A great book. I became utterly engrossed in the lives of the Muslim and Christian villagers in SW Turkey in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. I spent time near where the village was located and the descriptions were spot on and made me miss it. Sometimes funny, frequently tragic and always moving.

It's hard to put down this book after spending so many delightful hours laughing and weeping with the people of Eskibahce, a sleepy small town in today's Turkey in which Armenians, Greeks and Muslims live quite peacefully considering themselves Osmans until history interrupts the course of their lives.

Some of the chapters dedicated to Kemal Atatürk and to political events were a little bit lenghty and too rich in detail for my liking, but still I just ADORED this book. The sheer humanity of Bernières, his strife to show that today's victims might be the perpetrators of tomorrow and that shallow tags like nationality or religion are never worth a single person's life, make this an important and moving read.

It might sound as if this was a preachy novel, and it's maybe the best thing about it that it's not.
Instead of explaining his philosophy of life, the writer depicts a variety of different characters from distinct walks of life and gives them an authentic voice of their own. I will always remember the Hodja and his beautiful horse Nilufer, the shepherd Ibrahim who went mad over the atrocities of war or Ali the Snowbringer who bestows his donkey on a Greek family even though it's his sole means of transport and vital for his job. Indredible cruelties and acts of generosiy are both being shown in a believable way and have thus left a deep impression on me.

This has been one of the most enjoyable reads in a long while and I'm looking forward to more books by Bernières.

Birds without wings describes the fictional town of Eskibahce, both in its heyday and after the fragmentation and displacement of its people. The powers that govern, much like destiny, “caress the few and molest the many”. This story explores the lives of these many and how their destiny was altered, and innocence was lost, due to war and conflicts from places foreign to themselves.

In this book, the characters lives are upended, we see their destinies crumble, their spirits diminish, and relationships ruined. Each character seems to have the sneaking suspicion or intuition that something has gone awry in their lives, and that their circumstances or decisions have gone-against their fate. This feeling or knowledge of having rejected one’s destiny - or having been rejected by it - are central to many of the characters in this book. Many characters feel as if their lives went way off track and that they did not leave Earth at the time they were meant to. This leaves them dejected, always carrying something dead within them that they can’t seem to shake off. Contrary to how the mad characters must feel; existing as death while still carrying something alive within them that can be neither accessed nor removed.

The scope of this book is sweeping, and it appeals to history, adventure, and tragedy. It shows peoples tendency for love and community, while also showing their inverse tendency to de-humanize each other. It contrasts the beauty of individual relationships with the perversity of mob behavior. It contrasts the relative peace of an individual community with the discordance of national power.

A character describes that when people see no escape, they become like birds without wings, they accept docility, and that their docility results in them doing things that they would never have agreed to. If they had the choice, they would choose a truer path… Or would they? There are multiple instances where mob’s breakout in Eskibahce, and these same people take evil actions solely because they are in a group. This evil in human behavior parallels the behavior of governments and their agents throughout this book. It’s as if the nation-state is the fervor of a mob manifested into an organized institution. While these characters have no choice but to submit to the governments demands, they do have the choice to treat others equitably within a mob and choose not to. De Bernieres does a great job of contrasting the good with the bad allowing us to see the reality behind our humanity.

While the oppression of government is a major component of the book, it is not what I found enduring. What will endure in my mind, is the spirit, joy, and heartbreak that each character brings to each other and to their town. This wide range of emotions will stay with me for a long time and I am grateful for the empathy and perspective that this book was able to provide. 5/5 exceptional modern novel.



Extra Thought: It might be a good idea to encourage younger students to read books where the protagonist is of an opposing culture/religion/ethnicity/status than their own. Books like this, clearly and compassionately reveal to people, that we are all not different at all - and that someone else’s experiences and emotions are really no different from our own.

4.5 Stars

Birds without Wings by Louis Bernieres.

A dense, mesmerising, harrowing and yet humorous novel that will bring out all emotions that a reader can experience but did not think possible in one story.

Set in the peaceful fictional village of Eskibahce in south west Turkey and home to Turkish Muslims and Greek Christians who have lived for centuries side by side and tolerate and enjoy for the most parts each other's traditions and religions. The author introduces us to a village of characters and when the war is declared and the outside world intruded the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Birds without wings is a personal and political story showing the costs of war.

"Where does it all begin? History has no beginnings, for everything that happens becomes the cause of pretext for what occurs afterwards, and this chain of cause and pretext stretches back to the Palaeolithic age, when the first Cain of one tribe murdered the first Cain of Another".,/I>

The story is based on a small fictional village in south-western Coastal Anatolia called Eskibahce, although fictional I believe the village is actually based upon Kayakoy a village near Fethiye the ruins which still exist today. Once a thriving Greek Village this town of over one thousand houses two churches, fourteen chapels and two schools was completely deserted in 1923 when the Greek inhabitants living throughout Turkey were deported to Greece by the Government in an exchange policy.


