Birds Without Wings

I have a rather unusual relationship with de Benieres' novels.

I was completely enamored with the lyrical beauty of Captain Correlli's Mandolin. However, the film adaptation was an absolute disaster, with Nicholas Cage delivering what might just be the worst performance in cinematic history. But the novel itself had everything one could ask for: humor that made you chuckle, tragedy that tugged at your heartstrings, love that was both passionate and tender, the chaos of war, complex relationships, and a rich tapestry of history. I also thoroughly enjoyed the wit and vivid color of The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts.

But when it came to The Partisan's Daughter, after three attempts at reading, I eventually gave up, finding it to be overly twee and, quite frankly, a form of literary masturbation.

Birds Without Wings, despite all the hype surrounding it, is an awful novel, and here are my reasons.

Firstly, the setting is a fallacy. Both Greek and Turkish historians agree that the area where he has set the story, coastal Lycia, was Greek speaking rather than Turkish. If he had wanted to depict Turkish speaking Greeks, he should have set it in Cappadocia. I have personal connections to the region, knowing children and grandchildren descended from there, and I have a deep love for Ottoman and Turkish history. There is also a significant presence of both communities in Australia. This wouldn't have been such a big deal, but de Benieres claims to have "researched" the area, yet it's clear he didn't do a proper job.

Secondly, it is so overly earnest in its sentimentality that it almost reeks. Instead of allowing the story and characters to speak for themselves and naturally evoke emotions in the readers, it constantly beseeches us to get sentimental. The more organic and effective evocation that worked so well in Captain Correlli is completely absent here.

Thirdly, the vignettes never truly build upon each other, and we are left with just a series of overly earnest sketches that end up being a choppy mess.

Finally, the language is too twee for the overall feel of the novel. It comes across as awkward and desperate.

Anyway, that's my opinion, and I think you should disregard any subjectivity because this is truly a disastrous tome of a novel from a writer who is capable of so much better.

In a village in southwestern Turkey, specifically the village of "Işık Beyçe" - which is from the author's imagination - the author takes it as the stage for this historical novel. Perhaps the reason for this is to avoid falling into the trap of narrating events that may not be true for the place itself, and also to give himself the opportunity to express his imagination in a land about whose people not much is known, except for the stories he heard from people during his research to write that novel. It may seem from my words that I am excited about the author and the novel, but let me explain to you in simple points what I reached from those readings.

The first chapter of the novel begins with the voice of "Iskender the Forager" as he recalls his village and how beautiful and wonderful life was despite the scarcity of resources, but there was a bond between the Muslims and Christians of the town. And this point specifically, the author will talk about it later as he tells about the deportation and exchange of Turkish and Greek populations that accompanied the "Lausanne Treaty". And also Iskender tells us the story of "Ibrahim the Madman" and his love for "Filothei" which we will learn about in detail later in her own voice, so the author here has made his novel a multi-voiced novel instead of narrating it in the voice of a single narrator. Perhaps he has achieved some success in narrating the stories from the perspective of their owners, but he was not able to use the omniscient narrator style - which he used - well as will become clear to us as the chapters progress.

Despite the large number of characters that the author mentions in his novel and his use of several narrators, but I can easily identify two parallel lines along which the novel progresses. The first is the village of "Işık Beyçe and its inhabitants", and the second line is the "story of the rise of Mustafa Ali Riza Efendi" who will later become "Mustafa Kemal Atatürk" the first dictator of Turkey. And as I mentioned before, the author here wants to explain the situation that Turkey was in and what it became after the sequence of events and the emergence of "Atatürk", I don't know if I am really in my mind that the author has special inclinations to show peace and harmony among people when they were "Ottomans" and the situation of hatred and rejection that they became in later when they were "Turks".

And looking at the structure of the novel, I see it as "fragmented" where the novel can be divided into three parts or at most into three novels without affecting any of them. Let me explain my point of view to you in an easy way, in the first third of the novel, the author tells us about the villagers and perhaps we will read the most enjoyable part in the whole novel, which is the story of "Rüstem Bey" which will remind us of "One Thousand and One Nights" and the similarity between them in terms of charm and narrative style. And in the second third of the novel, we find the author telling about the "Gallipoli Campaign" and what it entails in terms of description of the battles, the situation of the soldiers and the images that the author describes of the battles, which reminds me a lot of the German novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque which also took place during World War I but in a different front. The highlight in this part is the author's description of the scene of destruction that befell the village because all the men who could be armed were taken away, leaving the town empty with no one to cultivate the land or manage people's affairs. And this is the scene specifically that Sholokhov was able to engrave in my memory with his epic novel. And finally, there will be the last third which explains what happened after all those bloody events that accompanied the war and the treaties that were made and many of their countries were divided because of religion or ethnicity.

