Highness, The Majestic Emperor of the Realms, Dominions, Colonies and Commonwealth of Greater Fallowfields.

Absentee king

Unfortunately, His Highness seems to have gone missing, and because he never turns up to the weekly cabinet meeting no decisions about the empire, which is bestridden by ongoing problems, can be made. So the officers-of-state, who are all equal in the hierarchy, muddle along as best they can.

Any form of cooperation between departments is ruled out, so the problems — an unreliable postal system, a lack of money in circulation (it's all being "reserved for a rainy day" by the Chancellor of the Exchequer) and an imperial telescope that only works if the Astronomer Royal has a sixpence to put in the slot — are never sorted.

A series of idiotic decisions are made. Chief among these is an imperial edict that arrives via post from the absentee emperor. He orders that the sun must set at five o'clock all year round, but the only way to make that happen is to ensure all clocks within Greater Fallowfields are put forward by two minutes every day. This means a great deal of work for one particular cabinet member — who moans and groans about it  — but for several others it's seen as a wonderful opportunity to enjoy tea — lemon curd and toasted soldiers — in the library to watch the sunset every day.

A crumbling empire

Mills paints a convincing portrait of an empire, a former maritime supremacy, now stuck in its ways, failing to modernise or make decisions with the best interests of its citizens in mind.

Typically, there's a lot of deadpan humour (when one cabinet member points out that there's "absolutely no kind of spiritual, theological or pastoral representative", a colleague responds, "Thank God") and bitter irony (the cabinet spends much of its time rehearsing a play which is an "example of the feudal system in perfect working order — until someone tampers with it").

But it all comes to a head when a (literal) threat on the horizon is noted: foreigners are building a trainline to Greater Fallowfields and an immigration boom seems imminent — or does it?

A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In is a seemingly impossible mix of the odd and endearing. It's playful and fun, but with a serious undercurrent running between the lines. The characters are delightfully eccentric and the way in which the empire is run will, at times, remind you of the terrible bureaucracy and inflexibility of systems here in the UK.

All in all, it is a wonderful, comic read that is bound to appeal to new readers and Mills' fans alike.

More reviews of Mills' work

I've reviewed all of Mills' previous novels on the site: The Restraint of Beasts (1998), All Quiet on the Orient Express (1999), Three to See the King (2001), The Scheme for Full Employment (2003), Explorers of the New Century (2005) and The Maintenance of Headway (2009).

Update

Bloomsbury has posted a gorgeous advent calendar on the internet, which is based on Anna Wray's beautiful cover art for A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In.

'The Maintenance of Headway' by Magnus Mills

 

 Fiction - hardcover; Bloomsbury; 152 pages; 2009.

You know you've really enjoyed a book when you titter your way through it, which is exactly what I did when I eagerly devoured Magnus Mills' latest novel, The Maintenance of Headway.

Mills, who is one of my favourite authors, is, admittedly, not for everyone. He writes in a deliberately understated way, with an almost childlike naivety. He doesn't bother with extraneous detail, because everything moves forward chiefly through dialogue. This allows him to really get to the heart of the matter, which, in most of his novels, is this simple premise: English life is plagued by bureaucracy and officialdom for no other reason than it keeps people in employment. 

In The Maintenance of Headway, Mills turns his scornful eye towards the running of the London bus network. (Mills himself was a bus driver when his first novel, The Restraint of Beasts, was published.) Well, I suspect it's London for the city isn't named, but the description of the street system -- "The streets are higgledy-piggledy and narrow; there are countless squares and circuses, zebra crossings and pelicans. Go east from the arch and you've got twenty-three sets of traffic lights in a row" -- is unmistakable. I'm also convinced that the "bejewelled thoroughfare" ("a great canyon of flagship stores stretching side by side for nearly a mile") mentioned in the text is actually London's Oxford Street.

As to the story, there's not really much to it. In fact, it's pretty much devoid of plot. The book is essentially a satire that pokes fun at the overly regimented (and somewhat unsuccessful) way in which the Board of Transport runs its buses, where "there's no excuse for being early" and everyone bemoans the loss of the Venerable Platform Bus (which can only be another way of describing the now defunct but rather iconic Routemaster) with its conductors and no doors. It covers the running battle between the bus drivers, who just want to drive buses to their required destinations with a minimum of fuss, and the inspectors, who meddle with the timetables and routes under the guise of "maintaining headway" .

