Birds in Tiny Cages

by Barbara Comyns

The youngest of four devoted sisters, Flora is lonely when ill health forces her and her husband Leo into exile in Barcelona. Her life in their stuffy 'atico' flat is dominated by the window and the happenings on the rooftops around it: children playing amongst women hanging up perpetual laundry; old ladies asleep in rocking chairs, hens in boxes, cats, potted plants and birds in tiny cages.
Flora is delighted when she meets the English painter who shares a studio opposite their apartment, and she is amused by his sculptor-friend Parker, whose bright blue eyes and high complexion remind her of a toy sailor. She feels something at once repellent and attractive in his manner, and is surprised to find herself agreeing to visit his studio.

Genres: British Literature

155 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Barbara Comyns was educated mainly by governesses until she went to art schools in Stratford-upon-Avon and London. Her father was a semi-retired managing director of a Midland chemical firm. She was one of six children and they lived in a house on the banks of the Avon in Warwickshire. She started writing fiction at the age of ten and her first novel, Sisters by a River, was published in 1947. She also worked in an advertising agency, a typewriting bureau, dealt in old cars and antique furniture, bred poodles, converted and let flats, and exhibited pictures in The London Group. She first married in 1931, to an artist, and for the second time in 1945. With her second husband she lived in Spain for eighteen years.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Birds in Tiny Cages was one of a handful of novels Barbara Comyns wrote when she was living in Spain. She moved there in mid-1950s after her second husband, Richard Comyns Carr, was forced to quit his job with in British intelligence at MI6 - his friendship with Kim Philby then under investigation for spying, cast doubt on his own loyalties. They eventually ended up in Barcelona where this is set. It’s one of Comyns’s more domestic, slice-of-life offerings like Their Spoons Came from Woolworth’s or A Touch of Mistletoe although it’s slightly cooler, more distanced in style than either of these, less obviously autobiographical.

It’s told from the perspective of an English woman Flora, whose husband Leo’s lung condition has led them to exchange their settled London existence for a warmer climate. Leo works in a language school while Flora’s left alone in their grubby attic apartment, shut away like the caged birds she sees from her window. Flora’s a slightly closed-down person, self-effacing, oddly naïve, secretly nursing her grief at finding out she’ll never have children but also stoic and self-centred. And it seems that Comyns views her with a kind of affectionate contempt, breaking into Flora’s narrative to comment on her immaturity. The plot’s a slender one, covering a year of Flora’s time in Spain. Flora and Leo have very little money, Flora drifts through her days, has a brief but passionate affair with a caddish, serial seducer, a British artist who’s part of the small, local expat bohemian crowd, and slowly patches up her relationship with husband.

The story itself’s not particularly startling or original, what makes it interesting’s Comyns’s style and her meticulously-detailed account of everyday life in Barcelona. The British writers I associate with Spain like Orwell or Laurie Lee, were writing during the Civil War years, but Comyns’s work’s located during the height of Franco’s regime. Although Flora and her circle seem oblivious to the oppressive, political situation in Barcelona, the scenes unfolding around them operate sometimes as backdrop, sometimes as entertainment, but yet never suggest an engagement with the local people as individuals in their own right. It reminded me of reading things like Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy but without Manning’s historical aspects. Comyns’s, or perhaps Flora’s, Spain has a timeless, dislocated quality. Flora herself seems curiously divorced from its realities beyond what it offers her in the most immediate sense, sights, smells, sounds, vicarious experiences. The writing’s simple, direct but often laced with lyrical or wry observations, and some unexpectedly arresting moments when Comyns’s more macabre sensibility surfaces. It's not one of Comyns's strongest pieces and it's not destined to be one of my favourites but still worthwhile reading.

[Andy Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a different style to Comyn's usual work, of which I am a big fan of.
Her books usually have a streak of darkness to them, and a very particular Comyns-esque humour to them. This much less so.
Flora and her husband Leo have been living in Barcelona for three months. Leo’s health has forced them to come to Spain. Flora, the youngest of four sisters, is already lonely in the stuffy attic flat where they are living while Leo teaches his English classes.
Its very strong on its Barcelona setting, and though her characters are typical of her writing there is oinly just enough going on to hold the attention.
I enjoyed it, but the weakestv Comyn's novel I have read so far.