In the end, I don't want to say that my expectations of the novel were disappointed, as I was expecting more about Atatürk and that period that witnessed the fall of the Ottoman Empire, but I will be content to say that I came out with several points that benefited me in my research for it. And this is one of the advantages of historical novels, for it is not necessary that everything in it be true and reliable, but it will definitely open doors for you to research and read.

I was joined in reading the novel by Dr. Fatima Mohamedi, and I enjoyed talking with her about the novel and exchanging opinions about everything in it.

This is the second book I have read by de Bernières, following my enjoyment of Captain Corelli's Mandolin.

Although I had promised myself a break from this author for a while, here I am, picking up his other book in less than a year, all thanks to Popsugar!

The story is set in Eskibahçe, a small village in southwestern coastal Anatolia. In this village, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lead a normal and harmonious life filled with love, friendships, and unbreakable neighborly bonds.

The book is narrated by the characters who live in the village: the lovebirds Philothei and Ibrahim, the village's Imam Abdulhamid Hodja and his wife Ayse, Philothei's best friend Drosoula, the best friends Karatavuk and Mehmetçik, the town's Aga Rustem Bey and his wife Leyla, and his mistress Leyla.

As you can see, there are numerous characters in this book. However, don't be intimidated. The simplicity of the writing and the first-person narration offer a better perspective on each person's view, their feelings, and the experiences they have gone through. And boy, do they经历了很多 in that little village!

The first half of the book is filled with charming stories of how they all coexist, left alone to carry on with their lives. Then, World War I occurs, and the Turkish War of Independence forces them to be torn apart when the Greeks living there are deported to Greece through a massive government-mandated population exchange between the two countries. It is truly inhuman!

If you are not familiar with that era, this book serves as a great source for a history lesson. There are many chapters dedicated to Mustafa Kemal and the true face of the Battle of Gallipoli, with all its ugliness, cruelty, trauma, and violence. It is extremely difficult to read, and knowing that it happened (and still does in other parts of the world to this day) breaks your heart.

If you are daunted by the size of the book (625 pages), I recommend listening to the audio along with it, narrated by Christopher Kay. He does an amazing job of bringing the characters to life with his voice and emotions. There are moments when his voice breaks, and that's when your heart skips a beat.

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

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

I truly wish that the editor had exercised a greater degree of strictness regarding this book. This would have enhanced its readability and potentially attracted a larger audience. Even though I had a deep affection for the book, I couldn't help but feel that it could have been even better with the omission of one or two plot lines.

It is an extraordinarily historically informative novel, populated by a plethora of warmly flawed and incredibly real characters. The sheer number of characters, however, might be a bit overwhelming at times.

The author's remarkable ability to present a diverse range of viewpoints, through the different Muslim, Catholic, Turkish, and Greek characters we encounter, on a time period that remains highly contentious even in the present day, makes this book an essential read for all Americans. It offers a unique perspective and enriches our understanding of a complex and often overlooked chapter in history.

Overall, despite its minor flaws, this book has the potential to make a significant impact and should not be missed.

“The Impossible Flight” is an improper yet quite accurate translation of the original title “Birds without Wings.” Birds are constantly present throughout the narrative and form a guiding thread through a story that spans many years, and the reflections inspired by this thread are of great contemporary relevance. The song of the birds accompanies the protagonists from dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn, highlighting crucial events, providing a counterpoint to the events of war. Birds of every species are given and received as gifts. The characters are often compared to birds, either taking their name or having a nickname related to a bird. Through these winged creatures, they attempt to communicate with the dead, with God, and to understand the meaning of their own existence. The story begins with two of the protagonists, as children, believing they can fly like little birds, and concludes in 1923 with the town of Telmessos changing its name to Fethiye in honor of an Ottoman aviator (thus, in its own way, a winged being).

When observing the sky with its few occupants – the birds or the few airplanes – it is always to lament its immense distance from the earth and the earthly world. The desire to fly pervades the entire reading. “Men are strange birds, of a type that doesn't fly much.” “For birds with wings, nothing changes; they fly where they want, unconcerned with borders, their quarrels are of little consequence. We, on the other hand, are confined to the earth, no matter how high we climb and how much we wave our arms. Unable to fly, we are condemned to do things that don't belong to us. Without wings, we are pushed towards infamies and battles that we don't seek...”

The story takes place in an ancient town near the coasts of Anatolia, between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The narration is collective, with the narrators being the protagonists themselves, whose voices alternate with that of the omniscient narrator. These two characteristics together make it a novel with a very broad scope: the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the Great War, the birth of an independent Turkish state, and the intersection of these events with the lives of the individual protagonists is a complex and engaging plot. It is an engaging plot for both the writer, who had to embrace a vast subject matter with his gaze, and for the reader, as it is not just entertainment but also educational reading. As for me, I knew very little or nothing about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but now I have an idea, although I must admit that the parts of the story specifically dedicated to him are a bit less incisive than the rest. The descriptions of Istanbul and Smyrna at the beginning of the last century, however, are superb.

