Fly Away Peter: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Jim Saddler eyes a biplane as it loops lazily above the Australian swampland in which he spends his days. There is a “vast population of waterbirds” in this area, as well as a number of hawks and kestrels and other swooping creatures. Jim—an avid birdwatcher—watches the biplane all morning, feeling as if it is “a new presence,” one that he resents because of “its bulk” and “the lack of purpose in its appearance and disappearance at the tree line.” He dislikes that there’s no discernable “pattern” in its flight path. Worse, the “noise” of its engine feels to him like a “new” “disturbance.”

Jim knows this swampland well. He even has a “map” of it “in his head,” as if he has seen it from both the ground level and from above, and he moves “always on these two levels, through these two worlds.” Jim knows that every portion of this landscape—every “section”—has its own kinds of wildlife, and he pictures “the territorial borders” of each species laid out clearly. The birds, he understands, are “free to cross” these borders, but they don’t. Instead, they stay “within strict limits” until it’s time to completely leave, at which point they fly to the far reaches of China and Europe.

The swampland belongs to a young man named Ashley Crowther, who has recently returned from many years of schooling in England. Having come back to take over his father’s property, he has hired Jim to catalog the birds that live in the swampland, wanting to know what creatures fly in and out of the area. As for himself, Ashley enjoys entertaining guests in the large country house on the weekends, and he lets his friend fly the biplane out of the paddock on his land.

When Jim had started working for Ashley, his father was skeptical. A defeated, pessimistic man, his father believes Jim is destined for a “flat” life, claiming that this sort of existence is “inevitable” for “the likes of” people like him. Jim, for his part, has always resented that his father has simply accepted “defeat.” Nonetheless, he never challenges his father, knowing that the old man will become violent and bitter. This isn’t because Jim is afraid of his father’s violence, but because he’s afraid that the man’s “savagery” will “infect” him, since it is “of a kind that [can] blast the world.” 

Despite his father’s skepticism, Jim had accepted Ashley’s job offer. He feels a kinship with Ashley despite their disparate backgrounds, because Ashley has “a quiet respect for things” that Jim also respects. Of course, this mutual understanding of the world remains unspoken. Even if Ashley were to try to voice his feelings, he would fail because he is, on the whole, given to rather “incoherent” ramblings. Still, Jim knows his new friend believes, as Jim believes, that the natural world surrounding them belongs “inviolably to the birds.” The fact that Ashley technically owns this property is superfluous, and both men understand this.

Not only does Ashley understand that his own land truly belongs to the birds, he also senses that Jim himself has certain “rights” over the area. These rights have to do with his “knowledge of every blade of grass and drop of water in the swamp, of every bird’s foot.” What’s more, Jim has “a vision of the place and the power to give that vision breath.” Jim also has the ability to name the birds that swoop by, and this is what Ashley covets most of all.