bird brain by guy kennaway

Times literary supplement 28 october 2011

In Bird Brain, Guy Kennaway’s first novel, a landowner dies on a shoot and is reincarnated as a pheasant. Although this conceit might suggest a bias in favour of the animal, Banger Peyton-Crumbe – the man-turned-pheasant in question – barely alters his view of the birds in spite of becoming one. Whether as a mammal or a fowl, he maintains an untroubled contempt for his own species: “as a man he had no difficulty hating the rest of humanity, so the situation was no different”.

This is not to say that Banger is without appeal: no doubt in view of their catastrophically short lives, he wickedly decides to rename his fellow pheasants after Sharon Tate, Flight 93 and the Titanic, among others. The author’s satiric intentions are borne out by jokes at the expense of New Labour and the Iraqi Police Force as well as a host of other targets. Although the book is occasionally funny, the humour will not be to everyone’s taste: there is much discussion of Banger’s “vintage gas”, which his favourite dog pines for after his death, and of the distinctive smell of his brother William’s bottom.

More interestingly, Kennaway explores why pheasants are popularly assumed to be stupid, and wonders if this is one reason why the fox is protected by hunting legislation when pheasants are not. The author is by no means anti-hunting, however, and he lampoons a sex-starved animal rights activist just as mercilessly as he does any of the pro-hunting aristocrats who feature in the book. He is honest enough to explore man’s urge to kill animals and documents the masses of pheasants that need to be buried after shoots, as so few of them are eaten. In fact, through the human characters in the novel, Kennaway explores the full gamut of attitudes to animals, from that of a sentimental young girl to that of a vegetarian-baiting hunter.

The mystery of Banger’s death (hesupposedly dies when a shotgun explodes in his face) is soon revealed to be not very mysterious. Kennaway certainly manages to tell the tale with gusto but anyone who has difficulty with the idea of talking animals will find Bird Brain tedious.

This review originally appeared in the Times Literary Supplement