The destruction of the Ottoman empire in the First World War and its aftermath put and end to a beautiful tradition of religious and ethnic tolerance and the descriptions depicted by the author of the atrocities inflicted on women and children in this novel are very harrowing(one in particular will never leave my mind) but while it was difficult reading in places I only had to read about it............thousands of woman and children had to endure it. There is also wonderful humour though out the story and some laugh out loud moments that read like a breath of fresh air.
The writing, the characters, the setting and the history is all impeccably crafted. I did however have a hard time getting into the novel as I found the first 100 pages hard going and only for a friend had warned me about this I could easily have put this book aside and missed out on a wonderful read. I think the novel at 625 pages was quite a long read and perhaps could have been shortened as some of the chapters are overwritten and very descriptive. That aside I loved and enjoyed the novel very much and I would recommend this for lovers of history.

Published in 2004, Birds Without Wings is a sweeping historical saga set in Anatolia in the early 20th century, during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of modern Türkiye. The novel portrays the destructive impact of nationalism on a small village community where Muslims, Christians, and various ethnic groups have been living together peacefully for years. The storyline contains a mix of fictional characters and historical figures.

The structure includes multiple viewpoint characters of different religions, nationalities, and ethnicities. There is a parallel historical narrative following Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's rise to power as well as the stories of these fictional characters. One of the primary narratives involves the love story between Ibrahim, a Muslim Turk, and Philothei, a Greek Christian, who have known each other since childhood. The writing is descriptive and includes a few local folk tales and myths.

The novel provides insight into the impact of World War I (1914-1918), Armenian forced deportation and genocide (1915-1916), and the Greek/Turkish population exchange of 1923. It serves as both a critique of extremism and a celebration of cultural diversity. It is one of those books that zooms in and out to examine how large-scale historical forces affect individual lives. It is certainly relevant in today’s world, with its increase in nationalism, religious conflicts, and forced migrations in many parts of our world.

I thought about giving this book an extra star because of the lovely descriptive writing, but in terms of plot and characterization, I would actually rate this quite low. The plot is simply a retelling of the "ethnic cleansing" of Greek-speaking Muslims and Turkish-speaking Orthodox Christians that occurred in Greece and Turkey after World War I, and the characters never felt like more than mouthpieces for the author's outrage at the suffering inflicted on thousands of completely innocent people who were forced to leave their homes and travel to what was, for them, a foreign country, simply because of their religious affiliation. None of the characters seem particularly three-dimensional, and the most vivid memory I have of the novel is actually the descriptions of the little village on the coast of Anatolia, which sounds lovely.

The author also seems to have a political agenda that I kept being confronted by - although he doesn't deny that the Turkish authorities and people working for them committed atrocities, his descriptions of the atrocities commited by the Greeks are much more vivid, and then he turns around and says something like "the Turks did the same things when they got into power."

Also, he seems to heavily imply that the Armenians brought their genocide on themselves by "treacherously" aiding the Russians in World War I, and I'm pretty sure there were huge massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire between 1895-1897, long before World War I, during the same period that the author seems to regard as a golden age of multicultural and multiethnic tolerance. (There were at least tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Armenians murdered and tortured during this period, so I beg leave to wonder at this supposed tolerance that was only disturbed by the Young Turks and their revolution. I think that it's a misleadingly rosy view of the Ottoman Empire during the period of its slow decline.) Moreover, the accusations of treachery during wartime, in any case only applied to a small proportion of the Armenian population and doesn't explain why thousands of people who had nothing to do with the Russians were also deported, raped, tortured and murdered. By not mentioning the earlier massacres - about which Barry Unsworth wrote a fine historical novel called The Rage of the Vulture - de Bernieres doesn't provide any context for WHY the Armenians already felt little allegiance to the Ottoman Empire that had treated them so callously. So that really turned me off the novel! (De Bernieres also implies that the Armenians under Russian command did the same things to the Kurds who had been so responsible for murdering Armenians as though everyone were equally guilty, and I'm not 100% convinced that's actually true.)

All in all, a very unsatisfying read, and not the awesome followup to Corelli's Mandolin for which I was hoping!

This is the second book I read for de Bernières, after enjoying Captain Corelli's Mandolin... and although I promised myself that I needed a break from the author for some time, here I am picking up his other book in less than a year... thanks to Popsugar!

