What pigeons are saying about “The Unvoiced Consonant”…
Gripping reading! Really, I couldn’t put it down. But what was with all of that grammar?
I was surprised when only one character turned into a pigeon.
I mean, surely, this is the enduring strength of pigeons – there are just so damn many of us, we’re not known for embarking on individual missions or for the big-noting and carry-on that you get with, say, the bowerbird or the kingfisher.
If Mendes can weave in a few more pigeon characters, or even characters with pigeon characteristics, fine – otherwise, I can’t see that there’s much in this book for me.
Virginia Gray stopped by our neighbourhood last year and tried to do the assimilation thing – she really wanted to belong – but a couple of squabs saw something that looked like a ladies’ cameo hanging off her chest and they dobbed her into the cops.
Last time I saw her, she was being pushed out of a rubbish bin queue. We just don’t like outsiders, I guess.
I just don’t buy the pretext – a human can’t transform into a pigeon.
And that stuff about Virginia having paranormal vision just because she’s a pigeon is absolute bollocks.
I’m 2 years old and already I have to squint to read the drive-thru menu.
Quite an enchanting little tale.
When Virginia Gray felt the bump at her coxyx, I thought, oh, here we go, they’re going to have her turn into a blackbird who can warble a melody, they’re going to turn this into some f *** ing love story. But not so. You’d probably describe it as more of a hate story.
This novel makes pigeons out to be absolute morons.
That passage where Virginia and Molly are talking and Virginia rises up onto one leg – get your hand off it, Mendes.
Do your research. Seagulls go mono-leg, and so do storks and flamingos and the occasional duck – I have never known a pigeon to do it, and I live with 2,618 of them.