Status Updates From The Gamekeeper

‘What happened in the sky was important. The weather and the birds which occupied the sky above their territories were important factors in their work. He was not interested in lapwings—Sinatra, ‘When love congeals / It soon reveals’ on the radio. The horse chestnut buds—sticky as a toffee apple. Some of the buds were unwrapping and revealing pale clusters of down-covered leaves. Life quickly returned to the fields—’

‘Most—novels are a more intimate form of soap opera. Hines’s is more like a handbook—Because this work follows the seasons—when we reach the end we are back at the beginning. He breeds pheasants, so the Duke and his associates can shoot them. Shoot & do nothing else. They do not carry or load their own guns—The book invents its own meaning—stronger than any other & which Hines probably calculated less. (John Berger)’