The narration starts slowly because it has to introduce numerous characters, each with their own presentation and story. None of them is useless in relation to the overall plot of the story, although it is immediately difficult to understand where the author is headed: the story he tells this time is much more imposing than that of “Captain Corelli's Mandolin.” What I expected to find in Serena Vitale's “The Turban's Entanglement” at that time, I instead found here, several years later. The sweetness of the landscapes and atmospheres in the streets of the small rural town and among the ancient Lycian ruins, and then the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the collapse of traditions and certainties that had endured for centuries, and the intrusion of the horror of war. The ending also does not lack a certain emotion in witnessing the birth of a new nation and, on the part of its citizens, despite all the tribulations suffered and the horrors committed, a certain pride in the awakening of this new citizenship.

The entire book is extremely dense with themes and rich in intersecting meanings: in addition to history, geography, and religion, there are obviously the themes of war, tolerance, and coexistence despite differences, love for the native land, the relationship with nature and the rural life of the town at the beginning of the 20th century, the fragile condition of the human being and his daily life. There is a very Tolstoyan intention to practically and concretely demonstrate, by telling the entire sequence of events, how the history made by generals and heads of state involves and sweeps away ordinary citizens and common mortals, and how in turn, generals and heads of state do not actually make history but are also influenced by small and seemingly insignificant events. There is also a direct connection with De Bernières' other novel, “Captain Corelli's Mandolin,” to pique the curiosity of those who have not yet read it and to bring a smile to those who already know the story and can thus extend the plots between the two novels. An excellent start for the readings of 2015.

Birds without Wings is a remarkable piece of well-researched and accurate historical fiction.

Set in Asia Minor at the end of the Ottoman Empire, which coincided with World War I, it presents a complex and vivid picture of a region in turmoil. There were ethnic Greeks living in Asia Minor who spoke Turkish better than Greek or even had no knowledge of Greek at all. Similarly, there were ethnic Turks in Greece who were more fluent in Greek than in Turkish or had no Turkish language skills.

The story also mentions the Greeks in Russia and the Turks in the Balkans. Around this time, there was a rise in nationalistic and exclusionary sentiments, with slogans like "Greece for the Greeks, Turks and Jews out" and "Turkey for the Turks, Greeks and Armenians out" being heard. Meanwhile, the Russians were invading the Caucasus and had expansionist plans for all of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, while the Western Europeans had their own personal agendas. All of this led to endless massacres and population displacements that uprooted millions of people.

The story is told from multiple points of view, including those of the villagers in the fictional town of Eskibahçe in southwest Turkey, as well as the life of Mustafa Kemal, also known as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who became the first leader of modern Turkey. While the villagers were my favorite characters, I also appreciated the timeline of Ataturk's life. However, at a certain point, the story became overly detailed with the introduction of more characters and more information about the various battles, especially the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign, which made it feel a bit tedious.

If this book were about 200 pages shorter, it would be a perfect novel. Nevertheless, written in 2004, it remains highly relevant in 2018 with the election of nationalist and populist leaders around the world. Although not conveyed in a heavy-handed way, Louis de Bernieres' message is clear: multi-ethnic and multicultural societies are rich, and a desire to be only among one's own ethnic group leads only to violence and suffering.

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I have delved into a significant number of books penned by de Bernieres. The initial one that caught my attention was Captain Corelli's Mandolin, and I derived great pleasure from both the book and its cinematic adaptation. Subsequently, I embarked on reading The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts and then The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman, which are two installments of his Colombian trilogy. However, these didn't particularly resonate with me as they belonged to the magical mystery genre of Gabriel García Márquez, whom Bernières holds in high regard.

Nevertheless, my experience with 'Birds without Wings' was entirely different. I was thoroughly enthralled by this book and was truly amazed by the extensive historical research that de Bernieres had conducted during its writing. The story commences in 1900 and concludes in the early 1920s.

The title of the book is sourced from a saying by one of the characters, Iskander the Potter, which goes, "Man is a bird without wings, and a bird is a man without sorrows."

