Happy Ending, Barely Credible

The central theme of An Episode of Sparrows (by the author of Black Narcissus and The River) is a conflict between the worldly and the unworldly. An artful blending-in of logic (a bit pixilated at times) and an unsentimental approach to an unequivocally sentimental situation make the conflict’s happy ending barely credible.

The scene is laid in one of those neighborhoods in London where poverty nudges wealth. To the people living in Mortimer Square the children of Catford Street were like sparrows, with their “vast, lively cheeping” and intrepid cockiness. The sparrows’ enemies were the Garden Committee and the caretaker of the Garden in the Square, who regarded them as trespassers if they so much as peered through the railings.

AP

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Alix du Poy

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The central theme of An Episode of Sparrows (by the author of Black Narcissus and The River) is a conflict between the worldly and the unworldly. An artful blending-in of logic (a bit pixilated at times) and an unsentimental approach to an unequivocally sentimental situation make the conflict’s happy ending barely credible.

The scene is laid in one of those neighborhoods in London where poverty nudges wealth. To the people living in Mortimer Square the children of Catford Street were like sparrows, with their “vast, lively cheeping” and intrepid cockiness. The sparrows’ enemies were the Garden Committee and the caretaker of the Garden in the Square, who regarded them as trespassers if they so much as peered through the railings.