Classic Book Review: THE BIRDS By Frank Baker 1936

In an earlier post I explained the controversy surrounding the Hitchcock classic and the existence of this novel. Only a few hundred copies were published in 1936. Thanks to Valancourt Books the novel has been re-issued and I am happy to have read it.

It is an engaging and intriguing study of life and survival against a backdrop of apocalyptic proportions. I want to emphasize that the story presented here, as opposed to atomic bomb and zombie tropes, is the focus on the people and their story; the everyday mixed in within the threat; and the superior blending of words and imagery that makes more contemporary fare crap.

You can keep the apocalyptic literature of the last ten years --- even movies and television; for the best parts of it all combined cannot measure to Mr. Baker's quiet masterpiece. 

THE BIRDS

So have I said recently that I was so happy we scuttled our television? If I didn't I am. Now I can read more crap rather than watch it. With the exception of life interrupting these past few days I have flung myself headlong into the controversy that became Hitchcock's THE BIRDS.

My wife hates the movie. I find it amusing yet the genesis for the flick is under dispute. Okay maybe not but yeah really. Alfred Hitchcock's THE BIRDS is purportedly loosely based on Daphne du Maurier's 1952 short story. Hitchcock supposedly told screenwriter Evan Hunter to expand the plot and create new characters. What he came up with reads quite closely to Frank Baker's 1936 novel THE BIRDS.

I am two thirds through and the parallels are amazing.

Or in the immortal words of the immortal Keith Richards, and I am paraphrasing, 'there are just so many chords a lot of things sound alike.'