Birds Art Life
Page 15
Topics and Questions for Discussion
1. Birds Art Life is structured by season. Why do you think Maclear chose this as an organizing principle? How does the rhythm of the natural world mirror the cyclical turns of our interior lives?
2. Maclear writes about stress and solitude, “A mind narrows when it has too much to bear. Art is not born of unwanted constriction. Art wants formless and spacious quiet, antisocial daydreaming, time away from the consumptive volume of everyday life” (page 7). Do you agree with Maclear? Does art require solitude? Is there meaning to be found in noise and chaos?
3. On page 9, Maclear writes, “Faces have a near-unwatchable intimacy, particularly in a world in which everything perishes in the end.” How does this observation connect to the anticipatory grief Maclear feels towards her ailing father?
4. How does art lead us towards “other possible lives” (page 13)? Does the solitary nature of art hinder such a pursuit?
5. On page 21, Maclear describes how, every time her family moved, her mother constructed a Japanese rock garden in their new backyard. What is the symbolism of this action?
6. In the early days of their birding adventures, the musician tells Maclear that “birds may sing just for the joy of it” (page 30). Why do you think this idea makes Maclear so happy? What might we learn from song made simply for the pleasure of song itself?
7. On page 39, Maclear describes the “sanctuary of the cage.” How are we conditioned to live compartmentalized lives? In what ways can boundaries and constrictions be positive and life-giving?
8. Smallness is a guiding aesthetic for Maclear’s art. How do we see the value of smallness play out in Birds Art Life, both in terms of structure and content?
9. Maclear describes the “spark birds” and “spark books” that ignited her passion for birding and literature. What was your “spark book”? Discuss the formative paintings, films, music, etc. that changed the way you view the world.
10. Throughout the book we see the devastating impact of human interference on birds’ existence. In what ways do we also see the natural world transcend the effects of human development? Do you view such interference as a loss?
11. How does art sustain us through lulls? How can lulls be, as Daniel Day Lewis describes on page 137, the periods in our lives when we do “the real work” of becoming human?
12. What do you make of Maclear’s musings on regret? “Would a life protected from all regret be considered virtuous or monstrous?” (page 171)
13. Maclear states that, “For me, birding and writing did not feel interchangeable. Birding was the opposite of writing” (page 195). Do you agree with her here? In what ways do birding and writing get at the same universal truths?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Read Matthew B. Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft. How does Crawford’s vision amplify Maclear’s philosophy? How does the notion smallness animate both works?
2. Contact your local Audubon Society chapter and arrange to go on a local bird tour with your book club. How did reading Birds Art Life inform your adventure? Did the experience change the way you understand Maclear’s artistic vision?
KYO MACLEAR is a novelist, essayist, and children’s author. She was born in London, England, and moved to Toronto at the age of four. Her short fiction, essays, and art criticism have been published in The Millions, The Guardian, Quill & Quire, and The Globe and Mail, among other publications. Kyo lives in Toronto, where she shares a home with two sons, two cats, and a singer. For more information, please visit www.kyomaclear.com.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-5420-1
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“To Those Born Later,” originally published in German in 1939 as “An Die Nachgeborenen.” Copyright © 1976, 1961 by Bertolt-Brecht-Erben / Suhrkamp Verlag, from Bertolt Brecht Poems 1913–1956 by Bertolt Brecht, edited by John Willet and Ralph Manheim. Used by permission of the Liveright Publishing Corporation.
The lines from “What Kind of Times Are These,” copyright © 2016 by the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust. Copyright © 1995 by Adrienne Rich, from Collected Poems: 1950–2012 by Adrienne Rich. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
The lines from Madness, Rack, and Honey, copyright © 2012 by Mary Ruefle. Reprinted with permission of Wave Books.
Untitled (Swedish Fall) (1971/2003) Bas Jan Ader © Estate of Bas Jan Ader / SODRAC (2016).
Bird photos courtesy of Jack Breakfast (www.smallbirdsongs.com), with the exception of the final Cooper’s hawk photo by Mika Maclear Wall.