The story is set in Eskibahçe, a little village in southwestern coastal Anatolia, where Muslims, Christians & Jews lived a normal harmonious life of love, friendships & unbreakable neighbor bonds... Narrated by characters that lived in the village: the lovebirds Philothei & Ibrahim, the village's Imam Abdulhamid Hodja & his wife Ayse, Philothei's best-friend Drosoula, the best friends Karatavuk & Mehmetçik, the town's Aga Rustem Bey & his wife Leyla & mistress Leyla.

As you can see, there is plenty of characters in this book, but don't be alarmed, as the simplicity of the writing, and the first-person narration gives you a better perspective of each person's view, how they felt, and what they have gone through... and boy do they go through a lot in that little village!

The first half of the book is filled with charming stories of how they all co-existed, as they were left alone to go on with their lives. Then WWI happened, and the Turkish war of independence forced them to be torn when the Greeks living there were deported to Greece through a massive government-mandated population exchange between the two countries. It was inhuman!

If you are not familiar with that era, then this is a good source for a history lesson, as there were a lot of chapters dedicated to Mustafa Kemal, and the true face of the Battle of Gallipoli, with its ugliness, cruelty, trauma, and violence... It was extremely hard to read and knowing that it happened (and still does in other parts of the world till this day), break you.

And if you are intimidated by the size of the book (625 pages), then I recommend doing the audio along with it, narrated by Christopher Kay... He did an amazing job in making the characters come to life, with his voice & his emotions. There were moments where his voice broke, and that is when your heart skips a beat.

I love this book and consider it as one of the best historical fiction I have read in a long time.

Popsugar 50 - A free book from your TBR list (gifted)

I loved Correli's Mandolin so I was extremely excited about this novel. Things did not work out and it took me forever to finish listening to it. I still loved the characters and village side stories that Bernieres does so well, but one of the things I disliked about Correli's was magnified to the point of hatred in this book. I do not like long descriptions of war, battles, soldiers or the men who command battles and soldiers. The sections about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk bored me to tears. At least in Correli, the dictators were interesting. Kemal was written in such a flat textbook way, that I never cared about him or his ambitions.

If those chapters were removed or greatly reduced, I could have easily given this book 4 or 5 stars. However, as it is written, a 2.5 rounded down is all I can muster.

The last 10% was a lot!

I sincerely enjoyed the stories. I learned a lot about what went on during the first World War and the war with the Greeks afterwards, in Turkey. There was so much that happened, it was really almost hard to take it all in. I absolutely loved the characters and the names of the people in the small village of Eskibahce.

