The London Pigeon Wars, by Patrick Neate
At least it's different...
(Review posted 4 Dec 2004 13:54:08)

There are two, or possibly three, stories in The London Pigeon Wars. One (the one that takes up most of the book, or at least it seemed that way while I was reading it) is a soap-opera with a cast of like seven or eight twenty-or-thirty-something hip-but-struggling young people in modern London. They do poetry readings and open hat shops and predictive-software startups and have babies (well, one baby) and flashback to when they were all (or some) in school together, and get drunk and have fights and reconcilliations and stuff.

I could have done with a bit less of that plot, but that's probably just because I'm a heartless geek. I mean, they're nice and well-drawn enough people, but do I really care if Karen and Tom get back together?

The second story is about how the pigeons of London briefly get self-consciousness and language, and have a big civil war. This is a daring and brilliant hook, and the language of the pigeons is quirky and strange and almost always avoids being annoying.

Do you object if I take a ninety from the narrative thrust and detach myself like a sulky coochie from the flock (who's just dropped the squirmiest squirm into the reservoirs at Barnes, say, or lost the handsomest geez to some harlot rival with no charms but a coy coochie-coo)?

This part of the book (told in the first-pigeon by a bird named Ravenscourt) is fun, and has some interesting squirms in it about consciousness and contentment and conflict and all.

The third story, that's supposed to tie together the other two, is about this guy Murray that the other cast members knew in school, who shows up again after ten years and has various effects on them. He has amazing magical powers of persuasion and charisma and generally making things happens. He has no last name, and he eats only chicken. He changes the shape of the relationships in the soap opera, generally for the better, and he is somehow related to the consciousness of the pigeons as well.

It's a fun read (although a bit heavy on the soap opera), but ultimately the third story doesn't really succeed in tying together the other two. Murray's magical powers of personality feel like a continuous ex machina; in any situation he does or causes whatever the author needs done or caused.

And we never really do get an explantion of the pigeon consciousness (unless I was just too dense to get it), aside from the fact that Murray and his mysterious history are somehow involved. We do get a revelation of one vital fact about what happened to him ten years ago, but we don't find out why he has no last name, why he only eats chicken, why he's intent on robbing a bank, why his personality is so stunningly impactful, or why a castoff bit of his lunch caused (or didn't cause) the pigeon thing.

So. Fun read, various flaws, not amazing or life-changing but probably worth the time spent reading. And at least it's different...