A Kestrel for a Knave (1968)“An Eagle for an Emperor, a Gyrfalcon for a King; a Peregrine for a Prince, a Saker for a Knight, a Merlin for a Lady; a Goshawk for a Yeoman, a Sparrowhawk for a Priest, a Musket for a Holy water Clerk, a Kestrel for a Knave.” Selected from the Boke of St. Albans, 1486, and a Harleian manuscript When he was 21, he read his first novel, and, rather late in terms of the system’s timetable, he developed. Seven years later, he thought he would like to write a small, unsensational novel about what it’s like to be a non-academic kid. He wrote it, and it became the basis of a small, unsensational film; Kes.Though rather unfamiliar to Americans, Ken Loach's Kes is a beloved film to the Brits. It is an adaptation of this novel, which has long been required reading in British schools, though Mr. Hines may even be better remembered for his screenplay for Threads, their nuclear hysteria counterpart to our risible The Day After. The tv film apparently traumatized a whole generation. In this novel, an awkward Yorkshire lad, with a brutal older brother who works in the mines and a harlot for a mother, finds an unlikely "friend" in a kestrel that he raises and trains. While one school teacher takes an interest in the boy and his bird after hearing him tell their story in class, the rest of the characters in the book are profoundly unpleasant. And their lives, dependent on the dying mining industry, border on desperation. While intended to be a sympathetic portrait of Britain's underclass, it reads like nothing so much as a justification for Margaret Thatcher's decision to forcibly move the nation into the future. Other than one very funny soccer scene with a gym teacher who thinks he's Bobby Charlton and the interactions with the teacher, it's a pretty relentlessly depressing tale. And the tragic ending is nearly inevitable. A good book, but not much fun. (Reviewed:) Grade: (B) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Barry Hines -WIKIPEDIA: A Kestrel for a Knave -RADIO ADAPTATION: A Kestrel for a Knave (Robert Rigby’s dramatisation) -AUDIO: A Kestrel for a Knave audio story (Narrated BY Christopher Eccleston) -STUDY GUIDE: Kestrel for a Knave (Success Series) -OBIT: Barry Hines, author of book behind Kes, dies: Writer of A Kestrel for a Knave, which was adapted for film by Ken Loach in 1969, had Alzheimer’s disease (Robert Booth, 20 Mar 2016, The Guardian) -OBIT: Barry Hines obituary: author of A Kestrel for a Knave: Novelist and screenwriter whose most famous book, A Kestrel for a Knave, was turned into the 1969 film Kes (Mark Hodkinson and Tony Garnett, 20 Mar 2016, The Guardian) -OBIT: Barry Hines, author - obituary (The Telegraph, 20 March 2016) -OBIT: Barry Hines dead: Kestrel for a Knave author and Kes creator dies, aged 76: Dan Jarvis, the Labour MP for Barnsley Central, called the Yorkshire novelist a 'brilliant and inspiring writer' (Nick Clark, 20 March 2016, Independent) -OBIT: Barry Hines: Working-class author who inspired generations of schoolchildren with his novel A Kestrel for a Knave (The Times, 3/21/16) -OBIT: Barry Hines, creator of Kes, dies at 76 (BBC, 20 March 2016) -OBIT: Obituary: Barry Hines (Dave Gibson, 01 April 2016, Socialist Review) -OBIT: Barry Hines whose novel about a troubled boy training a kestrel inspired classic film Kes dies aged 76 (POPPY DANBY, 3/20/16, MAILONLINE) -TRIBUTE: Yorkshire found its voice in Kes: Barry Hines was more than just a great writer. He allowed people to see the poetry in the way we speak (Ian McMillan, 21 Mar 2016, The Guardian -TRIBUTE: Ken Loach on Barry Hines: ‘His ear for the dialect and its comedy was pitch perfect’ (Ken Loach, 23 Mar 2016, The Guardian) -TRIBUTE: On Barry Hines (What Are You Reading For, March 20, 2016) - -INTERVIEW: When we were heroes: Think of Liverpool and you think of the Beatles. South Yorkshire's bleaker touchstone is the cult film, Kes. Today, Barnsley's grim colleries have been replaced with shopping malls. So why are the locals pining for the past. Richard Benson talks to Barry Hines (Richard Benson, Dec 2005, The Guardian) -INTERVIEW: