Avian images trump any from the rest of the animal world. Who would not want to be busy as a bee, happy as a lark, eagle-eyed, or, indeed, as free as a bird?
The "birds" in Parkyn's title battle hard for any semblance of freedom. They are three waifs (Remi, Pascal and Saskia) who together try to survive in Napoleonic Europe by re-inventing themselves as a troupe of strolling players. In some ways, this third novel builds on Parkyn's earlier stories about Van Diemen's Land (Into the World) and Napoleon's consort (Josephine's Garden). She has attracted a popular following for stories grounded in historical fact, adorned with a patina of romance and adventure.
This novel begins in 1807, a dead patch in Napoleon's campaigns, two years after his stunning victory at Austerlitz and three before his crushing defeat in Russia. Parkyn's trio of youngsters remain largely oblivious to the world-changing events occurring around them, at least until they encounter the "wrecked and wounded" remnants of Napoleon's army retreating from Moscow in 1812. That scene appears cliched and a little trite, as do Parkyn's later descriptions of casualties on a battlefield.
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Presumably, having already written about an Empress, Parkyn is done with the Napoleonic top end of town. Besides, if a reader wanted boundlessly grisly detail about shelling, stabbing, shooting and bashing to death in the Napoleonic era, she could turn to Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels. Sharpe wends his blood-drenched way through Europe at the same time, albeit starting (Portugal) and finishing (Belgium) in different countries.
Coming back to Parkyn's more intimate and introspective travelogue, the three narrators concentrate on surviving day to day. That is a serious job of work, whether when huddling with bitter, scared deserters in a cellar, learning to stand on their hands or being nailed into a little box. Hunger, poverty, abuse and violence are their regular companions en route.
Parkyn does allow herself a moment of lyricism when the travellers first reach Venice. In that description, as in preceding scenes in Germany, she displays the depth of her historical research. Few writers would describe one stop as "like every other medieval Prussian town", then methodically list the three features which made it so.
On her characters toil, off to Milan, back to Paris. After quite awkward starts, both their sex lives and their theatrical abilities improve. An abusive priest is punished with a hook in his eyeball, but that episode comprises a rare excursion for Parkyn into the realm of a conventionally dramatic adventure tale. She is more at home exploring the personal development and interaction of her three main characters.
- The Freedom of Birds, by Stephanie Parkyn. Allen & Unwin. $32.99.