Much of it is laugh-out-loud funny, particularly if you have a dry sense of humour. The wit comes chiefly through the conversations held between drivers on their tea-breaks. I was rather partial to the rogue driver, Jason, with his reckless attitude to passenger safety. In a discussion about passenger's who deliberately ring the bell with no intention of getting off, Jason says:

'If they keep doing it on my bus I give them some treatment with the brake and the accelerator. Rough them up a bit:  teach them a lesson.' 
'What about all the innocent people?' I asked. 'The ones who haven't touched the
bell?' 
'Tough, isn't it?' said Jason.

If you've ever experienced the joys of being a bus passenger, there's a lot in this funny little novel you'll recognise. And next time you wait ages for a bus and then three come along at once, you'll know exactly who to blame.

'Explorers of the New Century' by Magnus Mills

Fiction - paperback; Bloomsbury; 186 pages; 2006.

Magnus Mills is a cheeky little scamp. With a big black beating heart. He lulls you into a false sense of security before dealing you a killer blow. And you can't help but love him for it.

Explorers of the New Century, his fifth novel, starts out as a rather fun, light-hearted story about two groups of explorers competing to reach the "furtherest point from civilisation". One group -- Scandinavian, small and efficient -- follows a dry riverbed; the second -- British, large and disorganised -- takes a different route across an endless landscape of scree.

The narrative plods along (pun fully intended) for what seems like forever. Not much seems to happen. (Admittedly, I considered abandoning the book, because it was so slow and dull.) The Scandinavians make good progress but are constantly worried they'll get pipped at the post, while the Brits get mired in bickering and make poor leadership decisions.

And then, somewhere around the half-way mark, Mills throws a curve ball that makes you rub your eyes and re-read the sentence to make sure you didn't misunderstand it. Suddenly the book takes a rather kooky and surreal turn, and you begin to realise Mills must have had a great time writing this book. Either that, or he was hallucinating when he cooked up the plot.

Then, just as you're coming to grips with this new turn of events, he delivers another surprise twist that turns everything, and I mean everything, on its head. The story, which began as a rather pedestrian (there I go with the puns again, sorry about that) narrative now becomes rather dark and sinister. It makes you see everything that's already happened before in a new and disturbing light. It's brilliant.

Now, for obvious reasons, I can't reveal the exact nature of these two "twists", but I can say that Explorers of the New Century is one of those deceptively simple novels that is part allegory, part fable and stays with you long after you've finished reading it.

Crucially, there's a lot of deadpan humour in it too, which breaks up the monotony of the anorexic text. Most of it is quite subtle, but there was one exchange they caused me to laugh out loud. The British group has just set up camp and are fantasising about scones with "lashings of jam and butter".

The tent had four occupants. Sargent was in his normal position by the door. Next to him was Summerfield, already fast asleep. Then came Seddon, and at the far end was Plover. The latter had adopted his usual pose. He was lying on his side, outstretched with his legs crossed and his head popped on one hand, facing the doorway.
He waited a moment and then said, "I think you'll find that the  correct pronunciation is 'scones'."
"'Scones'?" repeated Sargent.
"'Scones,'" repeated Plover.
"Well, I've never heard that before. We've always said 'scones' where I come from."
"Same here," agreed Seddon.
"I assure you the word is 'scones'," said Plover. "You should look it up when you get the opportunity."

Trust Mills to capture the absurdity of English people arguing about the English language!

For what it's worth, this is a hugely enjoyable book which can be easily read in just a couple of hours, perfect if you're looking for a quick palette cleanser between novels. It's typical Mills fare, if a little darker than usual, so if you like this you're sure to enjoy his back catalogue, most of which is reviewed here.

'The Scheme for Full Employment' by Magnus Mills

Fiction - hardcover; Flamingo; 255 pages; 2003.

Reading a book by Magnus Mills is a bit like stepping into a parallel universe: everything looks and feels the same but there's something a little off key that you can't quite put your finger on. The Scheme for Full Employment, Mills' fourth novel, is no exception.