[Felicity · Rating 3 out of 5]

This fictionalised account of the author's residence in Spain is an interesting companion piece to Out of the Red, Into the Blue, offering a much less fulsome description of the ex-pats' time in the sun. Much of the time, the sun is not shining; the houses are cold, damp and miserable; the food unpalatable, the natives inscrutable. Leo, the customary Comyns self-centred husband is too preoccupied with his own concerns to pay any attention to his wife's depression. Flora appears to be isolated from the local community by her poor command of the language. In the final paragraph of this brief novel, she records that she 'would miss these sounds [swallows, cicadas, frogs] if we returned to England. In fact there are many things I would miss because I'm beginning to love Spain and at last I'm at home here.' As an account of acclimatisation and acculturation, it fails to convince, perhaps intentionally. The new-found love of the summer sounds of Spain seems to presage a long winter of disenchantment and discontent.

[Chrystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very different from her other novels. Not a bad novel, but not one I will remember. The best part about it is her descriptions of Barcelona.

[JimZ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t understand why this book is only available as Print on Demand (although I was glad to get any issue of it that I could). It is really quite good. And it is quite different from the other books I have read by her. At first I was sorta bored and was disappointed at the slow pace of events, but eventually my attitude changed, and I was liking it, and it read it in one sitting. So there!
For fans of Barbara Comyns, I would definitely recommend this book. For those who have not read anything by her, I’d recommend a couple of her other books first...those books have a certain commonality in her style which can be shocking (e.g., did she just say that? She couldn’t have said that!!!).

The book was written circa 1964. It is about a couple, Flora and Leo Elliot in their mid-30s who move from England to Barcelona because Leo is in poor health and would benefit from a warmer sunnier clime than foggy smoggy England. Leo teaches the English language to Spaniards, but it doesn’t pay a lot, and the Elliots are just keeping their heads above water financially wise. Flora does not work outside of their small dingy rented apartment because she does not speak the native language. She is bored, and although Leo loves her, he is so tired and busy with his long hours of teaching that an emotional distance appears to be growing between them. Enter in a suave artist/sculptor named Parker who is attracted to Flora and... Well I shan’t say much more. You have got to read the book! I was expecting an unhappy ending to this one. I was wrong, and was glad of it. It had a nice satisfying ending. I liked Flora....I liked Leo...I liked another character in the novel, a painter by the name of John and his newlywed wife (well not so much her because she had an affair with Parker and left John for a bit....).

Clocks in at 255 pages...I am glad I read it. It was a satisfying read and in the end it was interesting enough for me to happily give it 4 stars.

Reviews:
• I very much like heavenali’s choice in books and she and I are spot on in our assessment of this book, not quite like her other ones but still in all an enjoyable read nonetheless: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2021/...
• Very short review because it was part of a larger review of all of her books that the reviewer rank ordered... https://www.stuckinabook.com/unnecess...
• Not a review of this book but another reviewer I really respect (Jacqui) reviews a biography of Comyns, and the review is interesting to read so I am putting it here if you want to learn more of Comyns interesting and sometimes sad life (other times happy)... https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/cate...

Notes:
• Wow I was just looking for reviews and came across this....one can read this book for free from the Internet Archives!!! Lucky for you! https://archive.org/details/in.ernet....
• The edition that is available has no publishing date (I think it is 1964), but on one of the opening pages it states that the book was first published 1914, but that can’t be true. For one, the period of time during which the novel takes place seems to be more modern.....Franco is mentioned....and second, Comyns would only have been 7 years old when she wrote/published this! I think not! I have a suspicion that is a typo and should read ‘first published in 1964.
• Barbara Comyns lived in Spain for close to 17 years, which is the setting —Barcelona— in which this novel took place.

[Lucinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 This is probably the weakest of all the Comyns I’ve read but it’s still enjoyable to read a novelised version of her life in Spain. There are none of her characteristic supernatural twists in this novel and a bit too much exposition compared to her usual taught and uniquely bizarre style. Some of her childlike wit remains however and I’m glad I managed to get hold of this ugly reprint to read this before enjoying her biography.