Birdsong

Birdsong is a well written but very sad story of a troubled lonely man. An orphan who is never loved as a child and is abandoned without explanation by the love of his life enters into WWI depressed and disillusioned. He fights hard, but his only cause is to avenge the deaths of his comrades. The war and his life have no other purpose for him. A gritty and graphic war story more than a love story and more a psychological study than an action story. Faulks’ fluid style is very engaging with enough suspense to move you quickly through this disturbing tale of a wasted life. Birdsong stands as a testament to the countless wasted lives war has wrought.

Cinco estrelas bem sólidas para a vertente histórica deste romance.
A 1° Guerra Mundial que se desenrolou entre 1914 e 1918, foi aqui retratada quase exclusivamente sob o ponto de vista do exército Inglês, com muito poucas referências aos restantes aliados, mas de forma crua e rigorosa. O conflito que era para durar um ano arrastou-se por quatro, provocou milhares de vítimas, e levou homens a viverem como ratos nas trincheiras da França e da Flandres. Lutaram pelos seus países em condições inimagináveis: debaixo de toneladas de solo a escavar túneis, vivendo em tocas partilhadas com ratos, atolados em lama dias e dias a fio, infestados de piolhos e escassamente alimentados.
Muitos sucumbiram sob intenso fogo inimigo e agonizaram com os ataques de gás tóxico, centenas acabaram estropiados, e os que sobreviveram perderam grande parte da sua humanidade e regressaram com sérios danos psicológicos. Durante quatro anos travou-se uma das guerras mais violentas de sempre.
Sob o pretexto de contar a vida do personagem principal, o autor fez um relato notável do conflito.

Já a parte romântica da história foi, a meu ver, uma calamidade; começou bem, mas rapidamente perdeu embalo e consistência. As personagens não foram convincentes nos seus motivos e nenhuma me cativou.
Teve gente a mais -que não estava ali a fazer nada- e alguns dos diálogos só serviram para encher páginas e não acrescentaram nada de relevante.
Terminou com uma nódoa perfeitamente desnecessária: um casal sozinho em casa e a mulher a parir no chão da sala de estar em cima de um monte de jornais, como se fosse a coisa mais idílica deste mundo!

Também aqui, a realidade superou a ficção.

With the current centenary of WW1 happening, I have read a lot of literatue about it- either written by those that participated, or since then. This is a contemporary novel. The title is a subtle indicator of what some of the main narrative is about. I had never heard of the mining operations that went on during some of the nastiest battles- the Somme for example. This is serious mining – going down some feet, then horizontal shafts & side shafts & ultimately, packed with explosives and boom – you have messed with the enemy’s trenches. Now you get the idea of the title.

The war aspect of this novel is intense, in places fast paced, and I feel, captures the exhaustion of the army. There is a tragic scene where one of our characters is killed by a sniper through a hole in the trench. He has survived some of the most horrific battles, but his exhaustion makes him a target because he forgot a fundamental aspect. Had he not been so fatigued, he would never have made this clumsy error. The novel has various portrayals of death by exhaustion, poor judgement, or jingoistic daring-do. Then there is the incompetence of the brass (the description of the lead up to the start of the Battle of the Somme is chilling); and finally, the way the war stopped being in the civilians faces by mid war. They stopped caring and treated it as an inconvenience. This is a small nod to Sassoon, and how the soldiers felt overall. There is so much evidence about the soldiers' disgust back home. I loved the humanity he portrayed in letters to back home; the sentiments of those that are dying and what is important to them. He obviously, read war letters and he captures this pathos wonderfully. These are the best bits about the novel, and Faulks should have stuck to this. He writes in his intro that he felt he was concerned with too much war and so decided to off-set it with other bits. This was his error.

I rather like the pre-war love interest (other reviewers haven't). This makes sense to me (having encountered plenty of then contemporary literature of young men being sent to offices on the Continent to learn more of the trade) and I even felt the romance was believable. The young man’s background isn’t the standard overly stuffy family one, so he wouldn’t have the same boundaries – and we all know about when not at home, young’uns tend to play up; they still do as backpackers. I felt the romance worked well into the war narrative and the bending of Mr “Unbendable, but close to Breaking” when he becomes emotionally involved with Jeanne, the sister.

