This book breaks your heart, but in a good way. DeBernieres' has a beautiful, eloquent, lyrical style, the effect of which is augmented by the tragic nature of much of his content. He also imbues his story with much pathos and humor. By doing so, he avoids heavy-handedness.

Birds Without Wings is a marvelously ambitious book. It is a epic about conflict and coexistence between Muslim and Christian Turks, Kurds and Armenians, set over the course of decades.

The book is historically informative, as it attempts to describe events without overly politicizing them. There are no "good guys" and "bad guys" in this book, but DeBernieres is not an apologist or moral relativist. Plainly, he feels that many of his characters are, to varying degrees, responsible for the tragedies he describes.

It is also a great character study. There are many characters, and DeBernieres devotes care and attention to each of them, developing a pastiche of individualized profiles. DeBernieres humanizes each of these characters (regardless of their ethnic/national identity) without rationalizing their (at times brutal) behavior.

DeBernieres is unique amongst writers in his ability to express moral complexity. Depending on the context, his characters can be heroic or savage, parochial or free-minded. There is an underlying optimism to this book, but there is no naivete.

Finally, this is an elegy to a lost way of life in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is clear that the author understands this culture well, and loves it, but he never lapses into romanticism.

This is a great book.

Either de Bernières' wife cheated on him with an Armenian, or the Turkish government funded this book. I have never read anything so anti-Armenian. There is one Armenian character with whom he get acquainted in the Ottoman town, and his name is Levon the Sly. Like Schlomo the Sly in a pre-Nazi German village, right? Those cunning, clever Armenians.

De Bernières gives exacting numbers as to how many Muslims were slaughtered by Russians in countless little-known massacres. When it comes to how many Armenians were slaughtered by the Turks, he first exonerates the Turks by passing off all blame to the Kurds (who were hired by the Turks to kill), and he excuses the killings because the Armenians were traitors to the Ottoman Empire anyway, and then he says that "it doesn't matter" whether 300,000 or 2 million were massacred, because it's a tragedy in either case. As if the NY Times didn't run continuous articles on the Genocide as it happened, as if Morgenthau didn't resign because the US government did not step in to help the Armenians.

The reviews are quite negative, I don't know how a book about mass killings, stonings, and whores can possibly be this tedious to get through, and it's downright racist to the Christians oppressed in the dying throes of the Ottoman Empire. De Bernières writes with the cultural appropriation that only someone from a country that has never been through genocide can finesse.

Tbh it took me a long time to get into this book. I was advised to read it as I was going for a tour to Türkiye
I read it electronically and i wished that it included a map so that geographically I could have followed the story
It was very fortunate that I was visiting Gallipoli just as I was reading about the fighting there in WW1. It was an emotional time seeing the trenches that remain there today. The story regales the many difficulties of war for not only the ANZACs but for also the Turks. There were many descriptions of how the 2 sides got along. There was a mutual respect. This was portrayed when a ceasefire was arranged in the trenches so that the decaying bodies could be returned to their appropriate camp. There were also some comical aspects of fighting in the trenches

My thought initially - birds without wings referred to the pottery birds that were used by the 2 boys - Karatavuk and Mehmetcik. This was revisited towards the end of the book when the 2 meet up again with their pottery birds

However , the epilogue suggests birds with wings fly anywhere without being hindered by borders.
In contrast birds without wings often struggle and are always confined to earth

An insightful read!

4,4*

Ένα επικό μυθιστόρημα που διαδραματίζεται στις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα με βασικούς πρωταγωνιστές τους Έλληνες, τους Τούρκους και τις Μεγάλες Δυνάμεις. Αυτά που διαβάζουμε προκαλούν και σοκάρουν. Θα πρέπει να έχετε ανοιχτό μυαλό γιατί πολλά από αυτά που γράφονται δεν είναι καθόλου κολακευτικά για τον λαό μας. Βέβαια, η Ιστορία, όπως τονίζει και ο συγγραφέας, είναι αμφιλεγόμενη.

Full review at Insta @vivliofreneia

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3NHOd0oc...

I really enyojed reading this book. It is full of detailed descriptions of Turkish village before and during World War I so I felt like I was there. The book includes a vivid and detailed description of the horrors of life in the trenches during World War I. Louis as a great storyteller and he perfectly described his characters and mentality of that time. I'm only a little disappointed with the love story of Philotei because after reading the first chapter, I had the impression that the focus of the book will be on her and her love story instead it was on the political situation, Rustem Bey and war horors. The end was a tragic for most characters but yet realistic because life is cruel in the times of war. We have to learn from the mistakes of history and we also must learn a lesson about coexistence. It was all in all interesting book, rich in details.

This book is amazing! The story is so rich and it's full of history that I never knew about before.

