I decided to read this book, which I now believe i had at least heard about before, because it was mentioned as one of the classics of american literature in "The Novel". I decided to read The Novel because it was referenced in "Wild". Deciding what to read can be a complicated process.
While I don't have time to write book reviews (this particular book was probably written in 1899-that's the date given to it and the writer died around 1903) it was particularly poignant dealing, as it did, with the 1899-1900's version of California and the mistreatment of one person or another. It's hard to say anything about the book without giving away things which I would rather not give away, suffice it to say that it's worth reading, even though the mistreatment of the bird in the story was almost more than I can stand under the present circumstances other than the fact that it was merely a fictional bird and that it made for great illusion and redirection.
It is brutally written.
The writing allows you to step into San Francisco of that era and that alone makes it a worthwhile read.
It appears to have one of the great 'trap endings' of literature and film and is, to my knowledge, the first use of it; although I'm sure you'll come up with another one just to show you're smarter than me.
The moral of the story is that we should get together to protect as many birds as possible. That actually is not the moral of the story at all, but I decided to say it anyway.
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