Set during the waning period of the Ottoman Empire, in the small Anatolian town of Eskibahce, 'Birds without Wings' presents a vivid picture of a community. Despite the various criticisms leveled at the Ottoman Empire, the degree of tolerance among ethnic groups and different religions in this town was quite remarkable. Turks, Armenians, and Greeks, both Muslims and Christians, coexisted side by side, often intermarrying and leading a relatively peaceful life. However, this harmonious existence was shattered when external events intervened. The Franks, as the Ottomans referred to the Western Europeans, and later the Greeks, invaded their country. The Sultan declared a holy war, and the Muslim Turks were conscripted as soldiers, while the Christian Turks were sent into labour battalions. The Armenians, in response to their helping the Russians slaughter thousands of Turkish Muslims in other parts of the empire, were evacuated from the region in a death march.

The events described in the book still have a profound impact today, as evidenced by the news that the French Senate, on 24th January 2012, approved a bill making it illegal to deny that the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 in the Ottoman Empire was genocide. This move by the cynical French politicians, seen as a ploy by Sarkozy to gain votes from the 500,000 ethnic Armenian French voters in April's Presidential elections, has infuriated the Turkish government, which has threatened France with permanent sanctions.

Returning to the book, during the Balkan wars, when the western powers were vying with each other to seize territories formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, the Italians occupied Eskibahce, and the Christians were forced to relocate to Greece. Amidst all this turmoil, the residents of the town struggled to survive.

The book is populated with some exquisitely drawn characters. There are Karatavuk (Turkish for 'Blackbird') and Mehmetcik (Turkish for 'Red Robin'), childhood friends who are inseparable until the outbreak of war. Karatavuk becomes a soldier and participates in the battle of Gallipoli, while Mehmetcik is forced into a labour battalion and later defects to become a notorious bandit. There is also the beautiful Christian girl Philothei, who is engaged to Ibrahim the goatherd, and whose death is foreshadowed at the start of the story. Additionally, there is the landlord and town protector Rustem Bey, who casts out his adulterous wife and takes a mistress. Then there are Abdulhamid Hodja and Father Kristoforos, holy men who call each other infidels yet are good friends. I found the chapters depicting the life and career of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to be truly fascinating as he rises through the military ranks to secure the fight for an independent Turkey.

Once again, reverting to the book's title, I found it interesting that 'Birds' are a recurring motif throughout the story. They sing throughout the night, carry letters to the dead, have their voices captured in clay whistles, and are kept in cages outside the entrance of many homes. The town residents are depicted as wingless birds, firmly grounded in the harsh reality of war and unable to escape the turmoil.

In some respects, 'Birds Without Wings' poses a considerable challenge for readers. With 95 chapters and a six-part epilogue, it's no wonder that de Bernieres has cited 'War and Peace' as a model for his work. In the final analysis, this is a book that delves into the themes of mourning and grief, exploring the loss of a community where Muslims and Christians were more than just neighbours, where the imam would go out of his way to bless a Christian child, and Christians would pray to the Virgin Mary for their Muslim brothers.

A calm and wise voice, which has been so lacking in recent years. I am very glad to have returned to it and have long planned to finally read it.

Moreover, now is the perfect time because we find ourselves at the geographical point where one of the important historical and social knots of the 20th century was tied and untied - the Greco-Turkish and, more broadly, the Balkan and Mediterranean. And an important part of it - the exchange of populations between Anatolia and Macedonia, which is mentioned in the novel - still needs to be understood and understood because the relevance of such geopolitical decisions has not diminished even now, 100 years later. Since this is a novel about people dedicated not so much to their country as to history itself. About people like us. And, of course, about the fact that any organized religion is evil.

...Here is an important observation, for example: One day in Turkey they will call it “The Demographic Catastrophe,” because it is the Christians who know how to get everything done. Turks are soldiers and peasants and landowners, but Christians are merchants and craftsmen. Their loss will delay economic recovery for decades.

In Greece they call it “The Asia Minor Catastrophe.” Those who leave will forever feel that they have been arbitrarily thrown out of paradise. One and a half million of them arrive in Greece, causing the utmost difficulty for a government trying to accommodate and incorporate them. They bring with them their education, their sophistication, their talents, their nostalgia, and a music that will turn out to be rembetika. They also bring with them their absolute destitution and sense of injustice, and this will contribute perhaps more than anything else to the rise of communism in Greece, which will in turn lead to the Greek civil war.

...Another interesting factoid that somehow slipped my memory: In the unfortunate Greco-Turkish War that led to the exchange of populations, the Russians (i.e., the Soviets) supported Ataturk (with weapons - in exchange for his non-interference in the spread of Soviet influence in Georgia), and not the Greeks at all. So the Greeks' love for Russia looks even more mysterious, of course.

...And the modern history of the town where we now live begins after the last page of the novel, from which everything gradually disappears and never returns - and this, of course, is a completely different book. Greece in this one is rather a figure of speech, a place off the map where dragons lurk.

But generally speaking, de Bernières is one of the best British novelists, completely beloved forever, even if he is a euroskeptic (but a philhellene). And this novel of his is pure enjoyment.