Super mooi boek wat je diep raakt en veel aan het denken zet over hoe goed we het hebben en wat mensen in oorlogen daarvoor hebben moeten doen en laten.

This is my least favorite book in the world. Years later, I still reserve scorn and derision for Faulks and his writing. To me, this reads like a book where the author is in love with his own voice. I should have loved it, but his style just killed me.

Sebastian Faulks is a famous novelist in his native land, Great Britain. I had heard of him but it took the suggestion of the British member of one of my reading groups to get me reading him.

Birdsong is the second of his trilogy of historical novels set in France. The Girl at the Lion D'Or came first and he completed the trilogy with Charlotte Gray. I have seen the movie made from Charlotte Gray and it was great.

Having read The Invisible Bridge just two weeks earlier, I was saturated with war, but Birdsong provided an enlightening comparison. It is set during WWI with extensive scenes of trench warfare. The writing is on a much higher level of skill than that in The Invisible Bridge. Though possibly not as smoothly readable, Faulks creates characters whose flaws are deeply exacerbated by the war experience. I found his characters more believable and more interesting. His ability to put the reader into the times and places of the war is impressive.

Best of all for a confirmed anti-war person such as myself, he makes clear the insanity of war, the senseless sacrifices required of soldiers and civilians, and the disruption of life, society, families and individuals that results. Actually the gruesomeness level in this novel is high.

Birdsong has been made into a two-part television film which premieres in the United States on PBS this month.

Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong is a kind of Harlequin romance with a literary slant. All the elements for pulp romance are there: "romantic" hero: soldier, refined gentleman; unhappy married woman; "romantic" locale: French suburbs, countryside; numerous, gratuitous sex scenes (I remember, horrifically, an excess of pulsating "members" and curtains of "flesh"). At the same time, Faulks strives to give it some literary taste, which I believe he largely fails to do. The time-jumping between pre-war, at-war, and present-day seems haphazard, and the present-day revelation of Elizabeth Benson has the dull patina of a celluloid ending (I think of present-day Rose in Titanic, the end of Saving Private Ryan, etc: the cinematic cheat of closing a tragedy by removing it from its era, neglecting the interceding lives of its characters: what I hate about epilogues).

It is no surprise that Faulks was commissioned to ghost-write an installment of the James Bond series (Devil May Care). Faulks writes for the cinema, but mostly he writes to the base male fantasies and mock-Hemingway-an masculinity that appeals to contemporary male readers: sex, war, violence, camaraderie and friendship. His attempts at literary effects fail him, and damage the pulpy material beneath. HE is a plot-author with poor plot-pacing: his attempts to bridge past and present-day (a connection which fails to entertain or convince), repeatedly stunt the built up momentum of Stephen and Isabelle's romance, and later on: the gray-violence of the battlefield.

I look at the top quotes for Birdsong and find dull pulp and platitudes:

n  I know. I was there. I saw the great void in your soul, and you saw mine.n

Something one might find in a schoolboy's diary. The prose, which is often flabby at the seams, is filled with my short phrases with faked originality and stunted aesthetics: slipshod attempts are juxtaposing and reconciling the ugliness of war and the beauty of passion.

n  Something had been buried that was not yet dead.n

The novel abounds in cliché: from trite aphoristic turns-of-phrase, to the overall story: very little strikes the reader as truly original or insightful. The Brideshead Revisited-inspired memories are stilted and unnatural, poorly executed. If one is to read this book, one should only read it at the surface, for a war-torn romance: diving in deeper will only reveal the shallowness beneath the surface: the smallness inside of a postured grandness.

"Birdsong" follows Englishman Stephen Wraysford from a prewar intense relationship with a married French woman to the battlefield of the Somme. The horror of World War I is shown in a realistic manner involving all the senses. In his own way each soldier must deal with the trauma of trench warfare, or digging in the dark, narrow, claustrophobic tunnels under enemy lines.

There is a second thread to this book set in the 1970s involving Stephen's granddaughter, Elizabeth. She is trying to decipher some of Stephen's diaries written in code. There are events in her life that run parallel to her grandparents' prewar life which are more acceptable in 1970s society.

The descriptions of the events in Stephen's life, especially during the war, were excellent. While the plotline set in the 1970s was not as strong, it did offer the reader some relief from the soldiers' constant exposure to filth, fear, sickness, and death.