Barry Hines 1970 interview (John Hall, 18 July 1970, The Guardian) -PODCAST: A Kestrel For a Knave by Barry Hines (from Green Man Festival): Author and illustrator Rose Blake and writer and musician Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne) joined Andy and John at the Greenman festival in Wales on August 18th 2023 (Backlisted) -ARTICLE: Kes author's lost play about miners' strike to be staged for first time: Barry Hines’s After the Strike, about the violence at Orgreave, lay untouched for 35 years (Josh Halliday, 4 Jun 2019, The Guardian) -ARTICLE: Greg Davies: Looking For Kes: Comedian makes an emotional flying visit to the world of Kes author Barry Hines (ALASTAIR MCKAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2019, Evening Standard) -ESSAY: Fifty years ago A Kestrel for a Knave gave working-class Britain a voice: it’s needed again now more than ever (David Forrest, January 30, 2018, The Conversation) -ESSAY: A glimpse of a forgotten game: how Barry Hines painted a portrait of football’s past: The author of The Blinder and A Kestrel for a Knave, the novel from which the film Kes was drawn, opened a window on to when the beautiful game was far from it half a century ago (Richard Williams, 25 Mar 2016, The Guardian) -INTERVIEWS: How we made the nuclear apocalypse TV drama Threads: ‘It was not the most comfortable of parts. I’m vegetarian, so the scene where we ate a sheep raw was pretty yuck’ (Interviews by George Bass, 8 Jan 2019, The Guardian) -INTERVIEWS: 'A typical reaction was a snigger... I was making a film about the wrong kind of bird': In the Swinging Sixties, nobody wanted to finance a gritty northern drama about a boy and his kestrel. But the makers of Kes persisted and the result was a British classic. (Akin Ojumu, 29 August 1999, guardian.co.uk) -ESSAY: A Kestrel for a Knave (Hannah Morcos, 10/21/15, Medieval Manuscripts blog) -ESSAY: A Kestrel for a Knave – lessons on educational disadvantage: After re-reading Barry Hines’ 1968 novel ‘Kestrel for a Knave‘ with his son, in this new blog post, CREU Director Dr Noel Purdy reflects on some of the lessons from this gritty classic for understanding educational disadvantage. (Dr Noel Purdy, 14th April, 2022, Stranmills University College) -TV PROGRAMME: Greg Davies: Looking for Kes: Greg Davies travels to Barnsley to meet those intimately tied to Barry Hines's classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave, including Hines's brother Richard, actor Dai Bradley and film director Ken Loach. (BBC: Last On, 17 Sep 2023) -ESSAY: The 50th anniversary of the publication of A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines (Jacky Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, University of Sheffield Library) -ARCHIVES: “barry hines” (The Guardian) -REVIEW: of A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines (Imogen Carter, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of Kestrel for a Knave ( -REVIEW: of Kestrel for a Knave (Alun Severn, Letterpress Project) -REVIEW: of Kestrel for a Knave (The Fiction Stroker) -REVIEW: of Kestrel for a Knave (Penny Reads) -REVIEW: of Kestrel for a Knave (Maria McCarthy) -REVIEW: of Kestrel for a Knave (Julia Webb Harvey) -REVIEW: of No Way But Gentlenesse by Richard Hines review – life with Kes the kestrel: Barry Hines wrote the book that became Ken Loach’s film, but it was Richard, his brother, who caught and trained the kestrels. It changed him forever, and now finally he tells his story (Tim Dee, The Guardian) FILM: -FILM: Kes -FILMOGRAPHY: Barry Hines (IMDB) -FILMOGRAPHY: Kes (IMDB) -FILMOGRAPHY: Kes (Rotten Tomatoes) -WIKIPEDIA: Kes (film) -WIKIPEDIA: Ken Loach -FILMOGRAPHY: Ken Loach (IMDB) -BEST 100 BRITISH FILMS: #7 Kes (BBC, 9/23/99) -FILMOGRAPHY: Threads (1984) (IMDB) -FILM REVIEW: Kes (Jack Ibberson, Sight & Sound) -FILM REVIEW: Kes (Andrew Pulver, The Guardian) -PLAY REVIEW: Kes (JONATHAN BROWN, 04 April 2014, Independent) -PLAY REVIEW: Kes (Alfred Hickling, 27 May 2016, The Guardian) Book-related and General Links: |
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