ttOnce again, author Louis de Berniéres kindles a hauntingly beautiful sense of pathos for humankind in a deeply evocative yet historically rich novel. In Birds Without Wings De Berniéres displays the terrible effects of war on the average person and the triumph of human compassion between people of different origins. During the age of the waning Ottoman empire, when there is intense nationalism everywhere, de Berniéres questions the origins of such national labels themselves. Through the story of a town from the eyes of different townspeople, he constructs an in depth historical novel in an extremely personal way. De Berniéres explores greater conflicts of the world in the time period surrounding World War I through these more intimate relationships between average people. The writing style is very rich and the layout of short chapters from perspectives of different characters adds to the roundness and reality of the novel, making the tragedy all the more real and heartbreaking. Just as in Captain Corelli's Mandolin, a previous novel of de Berniéres, the reality and believability of the characters and the plot juxtapose the romantic themes such as passion, war, and nationalism in a way that makes the tragedy that the people of the world actually went through more catastrophic. The more historically focused sections depicting the absolute leaders and generals are in an insightful contrast to the way their decisions and the prejudices of the world shape the small decisions and fate of average people trying to live their lives. The underlying metaphor of birds throughout the novel gives it an interesting spin ending in a profound conclusion about the helplessness of humans being unable to free themselves from the will of the world. This was a deeply moving read, and it was saddening for the novel to be over after getting to know the many characters and seeing them grow up and grow old.
tIn Birds Without Wings, not one of the twelve main characters, but a small seaside town in Southern Anatolia in what is currently Turkey could easily be called the true protagonist. The town is representative of the generally tolerant atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire, where Christians, Muslims, Greeks and Turks live together in codependence and harmony. Everyone speaks Turkish, although they write in Greek letters. It is only the Christians who know how to read, while the Muslims memorize an abundance of passages out of the K’oran. It is lovely to get a sense of the town in a way that exposes the injustices that go on, as well as the strong bonds of friendship between neighbors.
tThere is Philothei a vainly beautiful Christian whose best friend is the loyal however ugly Drosula; and of course there is Ibrahim the Muslim boy who has been devoted to the sweet natured Philothei since childhood, and eventually he becomes her betrothed. And then there is Abdul and Nicos who are nicknamed after toy bird whistles made for them by Iskander the potter. The Aba Rustem Bey finds his wife Tamara Hanim to be an adulteress and after disowning her finds solace in a woman Leyla Hanim who claims to be Circassian but is actually a Greek named Ioanna. There is a teacher Daskos Leondas who believes in the “great idea”, the unification of the Greece in its times as the Byzantine empire, who is deeply ridiculed by many and understood seemingly by none. Through the simple lives of this relatively uneducated populace, de Berniéres explores the kindness of people and the compassionate bonds people are able to form while at the same time circumstances of the greater world can result in prejudice and also alter their fate.
tWhen Iskander the potter makes these bird whistles for best friends Abdul and Nicos, he tells them that “man is a bird without wings, and bird is a man without sorrows” (p 44), something that is proven in further development of the novel. The boys are forever called by the name of the bird after which their whistle was designed, Karatavuk and Mehmetcik, respectively. After years of war the two best friends are reunited briefly, and when Mehmetcik must flee, Karatavuk writes after him in a letter that he knows no one will probably ever read, “This place is still very beautiful, and the bulbuls and nightingales still keep us away at night.” (p 550) In particular their friendship and the ways in witch they teach each other exhibit the fraternal nature of humans, ironically while each of their peoples are fighting wars that were declared holy by the dictators of the world. Evokes a great sense of loss that the world went through in that the great peace and tolerance that simple people are capable of did not exist in the years of the many seemingly inevitable world wars and territorial disputes. They are eventually separated, and in the end Iskander the simple potter realizes about much of the town’s ordeal that “everything that happened was made to do so by the great world.” (p 537)
tThrough the more in depth historical background told through a look at Mustafa Kemal, the general turned founder of the modernTurkish Republic, the many disputes of boundaries are seen. From the Third Balkan War, to World War I, then the struggle between Turkey and Greece for independence, De Berniéres takes the reader on a whirlwind of depth and historical isight.
tThrough Karatavuk’s Turkish narrative of the legendary battle of Gallipoli, it is seen that “In seeking our good ends we often bring about our own misfortune” (p 525). De Berniéres shows on a personal level of an average soldier from each side the good they believe they are fighting for in their hearts, but also all the bloodshed and sorrow that comes out of it. It is significant how not only is justice done to the horror of the battle in Karatavuk’s narration, but also how the men are humanized. Both sides are seen as they call each other by name while working together to gather the dead after battle, and how they not only throw shells over enemy lines, but gifts, because the Franks have terrible meat, and the Turks have awful shoes. It’s curiously pointed out that after great battles, the bodies get so confused that the only indication of where they should go is by uniform. Many soldiers took the best uniforms they could find from whichever side those happened to be from, and each soldier is if possible sent back to that side. This, as de Berniéres points out without actually saying it, the question of burial on ones own land is pointless, considering the number of times in history one country has taken it from another and relabeled it as their own to the point where as with history, it has no ends or beginnings and it is preposterous to individually claim the Earth which is collectively ours. The identification by uniform, possibly symbolism for race or nationality, indicates the stupidity in the soldiers who have been taught to shoot at a man based on a blurred image of whichever uniform they are wearing, possibly even shooting their own brother if he happened to find a better change of clothes. This in contrast with the fraternal behavior of both sides in times when they were not fighting was hauntingly beautiful and poetic in the most tragic and also uplifting way.
Birds Without Wings is an emotional masterpiece and while the historical information could be viewed as dated, the way in which de Berniéres uses it to depict human behavior made the novel immensely insightful and the way in which simple characters were used allowed for the true profoundness of the time to sink in and move the reader. In the end, a death is a death, and if there is any truth in the old Muslim proverb that when one man is saved, so is the world, than there must be equal truth in that when one man dies, the world dies with him. Men even in fighting for liberty are not always free, “Because we cannot fly, we are condemned... we are pushed into struggles and abominations that we did not seek...” (p 550- 551)), For we are birds without wings. “For birds with wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders and their quarrels are very small.�� (p 551)

A really beautifully written book set in Turkey against the backdrop of the first world war. Not a lot of happiness but grew to love all the characters and their stories.

"There comes a point in life where each one of us who survives begins to feel like a ghost that has forgotten to die at the right time"

This book. This beautiful book. What a book to read during this rise of nationalism and appeals for a 'white ethnostate' - to watch how ideologies like this have played out before.

Birds Without Wings is funny and horrible, full of appreciation for regular, poor people, and full of animosity towards the head honchos with their big ideas that bring the most beautiful things to ruin.