Customer Reviews

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As you wing into the fictive delights of Nicholas Drayson's A Guide to the Birds of East Africa, you might wish to keep the Princeton Field Guide illustrations of these colorful aviary wonders at your elbow. Mr. Malik and others in the novel describe spying (or hoping to, at least) godwits, puffbacks, flamingoes, hadadas, African spoonbills, and a host of other birds roosting, flitting and coasting over Nairobi, Kenya. Their enthusiasm for ornithology rubs off.

But in this Guide, the feathered friends aren't the main spectacle. Human rituals -- particularly mating -- are. Obligatory preening, bravado, and plotting ensue as unassuming "Small Brown Job" Mr. Malik faces off with Harry Khan, a wealthy, flamboyant flamingo type, for the privilege of asking Rose MacDonald Mbikwa, the Scottish-born widow of a Kenyan, to the prestigious Hunt Club Ball.

Honest Mr. Malik wouldn't dream of cheating on the wager to see who can spot the greatest number of different bird species in a week, even when, by chapter 25, the tally stands at Khan, 108 species, and Malik, 49. Khan, willing to throw some money around for victory, hires two Australians to guide him and takes day trips to Mount Kenya and other bird-rich locations. Mr. Malik (as he's referred to throughout the novel) sticks unimaginatively closer to home, at least initially. Still, setbacks beset him. For instance, his car and his bird list notebook are stolen. Then, when he finally ventures farther afield, he must, with heart in mouth, flee threatening Somali gunmen. Nevertheless, this rather bumbling widower finds an oasis of bird life by chapter 34. Can Mr. Malik, sometimes seeming too much the innocent, overtake his rival? Will the wager even matter? Or will the female of the species have her own ideas?

A Guide to the Birds of East Africa invites comparison with Alexander McCall Smith's Ladies Detective Agency series about Botswana, but it feathers its own nest. Its narrator is a bit of a wag, arguably another continent's Mark Twain. He is unidentified but can be interpreted as a fictional version of Drayson. Among other things, he supplies back stories for the characters and takes swipes at many of the social and political contrivances, customs, and conventions of Kenya's multi-cultural population. Drayson prods, with wit, the vulnerabilities he probably witnessed or was told about when he lived in Nairobi for two years.

This novel offers a laid-back tale that meanders some -- a farting bet, anyone? It follows the improbable but amusing adventures of a man shyly in love who doesn't quite know how to convey his feelings to the lady in question. And all the while, it slyly educates the reader about the social, racial, cultural, political, and what-have-you undercurrents in this African nation. Oh, and it not only draws wryly astute analogies between human beings and birds but it allows the reader to be almost as tickled as Mr. Malik when he sights a purple backed sunbird, a malachite kingfisher, or a hoopoe "with its long curved beak and clown's crest." The hoopoe "didn't seem at all afraid...Don't worry the bird seemed to be saying." Is that good advice? Will it all work out for Mr. Malik? Find out for yourself....

This is a charming, pleasant entertainment with a few moral lessons some of which are a bit heavy-handed but most of which the reader absorbs without really knowing it. If you like stories set in East Africa, as I do, this will be at least an absorbing diversion. It should be noted that what you will learn only about East African birds and their habitat is rather slight. In fact the whole novel is rather slight, but sweetly so and it is so unassuming that it sems unfair to hold its lightness against it.

I had just returned from volunteering in Tanzania, the country on the southern border of Kenya which is the setting of this book. By chance I chose A Guide to the Birds of East Africa from the "new fiction" shelf at my local library . What a delight! So much of the background rings true to my experience. The insight into East African culture is rewarding and helped me put my recent experience in perspective.
But the most fun of all is the story with its charmingly flawed characters and accounts of birding woven together to tell a tale of modern Africa.

Mr Malik is a short, slightly overweight, middle-aged man with a combover. He is hopelessly in love with Rose Mbikwa who is the guide for his birdwatching group, but he is too shy to ask her out. When his old school rival returns and tries to move in on Rose, the club that Malik belongs to sets up a friendly birdwatching competition to win the rights to ask Rose to a dance.

