After our narrator has introduced himself, he begins the story. It is 1939 and Death is soon to be very busy in Europe. Liesel is sent to live with her new foster parents due to a mysterious word – Kommunist – which had clearly incensed the Nazi government. She is 10 years old and over the next four years she experiences love, joy, an accordion, a Papa with storm grey eyes and a Mama who swears a lot, a hidden Jew, a lemon haired friend, and the joy of words and books.

Death chooses not to invite any surprises in the story. He says surprises bore him – he would rather we know what happens to Liesel early on, and then focus on how she gets there. This is no way detracts from the story – the tragedy at the end is not dampened in any way, and you feel the loss and agony of the girl, whose life is torn apart by a war in which none of her neighbours wanted any part. She had written her story down – and it was this which not only had saved her, but which Death had found and kept. It was because of this that the story was being told.

The book is written in a deceptively simple and beautiful manner. The narrator is entertaining, almost human, yet displays confusion and sadness at the folly of real human nature. Liesel herself shows strength and courage no matter what she experiences. And the backdrop of Nazism, anti-Semitism and life threatening risk for the sake of human compassion turns this into a story which can’t be read only once. The book is as much about words as it is about human spirit – and shows how words can not only heal but destroy and kill as well.

We are left to decide how the future between the time the story itself ends and the time that Liesel finally meets Death pans out. I wrote that part in my own head as the author chooses not to. But he doesn’t need to. The picture he has painted is simply stunning. The words he uses himself are artistic and expressive. A masterpiece of fiction which I will most definitely be reading again.

ISBN: 0-330-36426-X
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Year: 2005
Date finished: 18 December 2007

Buy via Amazon.co.uk: The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
Buy via Amazon.com: The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

If you don’t believe me, try another opinion:

• http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jan/06/featuresreviews.guardianreview26
• http://www.sharp-words.co.uk/2008/05/review-the-book-thief-by-markus-zusak/
• http://emm-media.blogspot.com/2010/01/book-review-book-thief-by-markus-zusak.html

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