I had put this book off for so long because I very much expected not to like it. That is really the case with all three of my remaining Newberys. However I was so surprised! I loved this book and gave it the coveted five star rating on Goodreads - something I've gotten stingier with over time. I thought I'd check how the average user ranks it among the Newbery winners (of which there are 99 at time of writing)
98. Gay-Neck 3.30
99. Dobry 3.26
Many years ago I mentioned that I wasn't a horse girl. But as I was reading Gay-Neck I realized I was definitely a bird girl. I can take or leave horse books. Most cat books are not my thing. Dog books tend to be pretty good. But bird books? I'm racking my brain and I've never met a bird book I didn't like!
This novel is a great look at an upper caste life in late 1800s India, it is actually an own-voices novel which is not something I'd ever stumbled across for this particular time and place. Rudyard Kipling is one of my favorite writers - but I'll be the first to admit that his view is problematic when it comes to colonialism (imperialism?). Back to Dhan Gopal Mukerji, he immigrated to the US in his early 20s where he quickly became interested in many social movements and took to writing to support himself and his education. He became a very popular children's author - and in 1928 was awarded the Newbery. Apparently at the awards dinner he was seated in an inconspicuous place as the committee wanted the award to be a surprise; this was the first time an author of color won the Newbery and they were afraid his presence would be a giveaway before the announcement. Sadly, his fame may have contributed to anxiety and fatigue leading to Mukerji's suicide at the age of 46.
The plot of the book is two-fold. First it focuses on the raising and life in India of homing pigeons. The first-person narrator (perhaps loosely based on the author) raises pigeons in Calcutta, he introduces the text: "For a pigeon, life is a repetition of two incidents: namely a quest of food and avoidance of attacks by its enemies." Several times Gay-Neck is attacked and occasionally injured. After these attacks he must not only be physically healed but mentally, emotionally, perhaps even spiritually. On a couple occasions we are allowed to understand where Gay-Neck has been through his own first person narration.
At the mid-point of the book Gay-Neck is sent with a friend of the narrator to World War I in France. This book predates World War II so simply refers to 'a war in Europe'. The text manages to convey some horror of war while also maintaining itself as a text for children. Eventually Gay-Neck is released from the war suffering what we would come to refer to years later as PTSD. Through time and patience he is once again well enough to fly.
Mukerji leaves us with a text that emphasizes not only courage, but love and understanding. He used the story of a pigeon to illustrate the human condition - saying that fear is the root of our problems. He had been impacted and saddened by WWI, turmoil in his native India, and social struggles in the USA. The final line of the book offers his hope for the world - "Peace be unto all!"
As a side note the narrator is so moved by the sight of Everest at one point that he says, "O thou summit of sanctity, thou inviolate and eternal, may no man tarnish thee, nor may any mortal stain they purity even by his slightest touch. May thou remain forever unvanquished, O thou backbone of the universe, and measurement of immortality." I looked it up and was happy to find that Everest was not summited until 1953, several years after the author's death.
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