The noise was unstoppable, stunning in the way it invaded our little house, shocking us awake each morning when the owners put the bird outdoors for the sunrise.
Ms. Ramsay, with ruthless ingenuity, creates a deeper dread and a more acute feeling of anticipation by allowing us to think we know what is coming and then shocking us with the extent of our ignorance.
But Mr. Solondz is after more than the avant-garde carnival trick of shocking us with our own mirth or the self-congratulatory pseudo-ironist's game of tossing dead fish into a barrel and taking aim with a toy gun.
The list is a kind of scientific shock-and-awe campaign, shocking us at what we did not know about our own planet and leaving us in awe over the diversity, complexity, wonder and beauty of the living world.
But also for the good, true cold, shocking us back to all our senses: the broken-off star of ice in the hand, the sting of the wind and the quickening heart.
"I wonder if I'll still be here when you are," she adds with a flash of anxiety, shocking us with the revelation that, so far from being a wise grandmother calmly accepting her own mortality, she is as frightened and unprepared as anyone.