This was an extremely difficult book to get through. WWI, man's
inhumanity to man and the total disregard and manipulation of the young
soldiers should never, ever be forgotten.
I don’t think I have ever read a book that has so vividly transported
me into the situations and circumstances going on in the novel.
Such explicit descriptions of Stevens sexual relationship with
Isabelle, the disfiguring and horrifically gory deaths of those
in his command, the acute, persistent lice infestation in Steven's clothes, the isolating loneliness of
receiving no letters or having anyone to go home to, the extremely smothering claustrophobia
inside a collapsed tunnel, the complete abandonment of the will to live, the beauty of realizing
we are all one people with love, not destruction at our core, and the
affirmation of the circle of life. Each and every one took my breath away. Although
a difficult book, it is very well written and a lesson about WWI for me.
Thanks book club for always challenging me to broaden my reading experiences and making me aware of and extremely uncomfortable about the darkest times of our history.

Birdsong is one of the most powerful books I’ve read. Sebastian Faulks has yet again proven to be a master of his craft. The book stirred the full gamut of my emotions.

It is set in different periods of time, before, during and after the war – and the author creates a real sense of the era in which he writes.

The story begins in France where the protagonist, Stephen Wraysford, stays as a guest with the Azaire family: Rene, his two children and wife Isabelle. The purpose of the visit was for Stephen to learn about the French textile industry. Whilst there, Stephen notices problems with the Azaire’s marriage. There were indications that Rene was physically taking his frustrations out on Isabelle, for reasons, which she later confides in Stephen. Although Isabelle was much older than Stephen there was a mutual attraction prior to them embarking on a steamy affair. Their erotic love story is written in explicit detail. Isabelle then makes a life changing decision and leaves Rene and luxury for Stephen with nothing, believing she loves him as he does her. As the story unfolds it reveals whether their attraction will survive the excitement of their clandestine, illicit, love affair.

When World War 1 breaks out, Stephen becomes a Lieutenant Officer in the army and ends up fighting on the front line. I’ve read various non-fictional accounts of the battle of the Somme, but in this novel, which reads like a vivid real life story, I felt I was actually there! I could imagine being repelled by the gruesome sights. I almost felt nauseous by the description of the foul smelling trenches. I sensed the men’s almost palpable fear and even itched with their lice infestation. When the men were in the narrow tunnels underground I could actually feel their claustrophobia. Although it was all very graphic we know it wasn’t gratuitous because the real Somme was also like hell on earth.

There was a complete transformation in the men’s psyche after the unimaginable horrors they’d seen: The men who fought together had forged such a strong bond that they loved each other like family. Their camaraderie was endearing. But they became so inured to witnessing death and losing comrades that they became numb and emotionless. The men they loved quickly became blurred in a distant memory and their names forgotten, like ghosts from the past. It is one of the most moving books I’ve ever read. If ever there was a story that expressed the futility of war this is it.

Stephen’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, had found his notes and gradually made sense of them. In the denouement, her mother revealed a last bit of information, which had puzzled Elizabeth. It completed a wonderful story with no loose ends.

Faulks describes the character’s mannerisms, gestures and expressions in very minute detail. I wonder whether I would have been so observant and noticed the subtle nuances if I had met such real life characters. A book I highly recommend.

Lest we forget...

Birdsong is undoubtedly one of the best known modern novels about World War I so it’s not surprising that a new edition has been issued to coincide with the centenary. I avoided it when it was going through it’s initial huge success – to be honest, I try to avoid books about war as often as possible; not easy when you live in a country as obsessed as Britain is by the two big wars of last century. However, Faulks swam onto my horizon recently with his very good Jeeves homage Jeeves and the Wedding Bells and so I was tempted to read the book that he’s most famous for.

There are three main parts to the book, and the connecting thread between them is the main protagonist Stephen Wraysford. By far the best written and most emotional part of the book is the middle section, when Stephen is on active service in the trenches of WW1. Faulks’ depiction of the mud and filth of the trenches, the bloodiness and horror that the troops faced on a daily basis, the sheer exhaustion and increasing hopelessness as the war wore interminably on, is convincing and sickening in equal measure. Faulks splits this part of the narrative so that we partly follow Stephen, an officer with certain privileges, and partly some of his men, especially Jack Firebrace, a miner who is digging tunnels for the laying of mines. As the war drags on, Faulks shows the futility of the small gains and losses for which so many lives were lost or shattered. There is a tendency for Faulks to take it too far on occasion – to slip almost into bathos, as he piles one tragedy after another on the same poor soldier’s head. And I found it a little trite that the only German officer we met was a patriotic German Jew. But putting these issues aside, this main part of the book is well worth reading and would probably have gained it a five-star rating from me.