The Scheme is essentially a distribution business in which goods are transported from depot to depot in a vehicle called a UniVan.

The UniVan was a glorious creation! With its distinctive gunmetal paintwork and silvery livery, its bull-nosed profile, running boards and chrome front grill, it had become a celebrated national icon, recognised and loved by all! Moreover, it represented a great idea that not only worked, but was seen to work!

Becoming an employee on The Scheme, which runs like clockwork and offers eight hours' pay for eight hours' work, is held up as a pinnacle of achievement. What better way can one earn a living than driving a van in a courteous, efficient and timely manner from depot to depot delivering unspecified goods to a rigorous and ordered schedule?

But the rigour and order with which The Scheme is renowned comes under threat by revelations that some workers aren't doing their full eight hour days -- some are being signed off for an "early swerve" on a semi-regular basis, so instead of finishing bang on 4.30pm some are going home a half-hour earlier! This authorised skiving is not approved by those employees who believe that such actions will destroy The Scheme's regimented order they love so much, and a strike -- the first in The Scheme's history -- ensues.

It's not hard to see that The Scheme for Full Employment is actually a parody of the capitalist system, poking fun, as it does, at everything from unionised labour to the sheer monotony of many people's working lives. It's peopled by characters that derive meaning and purpose to their existence by the dullest of jobs and responsibilities. And it calls into question the hollow nature of businesses, which are set up purely to keep someone in employment.

The monotonous routine of The Scheme is echoed by Mills' own dead-pan humour, his repetitive writing style and his often dull descriptions of people and places.

Just as his earlier novels -- The Restraint of Beasts, All Quiet on the Orient Express and Three to See the King -- featured a working-class narrator as the unwitting hero of the piece, The Scheme for Full Employment offers up a similarly lovable if naive (unnamed) person trying to make sense of a strange and alienating world.

While not as humorous and a tad more symbolic than previous efforts, this is still a recommended read for those who want to try something deliciously -- and strangely -- different.

'The Restraint of Beasts' by Magnus Mills

Fiction - paperback; Flamingo; 215 pages; 1999.

This is the type of book that will make you look at high tensile agricultural fencing in an entirely new way. I'm not joking. And it might make you think twice about refusing a third helping of sausages at breakfast, too.

A highly unusual tale written in a highly unusual style, The Restraint of Beasts (the title refers to what a fence does) is a black comedy like no other.

It tells the story of two itinerant Scots fencers, the pub-obsessed, cash-strapped Tam and Richie, who are dispatched to England to build a fence. With them goes the narrator, their foreman, who dreads spending the next six weeks or so living on a farm in a squalid caravan with his often silent and moody charges.

Here the trio spend their days bashing in fence posts and threading high-tensile wire between them, usually in dismal weather conditions. Their evenings are spent wolfing down cold baked beans straight from the can and then spending what little money they have in the nearest pub. It's all very dull, mediocre and treadmill like.

This is echoed in Magnus' Mills deliciously anorexic prose that borders on being completely turgid. There are pages and pages where nothing very much seems to happen. And then -- POW! -- something incredibly hilarious occurs that makes all the boredom preceding it worthwhile.

Mills, who famously got a huge advance to write this book, knows how to deliver a good punch line -- all the while keeping a straight face. He is a master at conveying moods and atmospheres in just a few words. His dialogue is particularly good, allowing his characters to move the story along through speech, more than action.

He is able to turn the ordinary into something sinister in a way that defies description, so that you're never quite sure whether a terrible event is going to happen or whether the author is just playing with your sense of the dramatic.

I loved this book, but I have to say I much preferred Mills' later efforts -- Three to See the King and All Quiet on the Orient Express. Still, The Restraint of Beasts impressed the critics upon publication -- it was shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize and the 1998 Whitbread Award.

Click to read my initial impressions of this book.

'Three to see the King' by Magnus Mills

Fiction - paperback; Harper Perennial; 167 pages; 2001.

Three to see the King is a fable about human relationships and human happiness. Is the grass greener on the other side? And if you conform to society's expectations will you feel like you belong?

This is a simple tale told in Mills' characteristic stripped back prose; it's almost like reading a children's story, except the adult complexities resonate off the page. In fact it's the things that Mills does not say that reveal so much about the characters in this little gem of a book.