But then it was spoilt by some stupidity about the grandchild hunting down her ancestors. Who cares?? She certainly doesn’t at the start. I wanted to rip out those pages and burn them. And then we have some stupid tying in of ends. No: war is messy, people lose contact and never connect again. It trivialised the whole story, and I can’t understand why people think this is such a wonderful novel. The war aspects are good – not great: I reserve that for such folks as Sassoon and Rilke – but I wonder what their reading background is if they think it such an amazing novel.

Go read it for the mining aspects of trench warfare, but not for anything else.

I recommend reading 'Birdsong', but it will not suit some readers, particularly since it is what felt to me three different books. One book is a Romance. The other is a gritty World War I genre. I found the first third of the novel tedious, a two-star grade at best. But most of the rest of of the book is five star, no reservations at all.

It consists of seven parts: 1910 France, 1978 England, 1917 France, 1978 England, 1918 France, 1979 England. It follows Stephen Wraysford and Elizabeth Benson - Wraysford in 1910-1918, Benson in 1978.

First, the awful Romance section!

It opens with a hot and heavy graphic soft-porn section, which might cause PG-13 Romance readers offense. The author dares to reveal the idea physical sex between adults involves genitals (graphically described). Some literary readers (like me) might feel the dialogue is terrible stuff in this section, being unrealistic, exaggerated for dramatic effect, and too quickly intimate and candidly revealing for a developing love affair in an era of drawing room manners. It was a bit like, "Hi, I'm Isabelle Azaire. My husband is a boring lover and he is an old man of 40 that looks 50 with an aging body, but he is turning mean because he has decided our sex life is my fault and I'm bored with my life because I'm only 27 and although I love his children from a previous marriage it's not enough. Want a cup of tea?" "Hello, I'm Stephen Wraysford and I'm an 20-year-old impoverished ex-con with no education, skills, family or money. Want to run away with me? I know you are the one from the first second of meeting you. I'll love you forever." "How thrilling! You are the hottest thing in bed I've ever had! Let's go!" Although the writing about how Stephen and Isabelle relate to each other is pure soap opera stupid, the rest of '1910' is beautifully written. The Azaire family and their best friends are vividly drawn. Wraysford's innocence and passion are established, as well as the fact he is an honorable, normal youth whose indiscretions are based on his poverty and parentless upbringing.

  The character Isabelle is an idiot and a shallow jerk, one of those who thinks her feelings in love are first over every other consideration. She is stimulated by affection only when the 'love' is considered outlaw. It's all about 'Romance' to her, and she never does consider how quickly romance fades, or that the problem might be her.

Of course, any intelligence she possessed would not have been appreciated anyway given the turn-of-the-century times and what was expected of her by her middle-class parents and husband.

This section of the book is a world of duty and conformity. Isabelle is a shallow person who cannot think outside of her limitations, other than a taste for sex and change. She reminds me of a lower class Mary, Queen of Scots, at least how that Queen has been portrayed in movies. But she is the vision which sears itself on Wraysford's consciousness. Later, she appears to become a little more of a substantial person, but not much, since WWI cuts her life short.

Stephen was definitely in lust with Isabelle, and he may even have been in love, fantasy driven as it was. (Men are much more basic when young - want eat now, want sleep now, want fast car now, want sex now... - ; ) If you satisfy their basic needs they will fall in actual love. For awhile.) His serendipitous love is a fortunate thing because this incident in his life sustains him through what may arguably be the worst modern war of the Western world, even understanding that every war is full of unspeakable horrors.

Still with me? Sorry if that seemed harsh. Some of us turn sour after a lifetime of disappointments in human nature.

Nineteen seventy-eight introduces us to a relative of the people we've been reading about in 1910, Elizabeth Benson. She is a modern woman of London. Elizabeth has a mild desire for marriage because she would like to have kids. But she wavers at losing her independence. She has a great job and can support herself, which is possible because society no longer forces women to stay home. Her boyfriend is married with children and works in another country.

A series of circumstances leads her to research WWI and her grandfather's service in France. She is almost completely unaware of the nature of war, but especially WWI is unknown to her. Her research becomes more determined as she realizes what an amazing thing it is what ordinary young men and boys went through in serving as soldiers in a war. Many men never talk about it. War costs them in shortened lives and broken relationships, mostly unrecognized, unrewarded and forgotten.

