The Spectator Bird

Content Warning: This section contains references to rape, incest, and eugenics.

As might be expected from a novel with this title, Stegner employs birds as symbols, especially in the first and last pages. The fragility and swiftness of many birds can suggest the transience of life, and the doom-laden opening of The Spectator Bird lists the various birds foraging for food or shelter in Joe’s yard ahead of a looming storm. Before news of two impending deaths arrives, Joe compares himself to some of the birds: the wrens for their testiness, the bush tits for the “sociable” playfulness he once deluded himself he would find in retirement.

Other passages of the book, such as Joe’s analogy of passing through a kitchen without eating a crumb or leaving a trace, suggest that he has always felt (disagreeably) as light as a bird, deprived of the heft and roots of a family history and “drifting” wherever the winds have blown him. He has seen life only from a distance, as if hovering above, never fully engaging with it or creating anything lasting. In the last pages, he finally reconciles himself to the birdlike brevity of human existence, citing the Venerable Bede’s