Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War | Sebastian Faulks

Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War | Sebastian Faulks | Requiem for the lost

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Birdsong: A Novel ...

	Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War Sebastian Faulks Vintage, 1997 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 189 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Depressing and Brilliant

The best war-based fiction I've possibly ever read. Birdsong begins as a love story. The young Englishman lives with a business partner's family in France while on assignment and falls in love with his wife and manages to steal her away. From there the book destroys said main character, Stephen, with the unreliability of love and the horror of war. Faulks' characterization is brilliant and lacks any easy answers from any character involved. Weir, Stephen, Gray, Jeanne, Isabelle, and the rest of the cast are all complex and thoughtful. The brutality that becomes Stephen's life is slow-building. His affair with Isabelle seems dreamlike before her own complications take her away. He survives the war just barely (in fact, this part of the book may have been taken too far as Stephen survives **SPOILER** the battle Somme, being left for dead, shot, another major battle, and being trapped for a week buried underground in a tunnel**END SPOILER**) but the pure unsentimentality of the descriptions of war and the horror that Stephen sees and endures make the story both believable and poignant. As Stephen attempts to survive mental collapse through-out a life of endured brutality, the depression of the novel becomes almost overwhelming and the reader finds his or her small moments of happiness in hope in the same small moments and acts that Stephen does. Only criticism of the book is the character of Elizabeth who ties the book to semi-modern times (still 30 years ago) was a bit irritating at times but she still serves her purpose quite well of giving the author a way to address greater themes of Stephen's life and setting.

Simply a great book and modern classic that will make one want to read more of Faulks and of The Great War itself.

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Requiem for the lost

If there is a better anti-war book, I'm not sure any of our book club members would choose to read it, at least not immediately. The emotional commitment required for this sort of novel does not lend itself to a steady diet. Having said that, it is clear from our members' comments that no one regretted reading Birdsong. Despite the tears, the anguish, the revulsion, this book stands out as one of our all time favorites.

Part historical fiction, part erotic love story, and part battle hymn, author Faulk creates something akin to a non-denominational religious work of art, a sort of belated requiem to the lost. Like a canary in one of those dreadful tunnels so incredibly described in the book, Faulk's memorial is a warning to us all: War is senseless; there has got to be a better way; get out now.

Set in two periods: WWI and 1970s Europe, Faulk shows us the worst and best of human emotions. By contrasting the two, his belated memorial to the millions of young men who suffered and died during WWI, becomes all the more poignant. One note of caution: Don't be put off by the early erotic encounters. This is not even close to pulp fiction. There is nothing cheap or frivolous about this book. For me. it was worth every tear. As one of our readers put it, read it and weep. But, read it.

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Emotional Saga

The story goes from a broken love affair between a young Frenchwoman and an Englishman living in France, to the trenches of WW I, to modern-day England, all the while moving back and forth, binding together decades with themes of love, honor and commitment. A wonderful saga told with the deepest feelings by the complex character's.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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