Four and a half stars, really. A beautifully done pastiche of Turkey in the early 20th century, in flux from the Ottoman Empire to Ataturk's independent secular nation, before during and after WW I. De Bernieres creates a village on the Mediterranean Coast, and uses the lives and adventures of its inhabitants to illuminate the cultural, religious and political conflicts of the time. His characters are memorable, his history well-informed, and his style immaculate. Full disclosure: I've been to this part of Turkey, so I'm probably prejudiced in favor of this book. That said, BWW compares favorably to de Berniere's wonderful Corelli's Mandolin, so that alone is reason enough to read it.
Be warned: this was a harsh and brutal period in a turbulent country, and de Bernieres doesn't turn aside from describing clearly, i.e, graphically. The Gallipoli scenes are particularly affecting. But the inherent humanity and dignity of his characters is a counterweight to this desolation and the net result is a nuanced portrait of the time.

ETA on completion: Chrissie, stoip saying you love the book. Explain why! Everything explained below remains true. Other books are emotionally captivating, intellectually interesting, filled with humor and sorrow, What is it that makes this one different for me? It is that this book has a message. It looks at people and life and it says loud and clear how stupid we human beings are and how wonderful too! Does that make sense to you? Do you see life that way too?

Read with:
Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions that Forged Modern Greece and Turkey and Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950 and Not Even My Name: A True Story.

*******************

Few books have so emotionally moved me.

I know now that this book will get five stars, although I have only read about half.

Do not read this book, Listen to it. The narrator of the audiobook is John Lee. I bought the paperback. Then I went and bought the audiobook at Audible for two credits. I do not regret this splurge. This is a winner. I am not capable of separating the written book from the narration. As a whole it is simply ……perfect!

On an intellectual level it teaches. It teaches about life in a small village near Izmir, Turkey – which was called Smyrna when the novel takes place, in the early 1900s. The depiction of the village life, bustling with Greeks and Turks, Christians and Muslims teaches and amuses. There are Armenians too. So many different people and cultures and traditions - and they all blended and lived in harmony. Of course harmony scattered with village disputes and love affairs, pranks and numerous other everyday normal experiences. On the intellectual level you also learn about Attaturk. You learn about the battles of World War I. You do not just learn. You are in the trenches along with the men.

How dry this could all be. But you see this book is never dry. Each village character and even Attaturk becomes a close comrade. This is because every sentence emotionally pulls you in. There is satirical humor. What humor! You will be laughing at the worst of the war scenes…… I feel almost embarrassed to admit this. This author makes you laugh at the most horrific, and then he grows serious and a profound observation is elucidated. Wonderful vocabulary! And now someone has died. I am in tears, I laugh and I cry and I think and I learn.
I am emotionally captivated time after time after time.

I worried that I would not keep track of the diverse characters. This is no problem. The same characters remain from start to end,

I have never read such a marvelous seduction scene. Never! I have never encountered in a book the childish fright a young girl feels with her first bleeding, followed by the delightful discovery of womanhood. I have never so physically felt myself in the trenches at war. Horror and irony and laughter and profound philosophizing are all there in one scene. What writing! What narrating! Please listen to this book. If you have never tried audiobooks, start right here. You will be hooked. I am still a baby with audiobooks. This is a whole new world opening up to me. I want to share the experience with you. Please, listen to this book. If the audio format is inaccessible, OK, then read it.!

There is not one thing I can criticize in this book.

With gentle humour and often acerbic irony, LdeB tells the story of the birth of Turkey mainly through the eyes of Muslim and Christian villagers who live peacefully together. The first half of the book describes village life, juxtaposing this with the ambitions of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). It is not until the outbreak of WWI that the villagers' lives are affected by the outside world. One of the village youths, Karatavuk, tells of his experiences at Gallipoli and no detail is spared. Tales of the horrors of WWI largely centre on French battlefields and allied losses at Gallipoli but the full horrors of trench warfare are graphically depicted here. The sights, sounds and smells of war and the horrific futility of a war founded on nationalist ambitions are described in minute detail. LdeB writes movingly about the physical and mental effect of war on boys and men, their wives, sisters and mothers. This is a masterly anti war novel.

I enjoyed the format of the novel, divided into short chapters portraying events through the eyes of many others, and following the events which led to continued fighting between Greeks, Turks and others for many years after WWI had ended. I had been unaware of this but it put into perspective an experience my partner and I had many years ago when we walked through no man's land in Nicosia, Cyprus. Leaving Greek Cyprus, we walked past an exhibition on Turk atrocities and entering Turkish Cyprus an exhibition on Greek atrocities. I hadn't understood the historical basis for the deep hatred between the two but do now.

Overall, this was a greatly satisfying, if at times harrowing, read.

I could not get into this book.

I read and loved Corelli's Mandolin but never felt any of the same attachment to the characters in Birds. This one was a disappointment for me.

Osmanlı’nın etnik çeşitliliğini ve uyum içindeki haytlarından başlayarak, savaş yıllarına, mübadelelere çarpıcı bir yaklaşım sunuyor. Çok severek okudum ve ufkumu çok yönlü olarak açtığını düşündüğüm bir kitap oldu. Tavsiye ederim...