As Birds Bring Forth the Sun

Alistair McLeod’s writing often focuses on family. On a family’s history, the way they live and die. His novel, No Great Mischief explores that ideal of family ties, and of unconditional love. As Birds Bring Forth the Sun also explores a family, and the irony and fickleness kindness can bring. Like No Great Mischief it’s beautifully written, the descriptions of their cú mór glas, Gaelic for “big grey dog”. The kind nature of the father is so touching when he rescues the dog from death, she having been crushed by a wagon real, “ignoring the blood and urine which fell upon his shirt,” He even physically helps the family pet breed.

The story has a clear thru-line, beginning, middle and end, passing down the ripples of the cú mór glas’s story through three generations (The narrator is the great-great-great grandson of the man). The great irony, and climax in the story is that the kindness that is shown to the dog ends with her pups tearing the man to pieces as his teenage sons look on in horror, their opinion of the animal forever changed.

For the rest of their history, family members that see grey dogs see it as an omen foretelling their own death, a cú mór glas a’bhàis, the big grey dog of death. McLeod’s symbolism avoids cliché. He uses grey to represent death, which seems strange since that task has usually been left to the colour black. His sentences read like water, they flow, “The mystery of where she went became entangled with the mystery of whence she came.” The best-written part of the story is the paragraph describing the six dogs killing the father, in defense of their mother It was absolutely heartbreaking to read, but wrapped itself up with the continuation of life.