Then, finally, the section which is the literary novel, begins. It is a horrific World War I book.

If you wish to experience as vivid and realistic of a war as if you were there, in the trenches of WWI in this case, author Sebastian Faulks could not make it happen any more real than he does in this novel unless he hooked up a virtual reality chip directly into your brain. Parts 1917/1918 are the most fantastic war writing I've ever read. It's incredibly awful and incredibly beautiful. The suffering, starving, lice and filth, the miles of walking and lack of sleep on poor quality food and very little water, the heat, the noise, the shocking deaths of friends inches from you, the blood and body parts - I was there with the character. It seemingly has no end, and it really does continue for years and years. The pay is lousy and any second you could die. Yet despite the continuous fear and stress, your brain must somehow be alert enough to do your job, when mostly all you want is to become dead without the pain. However, there is glory in knowing your fellow soldiers, their willing sacrifices for you. There is the inexplicable bravery which is pulled out of you, as well as the amazing strengths you find you have in wanting to live when you had wanted to die a second before.

It's all alive and real in this part of the novel, as if you were Wraysford. He was not a fictional character while I read this. I was in his head, feeling his life.

War can add depth to a participant's understanding, or it can freeze everything in amber, like stopping time. A war veteran might remain a permanent 18-year old emotionally even when they are 50 years old. It can wipe out almost all emotion within a person, leaving behind only depression, misplaced rage and bad memories which overlay their lives forever. It can cause a permanent emotional numbing, a complete inability to enjoy or anticipate good things in the future.

As psychology is well understood by the average Western citizen today, I know I don't need to really describe these responses to you. However, the why war survivors have these problems we civilians usually tiptoe around, not wanting to explore whatever horrors caused a person's PTSD. This is not a lack of empathy or curiosity, this is self-preservation. Once war is fully experienced, whether in actual fact or only vicariously, it reduces the level of joy one can feel. Never again will the lightness of being that most children are born with will still be felt.

Whew! I will not be forgetting this part of the book.


If ‘Birdsong’ consisted of the 1917-1918 sections alone, I would be jumping up and down, thrusting this novel into the hands of all my friends pleading with them to read this next, please. But it had the unconvincing section of Isabelle's and Stephen's affair, which frankly, had me almost abandoning the book. Benson's sections were better, but I felt her section was unnecessary to the story. In my opinion, I think this was a Great War Novel originally. But maybe somewhere a decision was made to add a doomed love affair to maybe contrast one form of Romance with others. Since the added-in love affair section was very bad, and the genealogical search by a granddaughter seemed peripheral and tacked in, I felt as if I were reading a clone of lesser dimensions similar to previous literary books with the same literary elements, but with today’s social values.

In re-reading the above paragraph, I think I am being too mean, gentle reader. So judgemental. Excuse me. My id crawls out and roars sometimes. She is rather black and white and vicious in her thinking. I’ll push her back down now.

The title Birdsong is very cool and very likely full of meaning. Actual birdsong is a delight to hear, sometimes achingly so. It can induce the same feelings that hearing a distant train can. I had fun when I finished the novel, and after I dried my tears after the last page of the war section, trying to figure out why this awful romance/gorgeous war novel had been given this title. Feel free to offer suggestions.

If Isabelle is supposed to be symbolically a lovebird, then I'd say she would strictly represent the 'song' - ephemeral. The feelings she engenders in the listener is she is all about her. Perhaps she does honestly feel the music she's singing - for a second. Who knows what singers are actually feeling? The person hearing a song can easily mistake his own roused emotions as belonging to the singer. Singers can sing lovely songs, but that doesn't mean the song reflects the singer's real state.

I guess WAR can be represented by a birdsong, too. Governments can make war seem ennobling and worthy, using the birdsong of marching music, drums and shiny uniforms, promising a chance to test yourself and experience killing someone, all for justice and righteous vengeance.

Birdsong can be a warm lap or a harsh fist. It's a dream-inducing sound, a concept, not an actuality, not something to hold in your hand, however pretty or evocative, or grating. The song is not the bird, staring at you, maybe thinking about a taking a crap.

"Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear."

"If I am fighting on behalf of anyone, I think it is for those who have died. Not for the living at home. For the dead, over here."

What a beautiful and moving story!
Birdsong is a powerful novel, spanning generations and taking us through the horrors of World War 1.
Split into mainly 3 sections we begin with Stephen - a young man visiting Amiens in France, staying with a wealthy man and his family, the wife of whom he falls into an illicit love affair with.

"I am driven by a greater force than I can resist. I believe that force has its own reason and it's own morality even if they may never be clear to me while I am alive."

Further down the line we follow Stephen as he is enlisted into the war against Germany. We see both the infantrymen and also the men who work underground, risking being buried alive in order to further their cause.

Faulks' writing is truly outstanding, the fear and hopelessness felt by the men is made vivid and terrifyingly portrayed.

"He's frightened that it doesn't make sense, that there is no purpose. He's afraid that he has somehow strayed into the wrong life."

The final section is two generations later, Elizabeth is researching her family history, looking into her ancestors, in particular her grandfather, who left behind notebooks of his experiences.

"I saw the great void in your soul, and you saw mine."

If I could quote this entire book I would. It was powerfully affecting, emotional and profound. 4.5 stars.

"We will seal what we have seen in the silence of our hearts and no words will reach us."

"Which human being out of all those you have met would you choose to hold your hand, to hold close to you in the beginning of eternity?"

There's a love affair, so passionate, but yet illicit and at first I thought that this is what was going to get to me in this novel. It did, but the most powerful, thought provoking thing about this book is what happened to the men in the trenches during WW I.

The gruesome, gut wrenching realities for soldiers fighting this war are told in phrases so descriptive that you almost wish you hadn't read them - about the smell of blood, wounds and body parts, the claustrophobic, horrific conditions in the tunnels and ultimately what the men lose of themselves .There are friendships and brotherhoods that grow making for some moving and very sad scenes.

The novel moves across years - 1910, the war years 1916 – 1918, 1978 and 1979. Stephen and Isabelle’s story came to life in the early parts of the novel, but I found it somewhat difficult to connect with Elizabeth's character as we meet her in 1978. I usually enjoy these past - present stories that link but other than being family, I just didn't feel a real emotional connection between the stories. Having said that, this novel is not one that I will soon forget. 4 stars and highly recommended but not for the faint of heart.

Beautifully written novel about life, love, friendship, and war. It begins with Englishman Stephen Wraysford’s life prior to the start of World War I. He is sent to work in Amiens, France, where he falls in love with the factory owner’s wife. It then moves forward to France in 1916. Stephen is a lieutenant in the British Army, which is engaged in trench warfare. The last part is based in the 1970s. Stephen’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, is attempting to track down what happened to her grandfather after discovering several journals he wrote during the war.

Faulks’s elegant writing is filled with vivid imagery. We follow Stephen to the battlefield, experiencing the sights, sounds, and horrors of war. There is a scene in which Stephen and another soldier are trapped in an underground tunnel. I experienced a sense of claustrophobia that was almost palpable. We also accompany Elizabeth as she visits a veteran in an asylum many years later, showing him the tenderness and compassion that he has missed in his isolated environment.

This book contains seven sections and three time periods. It explores a wide variety of themes, including love, heartbreak, loneliness, fear, and courage. It also takes a look at the psychological effects of war and the attempt to maintain some semblance of humanity under excruciating conditions. It is a difficult read in many places, but also feels authentic. The book examines the futility of war and the deep wounds it leaves on society. It also includes a hopeful note about remembrance and the circle of life. The characters seem so genuine that I missed them when I finished the book. I simply loved it and am adding it to my list of favorites.

"The most erotic book I've ever read" says one of the reviews on the cover, this can only be true if the editor took serious liberties with the quote by removing the words "laughably" and "tryhard". Serious contender for the bad sex awards.



Having said that some of the trench scenes were well written but I'm probably just comparing them to the awfulness of what had come before.



Oh and the whole "Who do you think you are" sub-story! If I read another book with an unsatisfied spinster career woman finding the true meaning of life by having babies I'm going to burn my bra, for reals.