BUT – unfortunately there are the two other sections. The third part is a rather pointless and extraneous strand set in the 1970s, when a descendant of Stephen sets out to find out what happened to him. This section is only there so that Faulks can give a pointed little 'Lest We Forget' message, suggesting that indeed we have forgotten and must now remember. I felt the main part of the book had made that point adequately without it needing to be emphasised with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the head.

And then there’s the first section – the pre-war love story, when young Stephen has an affair with the older wife of the man in whose house he is staying. I say love story, but it is actually a lust story – the two lovers rarely talk other than to decide where next they can have sex. And unfortunately, Faulks just doesn’t have what it takes to make sex sound like fun. As he gives us detail after detail of each positional change, each bodily fluid and its eventual destination, each grunt, groan and sigh, I developed a picture of poor Elizabeth, the love interest, as one of those bendy toys that used to be so popular. As so often in male sex fantasies, her willingness, nay, desperation, to have sex with Stephen knows no bounds, so we’ve barely finished the cigarette after the last session before we’re off again. Oh dear! It honestly is some of the worst written sex I’ve ever read. (I wonder if anyone has considered marketing it as a form of contraception?) And this affair which is so important at the beginning of the book fades almost entirely into the background and seems to serve very little purpose thereafter.

All-in-all, I found the book very unbalanced – some great writing, some poor writing; a fragmented plot that perhaps tries to do too much; and a tendency on Faulks’ part not to trust his readers, but to feel he had to beat his 'message' into them with a blunt instrument. Although the section about the war is powerful and emotive, the rest of the book didn’t really work for me at all. I’m finding it hard to decide whether I’d recommend it or not, to be honest…

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Random House Vintage.

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Birdsong is a historical drama about WWI. Whenever I read about the tragedies of war I realize that had I been a soldier I never would have mentally recovered from the atrocities witnessed. Stephen, the main character, does recover but at a great cost.

When the book begins Stephen is an impetuous twenty year old. War is not yet in his future. There are a few references to the song of birds and how this sound is annoying to him. This will not always be the case. As we follow Stephen through his horrific war experiences, we realize how he is maturing - not just aging but developing a new humanity. His courage and his desire to survive are vivid and beautifully detailed. The song of birds, once so annoying, becomes the sound of hope and life. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger really applies here.

I don't think Stephen's youthful love affair nor his granddaughter's story were nearly as convincing . Still, this is a moving, heart wrenching book and I definitely recommend it.

From Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind

How many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

And how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?

How much do you know about World War I? If you're like me, very little. In his introduction to Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks explains that World War II came along so quickly, that the preceding conflict was kind of overlooked in literature, and not as much was written about it. Well he certainly did his best to address that gap with the masterful Birdsong.

We begin in 1910. Stephen Wraysford, a 20-year-old Englishman, travels to Amiens on business. He falls head over heels for Isabelle, an older woman, who leaves her husband and stepchildren to begin a new life with her lover. Eventually, she becomes overwhelmed with guilt and returns to her family, leaving Stephen crushed. Six years later, he is back in the same region, now a Lieutenant in the British forces preparing for the Battle of the Somme. In the face of absolute horror and probable death, he does not allow himself to think about love, or what life after this conflict could even look like. But he just might end up seeing Isabelle again, and perhaps there is more to their story than he knows.

The romance is one of the reasons Birdsong works so well. The passion in Stephen and Isabelle's relationship is so electric - the snatched, illicit moments of their affair, the excitement of their elopement, the possibilities that lay ahead. And of course, its demise is devastating. All of Stephen's army colleagues have somebody they want to return home to, a face they desperately want to see again that gives them a reason to survive. He tells himself that he doesn't have anyone like this, that he never did. But deep down, he knows that's not true.

