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FindingJane
Mar 22, 2015FindingJane rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
Zal’s beginnings are truly bizarre—being raised as a bird when you’re a growing human being will do that for you. The efforts to rehabilitate him and get him to function as a human being are interesting, too, if swiftly glossed over by the author. However, once he’s free of his cage, the fun begins—or not. Zal can’t laugh or smile, a situation supposedly common to many feral children. But Zal’s efforts to be normal lead him down many twisted paths. Normalcy is a nebulous target, like being “rich enough” or popular. The slightest thing can shake you from your pillar or have you labeled a freak, something Zal finds out all too often. Zal’s view of the world around him is mainly a closed-in one, since he’s preoccupied in worrying about how people will see him. His choices revolve around hiding his entomophagy (insect-eating habits), his quirky beginnings and shameful obsessions about birds and cages. This gives the novel a claustrophobic feel, especially when Zal dips into depression, refusing to leave his home. He shuttles back and forth between what feels like narrow enclosures consisting or tiny rooms or a series of dead-end jobs. This novel struggles for portent and meaning and yet winds up meaning very little at all. The ending left me feeling curiously disappointed and let down in some way. A few of the main characters try so hard to bring meaning to their lives, often in exaggerated ways, that the finale is both overblown and deflated as a popped balloon. Zal gets a weird, maddening girlfriend, obtains and loses employment and quarrels with his father. In the end, the reader realizes that Zal is normal, i.e., he’s just as screwed up as everybody else. So why all the fuss?