Experience The Birds And Other Stories Imagined By Daphne Du Maurier Exhibited In Leaflet

of OctoberSpooky Classics

“The Birds and Other Stories” by Daphne du MaurierampKindle Edition,

This ebook includes the following short stories:

“The Birds” p,
“Monte Verità, p.
“The Apple Tree”, p,
“The Little Photographer”, p,
“Kiss Me Again, Stranger”, p,
“The old Man”, p,

Currently, I have only read “The Birds” and will come back at a later date to finish this book,


“The Birds p,

Setting: London

,rounded up. Not being much of a short story fan, I actually found myself being drawn into Nat Hoken, a farm worker out in the country, somemiles from London, and his familys survival.
I felt a bit of urgency of surviving each night and day as the tide shifted and the east wind suddenly started to bring in the hostile and killer seagulls from the sea, and turned all inland birds hostile against humans.
I liked how this story focused on the one familys survival versus a whole country, which, be assured, the birds were attacking everywhere,

Theres no rhyme or reason for the sudden attacks, and theres, unfortunately, no ending either, The family makes it through another night while the birds are tap, tap, tapping on the boarded up windows of the house, In the morning, the end of the story, the birds are seen out on the ocean horizon waiting for the next tide to come in with the easterly wind.
This gave the family roughlyhours to run around and get more supplies and take care of boarding up the house better before the next attack, I was disappointed. I wanted more. Maybe thats the purpose

of short stories,

Some believe the birds are symbolic of London being bombarded during World War II, There are only a couple of instances mentioned that might even insinuate this,

PAGE: When Nat was talking to his neighbor, trying to come up with a reason why the birds were suddenly attacking, the farmer says, “Well, what do you make of it Theyre saying in town the Russians have done it.
The Russians have poisoned the birds, ” LOL! Some things never change,

AND

PAGE: Nats wife is distraught after the second night of birds and says, “Wont America do something Theyve always been our allies, havent they Surely America will do something”

Some sources say Daphne hated Alfred Hitchcocks depiction of The Birds in film.
Alfred Hitchcock wasnt really interested in following storylines, He would skim through a story just once and determine if he liked the basic idea, If so, he would produce a movie on the “idea”, not the story, There was new technology just being discovered in filmmaking, and he wanted them to be put to good use, He claimed to not even remember what Daphne du Mauriers, The Birds, was really about,

In the end, theres no doubt Alfred Hitchcocks movie was definitely based more on Daphne du Mauriers novel, rather than Frank Bakers, The setting and storyline were a bit different, even from Daphnes novel:

, Set in Bodega Bay, California
, A new “love” interest story with a family, instead of a man, his wife and their child,
. They didnt know when the birds would attack, In du Mauriers novel, the birds always attacked on the incoming tide and an easterly wind,
. The novel ends with the birds all resting out in the ocean horizon, while the movie ends with the birds surrounding the house of the only survivors on Bodega Bay Island.


In my opinion, not too far off, But, the movie itself Meh! Sometimes the acting cracked me up

UPDATED

Finished reading other stories:



Monte Verità p.

Setting: Monte Verità, Europe and London

Pronounced:
montee vuhreetä

Author prefers not to say whether its in Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy or Tyrol.


Spoken inst person, a best friend, and mountain climbing buddy, to Victor and his new wife, Anna, of Shropshire,

The top of Monte Verità is considered a spiritual heaven in this novel, Certain random people are drawn to it during their lives, especially girls and women, Their hair is cropped short and they all dress the same in linen dress that comes down to the knees, and bare feet, There is no gender.

They dont die, they simply disappear, They pray and worship the sun, which they believe gives them light and life, There is no “creed, no savior, and no deity”, p Nothing worldly exists there at the top of Monte Verità, It is described to be a lot like Heaven would be, but without God or Jesus,

Anna was called to Monte Verità by the sacerdotesse, spirits high up in the mountain who reside in the monastery, which are never seen, and was, for some reason, deemed the highest deity over all who was there and who were to come.
When Anna disappears, Victor spends his life, to his last dying breath in search of her,

The nameless narrator was called to Monte Verità towards the end of the story and was allowed inside the monastery for one last visual visit with Anna.
He was to send last words to Victor, before he died, that she really was fine,



The Apple Tree p,

So they lived in two different worlds, their minds not meeting,

Afteryears of marriage, the pessimistic Midge, of course not the man, had developed some very annoying habits, And, when Midge dies of pneumonia, the man is finally free, free, free to do what he pleases,

But, he is reminded of her every time he looked out his window to see the old, miserable, dying apple tree that resembled his wife, Midge.
The barbed wire wrapped around the trunk looked like her skirt, and the branches reaching up, then drooping, looked like her slumped, miserable shoulders, He wanted to get rid of it as well,

The man becomes a lonely miserable mess and has pushed away everyone else, including the help around the house, and he ends up alone, his nightly drinks at the bar down the roadbecause now his house is dark and unfriendly.
He is in his own little selfish world, where he will die, Ha!

Unfortunately, the ending fell completely flat for me,



”The Little Photographer” p,

A secret love affair that goes awry between Madame la Marquise and the photographer, Monsieur Paul,

Madame la Marquise had no excitements in her life, Sure, she was married to a very wealthy hard working man and had two beautiful young daughters, but her circle of friends had quick summer romances while on vacationing away from their husbands.
She would like to try it,

She meets the little photographer with the club foot, The fling begins, but Monsieur Paul becomes way too attached to her, He says he will sell his business to his sister, who also has a club foot, and will follow her wherever she goes, Suddenly, the secret fun is over for her, and she comes out of her stupor, Shes married for Petes sake, and she realizes shes got to get rid of him, So she didby pushing him over the cliff of their secret meeting place,

Monsieur Pauls sister had arrived at the hotel with a few semiscandalous photos just before Madame la Marquise and the kids were leaving town, The ending insinuates that the beautiful Madame la Marquise will not get away with her secret summertime rendezvous because her husband, who arrived to pick her and the kids up, mentioned how sorry he was for the family, as having a clubfoot was hereditary.




”Kiss Me Again, Stranger” p,

Okay, nice twist at the end of this little short romance, The man who kissed the beautiful stranger from the theater was very lucky he wasnt in the Air Force, or else the stranger would have killed him instead of the military guy who was sitting at the cafe talking smut about women at:am in the morning.




“The old Man” p,

Even a short story should make some kind of sense, When an old man and his wife send their children away and then kills their own grown invalid son, who is slow and dependent on them, just so they can be alone together again, the author “tries” to get you to feel sorry for them.
The old man and his wife sees the narrator burying their son, They embrace each other, seeing its over, and their son is buried, then went to the center of the lake, They each turned into beautiful swans and flew off into the setting sun, It was a beautiful sightNOT!


overall average for all stories, .