However, the crowning achievement of Birdsong is its unflinching depiction of war. The earsplitting cacophony of the artillery, the claustrophobia of the tunnels, the never-ending mud, the smell of sweat and shit, the horror of seeing a head explode in front of your eyes. The heartbreaking letters sent home from the Somme, its writers knowing that they were almost certainly going to die in the coming hours. The bodies in pieces, pale and rotting in no man's land. The senseless brutality of it all, summed up by a roll call after the battle, ringing with unanswered names:

n  "Names came pattering into the dusk, bodying out the places of their forebears, the villages and towns where the telegrams would be delivered, the houses where the blinds would be drawn, where low moans would come in the afternoon behind closed doors; and the places that had borne them, which would be like nunneries, like dead towns without their life or purpose, without young men at the factories or in the fields, with no husbands for the women, no deep sound of voices in the inns, with the children who would have been born, who would have grown and worked or painted, even governed, left ungenerated in their fathers' shattered flesh that lay in stinking shellholes in the beet crop soil, leaving their homes to put up only granite slabs in place of living flesh, on whose inhuman surface the moss and lichen would cast their crawling green indifference."n

I came very close to awarding this novel the full five stars, but I did find it a little bit drawn-out at times, especially in the final chapters. This is a small complaint (and maybe I am too hard to please!). For at its best, Birdsong is a stunning feat - tense, powerful and unbearably moving. It's the kind of book you want to press into the hands of world leaders before they embark on some unnecessary, avoidable war. An unforgettable read.

I considered myself a fairly informed person about the 1st World War, until I read this book. It is one of the most disturbing accounts of the effects of atrocities upon the human mind I have ever read. A friend of mine who is a psychiatrist, and specialises in the effects of shock on the mind, borrowed this from me and was impressed with the accurate portrayal of the reactions of humans to extreme stress.

The book starts some years before the war when a young english man, Stephen Wraysford, goes to stay with a French family to gain work experience. He falls in love with the wife of the family and they start a passionate affair eventually leading her to leave her husband and children. After moving to a small town and living together for some time, she leaves him to return to her family and, finally he returns to England.Years later he finds himself back in France under more strained circumstances, in the mud of the trenches.

We follow Wraysford and the men under his command through the horrors of the campaigns across the fields of France, watching through their eyes as their comrades fall and their humanity is taken from them.

The book ends by coming up to the present day and following a descendant of Wraysford as she traces his history and we eventually learn his full story.

What is most shocking and, I am told by my psychiatrist friend, most realistic about this book is that the soldiers reactions become numbed to the carnage and that seeing so much horror on a daily basis lessens the effect, or apparant effect, on them. Perhaps this isn't so surprising given that the rise in violence on tv and film is blamed for numbing us to the attrocities in the world.

This book paints a graphic picture of the 1st World War and will make you think about exactly what the human mind can endure.

Given the above you might wonder why you should read this book but I can assure you that the story is wonderful and amongst the horror there are human stories of love and friendship which will keep you reading. There are also some wonderfully erotic moment between Wraysford and his french lover.

All in all this book is brilliant - love, sex, war, friendship, carnage and the enduring human spirit.

Think of the words on that memorial, Wraysford. Think of those stinking towns and foul bloody villages whose names will be turned into some bogus glory by fat-arsed historians who have sat in London. We were there. As our punishment for God knows what, we were there, and our men died in each of those disgusting places. I hate their names. I hate the sound of them and the thought of them, which is why I will not bring myself to remind you.

Wow! First published in 1994, Birdsong is a WWI era novel that spans 1910-1979 and focuses on main protagonist, Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman that begins a sordid affair with a French businessmen's wife, Madame Azaire. The two are separated and years laters Stephen is now serving in the British army in France. In the 1970's timeline, a young woman named Elizabeth is becoming increasingly interested in a series of notebooks that she has found in her mother's attic and they may just have the key to some untold family secrets left over from the war.

Many times I have lain down and I have longed for death. I feel unworthy. I feel guilty because I have survived. Death will not come and I am cast adrift in a perpetual present. I do not know what I have done to live in this existence. I do not know what any of us did to tilt the world into the unnatural orbit. We came here for only a few months.
No child or future generation will ever know what this was like. They will never understand.
When it is over we will go quietly among the living and we will not tell them.
We will talk and sleep and go about our buisness like human beings.
We will seal what we have seen in the silence of our hearts and no words will reach us.

Sebastien Faulks won my heart with his WWII espionage book, Charlotte Gray. Well, right until that ending that left me scratching my head. But Birdsong truly moved me and is quite simply- an AMAZING book. It is less the romance, but Stephen's time on the frontlines and his time with his men that was truly the gem of the book.

No one in England knows what this is like. If they could see the way these men live they would not believe their eyes. This is not a war, this is an exploration of how far men can be degraded.