One anecdote I didn’t mention last week, when posting on reading The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey, and then again when I looked more closely at some of the gorgeous words and turns of phrase that characterize the book, was that I read it when on my recent Auckland residency.

The residency, as I omitted to mention here, was in the realm of city lights and cafes on the doorstep (pretty much.) What I did mention was that while there I adopted a “ninja author” approach because “I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity and keep all my attention on the book.”

So despite having cafes on my doorstep, I was only in them every other day or so. And in order not to get sandbagged by reading, which has been known to happen with a good book, I kept my reading time to when I was having one of those cafe breaks.

One interesting aspect of reading The Axeman’s Carnival in that way, was how many fellow caffiends approached me to ask about the book. For starters, because of the cover recognition (everyone, it seems, knows about Tama Magpie :D) and also the extent to which the book is known out there in the zeitgeist.(Am I envious — you bet I am! 😉 )

The Axeman’s Carnival did win both the Ockham NZ Book Award 2023 and the associated Readers’ Choice, as discussed here, so this circumstance is probably not that surprising.

What did surprise me a little, and fascinate at the same time, was that several people expressed diffidence about reading the book because they “don’t like birds.”

Fascinated, because although I prefer some animal (vs vegetable and mineral)  species over others, I don’t believe that would put me off reading if the story (in which one of the less favoured featured) was reputed to be good. What I said at the time, beyond that I was enjoying the book, was that it might help to think about the narrator, Tama Magpie, as a window into the story, rather than The Axeman’s Carnival being a book “about birds.”

For the low(e)-down on what I think it’s actually about, check out last week’s post. 😀

Having said that, the narrator is a magpie, and the narrative contains information about the species—both what we know of them as fact, and how we perceive them through folklore and myth—but it’s part of a much bigger story, as perceived slantwise, first through Tama’s right eye, then the left. And very occasionally, both eyes together.