This was a sweet story about a quiet honest man who, though not perfect, tries to help others in an unpretentious way. It is a kind of "tortoise and hare" story, and though it seems throughout the story that the hare is going to win the race, things seem to work out in the end. Along the way, we learn that sometimes stopping in the middle of a race to help someeone doesn't always mean that you would lose that race.

I would highly recommend this to anyone that is looking for a quick read about a nice guy and you can learn about birds along the way!

I picked this book up at the library by chance and now it will be a Christmas gift for many friends, it is simply wonderful. A charming story about "average" people who may not be so very average. I loved it.

This charming story is reminiscent of the books of Alexander McCall Smith about Botswana, but this one is set in Kenya. No blood, no gore, no serial killers. What a pleasant change. The characters are beautifully drawn and one begins to feel real empathy with them and their situations.

How to describe this book? Is it about life in Kenya, about birdwatching, about an enchanting romance, a mystery? Yes, all of those. The characters are distinct and fully fleshed-out -- and wonderfully memorable. I was sorry to finish it.

What a delight! Not a page-turner, but highly enjoyable. I love Kenya, and birds but it is the story that is so captivating. This book isn't so much for the bird watching enthusiast as for someone who enjoys a sweet story that still provides lots of food for thought. I will be sharing my copy and definitely recomend it.

This book is a little bit romance, a little bit bird watching field guide, a little bit mystery and a little bit Kenya tourism. Altogether they make for a sweet little read.

Mr. Malik is not just the mild mannered, middle-aged Indian man with a comb-over, and as the story unfolds we find out that he is full of surprises, and even surprises himself sometimes. His love for his Tuesday morning bird watching guide, Rose Mbikwa, leads him to undertake a bet to see who can spot and identify the most birds in a week against his boyhood nemesis, Harry Kahn. The winner gets to ask Rose to the annual Nairobi Hunt Club ball. Kahn goes on expensive safaris to look for exotic birds, while Malik stays closer to home but winds up having wild adventures of his own including having his car stolen and being shot at by Somalis.

This is a charming story that would make for a good book to take to the pool or the beach. It's light, but well written, something that the literary world seems to be in short supply of these days.

This book reminded me of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (though not quite as good), so if you liked that you will probably like this.

Actuarially, I am past middle age. In fact, more than 90% of the world's population is younger than I am. And that shows in the things I care about, read, and buy. Advertisers, take note: Old folks in America are *not lying down to die*! Pay attention to us!

Like the author of this book did. Mr. Malik, a widower and Mrs. Mbikwa, a widow, both of a certain vintage, are the focus of the love story in this book. Each has lost a well-loved spouse, each is living a full, interesting life and each is aware of a...space, an unfilled spot, in life. So what do they do? They go watch birds.

God, doesn't that sound dull? It's not. It's just the starting point for a deft, elegantly made meditation on what love means and how love is transmitted, received, and propagated in ever-larger and more complete circles. Drayson creates Rose Mbikwa, nee Macdonald, as that hardest to portray character: the lively, sad, solitary widow of a charismatic man. Her loss and her life are completely, and concisely, and elegantly drawn in less time than lesser prose stylists take to make minor characters. Mr. Malik, a complex and private man, isn't so much drawn as peeled, layer by later, until the things we think we know about him become...well...iceberg-tips of the cold, sad, lonely sea inside him.

But...and this is the biggest but I can imagine...he's *never* whiny, self-pitying, self-obsessed, nothing like that oh nay nay! He's a force in his own life and he's working on making it, and as much of the world as he touches, a better place.

The spirals Drayson spins as Mr. Malik and Mrs. Mbikwa orbit each other are always tightening and yet never constricting or confining our perceptions...this is good stuff, ladies and gentlemen! Good, good craftsmanship and an excellent storytelling eye.

I'd say do yourself a favor and read this book. It's short, only about 200pp, and it's fun, and it's got great substance. Most highly recommended.