A Looking Glass in the Aviary

The call of the Crowned Crane.

There is an abundance of art and music connected with the word disconsolate.

I love it. It is “The Disconsolate Fill-in-the-Blank“.

Let’s start with the plate The Disconsolate Crane, 1986. In an anecdote from The Children’s Friend, we are brought to an illustrated world from the town of Kirkby Lonsdale in Cumbria, England. Published between 1824 and 1930, The Children’s Friend was a magazine boasting to share the “Secret of England’s Greatness” (inside front cover, image below). According to Wikipedia, the magazine was 16 pages and cost one penny in the 1860s. And there is also a connection to the founder of the magazine and our beloved Jane Eyre. Of course Charlotte Brontë saw the man for who he really was.

What made me want to begin here, other than my love for birds and etching, is the anecdote for the story. The crane loses his mate in life and immediately falls into sadness and despair. He looks like he will follow his mate in death until one day a mirror is placed before him, and thinking his mate hath returned to him, the bird comes back to health and lives a long life, looking in his looking glass. This instantly reminded me of Aislin’s love birds in my novel. One dies and the other falls into depression until Aislin brings home another mate. This is a very important action for any steward of a monogamous bird pair. One must console the lonely with another bird (not a mirror, please).

But in the old story, the crowned crane reached into Hades and brought back his love through the looking glass. As another bird that mates for life, this disconsolate crane needed a new partner. It is a poingnant story depicted in a full-page book plate of the crane in front of a looking glass in an aviary. Birds roost on shelves and in alcoves, a raven and a wren also discover their reflections. But the crane only has eyes for his paramore: that cannot touch him, that cannot mate with him, that will not return his calls.

One can, but does not need to, dig into the past to find a reason why Rev. William Carus Wilson was unliked. Our stewardship of the earth is often twisted into the idea that we have dominion over it. Is the act of placating a loving, breathing animal with a looking glass instead of bird with a life force morally wrong? The bird could have been released, but what of the dangers of the wild if bred in captivity? Another bird could have been brought to him, like Aislin brought Eurydice II home to Orpheus, but what of breeding animals in captivity? What of removing a wild bird from its home for our own enjoyment?

These questions are always important to ask. Because the more we ask them and try to answer them the more we learn from our mistakes. And that is The Disconsolate, a group of people that kind of get it wrong and see the fall out from all of their mistakes.

Who was the artist that scratched this plate in such minut detail. Who gave us the eyes into the crown cranes soul? If I find the answer, you will be the first to know.

Letterpress, an art with similar production style to etching, is the inspiration behind the border on my cover. Get a closer look at the cover and find out how Eurydice (the first) died in your own copy of The Disconsolate at online book retailers and enjoy this gorgeous crane as he looks on at himself: tricked into true happiness by man, a piece of glass, and mercury.