I think young John identified with the waxwing and
the shadow paralleling it on the ground--and still with both
as the waxwing died but the shadow lived on in his imagination
(and elsewhere?). 

 

I realize now that mentally I'd always substituted "image" for "shadow" when thinking about these lines. That is, I'd imagined that it was the reflected image of the bird that continued to fly on through the glass, while the body lay dead on the ground outside. My lazy mind was obviously playing tricks on me: the mirror image of the bird would in any case have been flying in the opposite direction, ie back out into the air, as it were from inside the room. From the bird's point of view, it would obviously have crashed straight into its own self. Perhaps that's what the whole novel is also about, however.

 

Still feeling slightly dizzy,

 

Charles