Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
Summary:
A harrowing and poignant account of one man’s experience of the First World War in France and the journey his granddaughter takes 60 years later to discover what she could about him. The strength of this book is in the story of the grandfather and the powerful descriptions of his time in the trenches. The discovery phase of the 1970s is disappointing.
Pace: Mid-paced, and have the tissues handy. It is emotional.
Main character: Stephen Wraysford
This book is like… All Quiet on the Western Front with romance
Bookshop Shelf: Fiction
Pages: 528 pages
Rating: 7
The Book Tiger’s Review
In some ways, it is difficult to write a review of this book. It was so well written, so graphic, so poignant and so descriptive, but ended so poorly, I almost wish I had put it down 15 pages before the end and left it at that. I am not sure what it is with Sebastian Faulks. I felt the same disappointment when I read Charlotte Grey – for some reason his endings are the weakest part of his novels, and sadly, that is the part you are left with which clouds the rest of the book.
Nevertheless, Birdsong was a magnificent work. Faulks’ transports the reader to the battlefields of World War I with such clarity that several times I found myself near tears. Everyone knows that the Great War was a senseless waste of life. Anyone who has studied the period is aware of the ineptitude of the Generals, and the apparent carelessness with the lives of an entire generation of young men, but reading about it in the context of real, albeit fictional, characters brings the horror home in a way I had never experienced before. I wondered at the resilience of the human spirit and was amazed that the men who had gone through it and survived somehow managed to return home and continue with their life. How they did it, I don’t know.
The book is set in two different time periods. The main story revolves around Stephen Wraysford – a young, French speaking English man who had come of age in 1910 after a passionate affair with an older, married woman, and then finds himself in the midst of the war several years later. The book paints a believable picture of him, both his strengths and his weaknesses, and as the story progresses, you can help but hope that he will eventually find peace in amongst the turmoil he has gone through.
The second period, and, in my opinion the weaker storyline, is the late 1970s. A woman decides to search for information about her grandparents, and her quest leads her back to Wraysford and the Great War. Sadly, this period wasn’t developed with the grace and skill of the war, and therefore the characters were shallow and the plot didn’t ring true. I wonder whether Faulks could have told the story just as effectively leaving this part out. Perhaps he might then have avoided the disappointing ending.
The strength of this book lies in the descriptions of the deprivations and battles. There were some very graphic sex scenes as well in the first part of the book which were quite surprising, but still set the tone well. Faulks’ historical character were all very good, and the story he wove around them was clear. And, like with Charlotte Grey, he is not afraid to provide an unexpected solution rather than the ‘feel good’ one that many books provide. For that, I applaud him. It isn’t always the easiest thing to do.
I would recommend this book as an eye-opening story of the Great War. That alone makes it well worth reading the entire book. If you approach it expecting to be moved and stunned by the story, rather than expecting to be impressed by the end, you will thoroughly enjoy it.
ISBN: 0-09-938791-3
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1994
Date Finished: 9 December 2007
Buy via Amazon.co.uk: Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
Buy via Amazon.com: Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
If you don’t believe me, try another opinion:
- http://www.rambles.net/faulks_birdsong.html
- http://jojanoski.wordpress.com/2007/01/07/birdsong-by-sebastian-faulks/
- http://www.happymuslimah.com/2009/08/book-review-sebastian-faulks-birdsong.html
