The Birds of the Innocent Wood

by Deirdre Madden

Sisters Sarah and Catherine each have a secret. However, as winter gives way to spring at the bleak and isolated farm where they live with their mother Jane, the burden of these secrets becomes intolerable.

Deirdre Madden won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature for Hidden Symptoms.

Genres: Ireland, Literary Fiction, Irish Literature, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 1988

About the author

Deirdre Madden is from Toomebridge, County Antrim in Northern Ireland. She was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and at the University of East Anglia. In 1994 she was Writer-in-Residence at University College, Cork and in 1997 was Writer Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin. She has travelled widely in Europe and has spent extended periods of time in both France and Italy.

Reviews

[Lea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Superbly written, dark and sparse, but the second half didn't really manage to fully grab me or convince me story-wise. I think the whole "families have a secret" thing felt a little too gothic and heavy-handed. One of the weaker Deirdre Madden novels, but there is still a lot to be admired, especially in the way she writes scenes and creates atmosphere.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Madden weaves a dark story about Jane, whose parents perished in a fire when she was only two, and her two daughters. Raised by an aunt and sent to boarding school, Jane felt unwanted and unloved. She felt lonely and somehow isolated herself from society, even isolating herself from her husband. The daughters grew up loving their mother but frightened of her. The odd family dynamics contributed to strangeness in their own behaviors. The remote location plays into the novel's depictions of despair. The novel looks at loneliness, isolation, and secrets. Madden does a good job crafting the Somerset Maugham award-winning narrative. Although readers may not feel a personal connection to the characters, they may reflect on individual psychology and make comparisons to their own family dynamics.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark in tone, this is the story of a family dealing individually with long-held secrets and painful pasts. The format is an interesting blend of memories and current experiences, and the landscape is as bleak as the story line. I was reminded of Thomas Hardy throughout this book.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I saw someone else on Goodreads categorize this as "worthy but dull" and I had to agree. I wasn't in the mood for so much interiority. I appreciate the Irish writing tradition of saying little to say a lot, obscuring deep emotions below the surface, and leaving out what the characters themselves are hoping to avoid acknowledging. The writing was good. But found myself just wanting to get through it. Still looking forward to trying another of her books.

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so disappointed by this last of my unread Deirdre Madden books! She took a Gothic turn and threw in enough orphans and creepy birds to satisfy the Bronte sisters. High body count and low marital satisfaction rates will leave this book lowest on my ranking of her novels.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mindfuckingly good. Up there with other Somerset Maugham winners like First Love, Last Rites and The Rachel Papers - ie almost too bloody good an act to follow (Martin Amis certainly never managed; Ian McEwan less so)

[Cath Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb compared this to Somerset Maugham. That should have been a warning....

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bleak as hell, but excellently and intelligently written.

[Ape · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful, intensely bleak, haunting and just... I still don't quite know what to make of it. I'm sure a certain amount went straight over my head. It's mostly set in rural Ireland, sometime in the mid 1900s (I'm guessing) and about the lives of Jane and her twin daughters, Catherine and Sarah. All the characters feel very insular and disconnected from one another, even from themselves, so they stand at a distance from everyone, even us readers. Jane.. well, was there ever a greater tale of woe? She was sick as a child and spent a lot of time in hospital. During one such trip, the family home burned down with her parents in it, leaving her an orphan. She went to live with an aunt who didn't have much interest and ended up shipping her off to boarding school. So utterley devoid of love and experience of making connections, she is incapable of friendships, or understanding them even I wonder. It seems a little amazing that she gets married in adulthood. But married she is, to farmer James off at a remote place by a big lake. A place where religion is taken seriously. The most heartbreaking of all seems to be the local attitude to suicides, death of disreputables AND stillborn children - none of whom are welcome in the churchyard and are all buried "at the foot of the hill". Knowing that her stillborn son is buried away, is part of the thing that breaks her, I think. She comes back from her time in the asylum, and later has the twin girls.

There are so many mirror images and reflections in this story. In fact Sarah spends some time staring at the mirror trying to figure herself out, and in a dream smashes it. And of course she's one of a set of identical twins. There's a documentary mentioned in passing at one point about two sisters and a brother all reuinted having known nothing of each other. Then of course ***spoilers*** there are three cousins in this tale who don't realise it, as well as two unknowing siblings. We see nests full of chicks, empty nests - which seems to be a great terror and a repressive force in this tale, with the parents keen to keep their adult children in the family home forever. Ellen, who lives at the nearby cottage, is keen to get her son home in a local job, and the twins snipe at each other whenever one has a thought of breaking free and trying to create a life of her own. In fact the only person that does move on, and get something new for herself is Jane. Is this simply because she is an orphan and there's no one to hold her back?

The story flits between working through Jane's life story, and then following the twins when they're about 18-20 years old, a couple of years after their mother's death. They're dealing with their grief, their father who is crippled by grief, and what to do with their own lives. And the realisation that they too are mortal.

In many ways not a heck of a lot happens, and as mentioned before, this is a very bleak story. Beautifully written though, from the 1980s I see. A writer I'd not heard of before.

[Karen Mace · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a little book (only 148 pages), there is so much going on in this story that I found it totally absorbing, atmospheric, dark and dramatic and really enjoyed every single page, even if it was often very depressing! I found the way that the author split the story worked brilliantly and allowed you to take on board the way that the actions of others impacted on those closest to them. The exploration of family, loneliness and dealing with loss was superbly dealt with and allowed you to feel the pain of each of the characters.

The story starts with Jane who was an only child and very poorly, and while she was in hospital she tragically lost both parents. When well enough to leave hospital she goes to live with her aunt who isn't interested in the young girl in the slightest and packs er off to a convent boarding school at the age of 5. She settles into this way of life quite quickly and developes a very strong faith which is shaken as the years go by. She then settles into a routine life working in an office where she meets James - two lonely souls brought together by desperation to escape their lives.

We then hear from Sarah and Catherine, 2 sisters who we learn are Jane's daughters, and their stories of how their lives turned out after their mother's dies. It's clear that they have both been affected by how they grew up and it is fascinating to see their different personalities emerge and how the loss of others seems to hang over them all.

The chapters chop and change from different timelines as we go back to look at Jane's life, alongside events that are troubling her daughters and I loved being shocked by the misery that kept befalling them in various guises.

It's definitely not a cheery read but there's so much going on that packs a punch and I'm fascinated to read more from this author as I'd not heard about her before and intrigued to see how she approaches different subjects!

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

What started out as a very promising read, fizzled out and fell flat in its conclusion.

[Ceraphina · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd, but deeply thought provoking read. I think I’ll find myself pondering this novel probably for the rest of the year.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Catching up on reviews, my memory of this one is limited to a deeply oppressive tea-shade of brown. It felt like Madden wanted to put her characters through the ringer, almost like a literary lab experiment. Every bottle on the shelf of human misery seemed to be reached into and poured into a dense and bitter tannin-steeped text. If you ever find yourself feeling too happy, give this a go. For me, I was glade to escape its dark woods.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is good.Many of the characters are not at all likable when you meet them. The book explores why they are they so miserable. Comparisons to the characters of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are inevitable.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book left me confused.