The narrator himself is a simple character, happy to live in a house made of tin on a vast, red sandy plain in relative isolation and obscurity. But one day a woman arrives at his door and moves in. Initially he feels unsettled by this, but eventually he gets used to her presence and a comfortable companionship ensues.

Then his neighbour announces he's moving further afield to join a community being built by the great Michael Hawkins.But the narrator refuses to accept that Michael's way of life is any better than his own, and, in making such an admission, inadvertently offends his neighbour who is unable to believe his short-sightedness.

Within weeks everyone living within a five-mile radius of the narrator has packed up their houses and moved to Michael's village. The narrator watches a never-ending stream of people wandering across the red sandy plain, pieces of tin strapped to their backs, as they head towards nirvana down the road.

Before long curiosity gets the better of him and he too goes in search of greener pastures. . . with devastating (and hilarious) consequences.

I loved this book and sniggered all the way through it. But don't be fooled by the pared down language; there's a lot going on here. It's a wonderful allegory, part horror story, part comedy and I defy you not to read it without smiling at least once. These kinds of books are good for the soul.

If you like Three to see the King, you may also like Magnus Mills' All Quiet on the Orient Express.

'All Quiet on the Orient Express' by Magnus Mills

Fiction - paperback; Harper Perennial; 214 pages; 2004.

The Lake District, England. It's the end of summer. All the tourists have packed up and gone home - except one young man, the unnamed narrator of this book, who decides to hang on for a couple of more days before heading to India on a backpacking adventure.

Tommy Parker, who owns the land our narrator is camping on, befriends him, and gives him a succession of odd jobs to do. The jobs become more complicated and more time consuming. Before long our narrator finds himself so embroiled in the local community, with its sinister undertones and strange, quirky characters, that all idea of travelling to the subcontinent gets completely shelved.

He spends his days working for Parker while his evenings are spent doing homework for Parker's teenage daughter and playing darts and drinking pints in the local pub. All the while he has one eye looking over his shoulder, because he keeps doing things that - for reasons unfathomable to him - upset others. "You better watch Parker's temper," he keeps getting told, which only makes our narrator more nervous and watchful.

It's this kind of suspense, built up over a succession of nothing incidents, that keeps the reader turning the pages. And despite the subtle plot, which tends to go nowhere fast, I loved this book.

Still, All Quiet on the Orient Express (I'm still trying to work out what the title means) is one of the strangest novels I've ever read. But it is also one of the funniest. There are scenes and conversations that are so laugh-out-loud funny I had to stifle my guffaws while reading this on public transport lest my fellow passengers thought I was certifiable.

Apart from the dark humour, the book's greatest strength lies in its simplicity. Unlike The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith, which I found overly childlike and mundane in its naivety, All Quiet on the Orient Express has an intelligence and a wisdom that resonates off the page. Hence many reviewers have called his writing "Kafka-like". I agree.

Mills's prose is so stripped back it is practically anorexic. He wastes no word on descriptions of anything - all the scenery, all the action, all the characterisation is painted via dialogue. And what an ear for dialogue he has. He can convey so much by a simple conversation between two people, such as this exchange on the telephone:

"You may wish to know we've had a new consignment of beans."

"Have you?" I said.

"Would you like to order some?"

"Baked beans, are they?"

"Yes."

"Baked beans with a delicious, rich tomato sauce?"

"Correct."

"Fresh from the factory, in cans with a handy ring-pull lid?"

"That's the ones," said Hodge.

"Sorry," I said. "I've learnt to do without them."

At that moment the pips went again and I hung up.

Mills also has an uncanny knack of being able to tap into the English psyche. Despite the fact that his cast of characters are quietly seething or pissed off about one thing or another, they never express this to the people causing them the grief. Instead they are well mannered and refuse to make a fuss. As a result nothing ever gets resolved. Just like real English life.

Many of the characters are also wonderfully eccentric.

All in all, this is a brilliant book. On the surface it seems simple and straightforward, but underneath there is so much more going on. And the twist at the end is delicious!

Maybe, just maybe, Mills could be my new favourite author. I've already gone out and purchased two more from his back catalogue.