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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
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 [b:Jeeves and the Wedding Bells|17999156|Jeeves and the Wedding Bells|Sebastian Faulks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1373222402s/17999156.jpg|25095628] 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.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
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 [b:Jeeves and the Wedding Bells|17999156|Jeeves and the Wedding Bells|Sebastian Faulks|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1373222402s/17999156.jpg|25095628] 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.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
This book is going stay with me for the rest of my life. I can't put it any better than the Sunday Times "Magnificent - deeply moving".
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, War
This book was not really my style, so it was a very slow read for me. I learned a lot about the conditions of WW1, probably more than I really wanted to know. The ending was also not as satisfying as I woulc have hoped.
The depiction of life and death on the front and in the tunnels is very compelling. The story around those scenes, however is less so. And, the modern bits seem totally superfluous. I would also recommend reading the introduction as an afterword. It seems a little simplistic, self-serving, and self-indulgent, and there is nothing in it that adds to one's appreciation of the novel.
I would recommend reading other works dealing with the same subject before reading this one: Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, the Parade's End tetralogy by Ford Maddox Ford, and the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker.
Recommended in context.
I would recommend reading other works dealing with the same subject before reading this one: Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves, the Parade's End tetralogy by Ford Maddox Ford, and the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker.
Recommended in context.
This seems to me a broken novel. Ambitious, and at times extraordinarily good, the thematic focus is how trauma shapes life and history. There is a breadth of narrative that explores pre-WWI France, the war itself, and then shoots forward to the 1970s.
For mine, the best parts of Birdsong are set beneath the trenches of the Western Front. The visceral descriptions of life (or perhaps more appropriately) death are taut, tense, brutal and draw the reader in convincingly.
The earlier scenes are set in pre-war Amiens, where we see our protagonist slip into an illicit love affair with a married women. While the two lovers never quite convince, the writing is lush and engaging.
The third piece is the broken part referred to above. The protagonist's granddaughter emerges (against the author's efforts), as utterly unbelievable. This left me in doubt of anything we're told in the modern section.
It would be fair to say that my rating of four stars are testament to the quality of the writing of the second section, because parts of this book are terrible. Indeed, it's hard to believe that they authored by the same man.
For mine, the best parts of Birdsong are set beneath the trenches of the Western Front. The visceral descriptions of life (or perhaps more appropriately) death are taut, tense, brutal and draw the reader in convincingly.
The earlier scenes are set in pre-war Amiens, where we see our protagonist slip into an illicit love affair with a married women. While the two lovers never quite convince, the writing is lush and engaging.
The third piece is the broken part referred to above. The protagonist's granddaughter emerges (against the author's efforts), as utterly unbelievable. This left me in doubt of anything we're told in the modern section.
It would be fair to say that my rating of four stars are testament to the quality of the writing of the second section, because parts of this book are terrible. Indeed, it's hard to believe that they authored by the same man.
well, wow. I can't say much about this book that hasn't already been said by hundreds of reviewers here and on Amazon. It is extremely rare for me to give a book five stars, but while this novel isn't perfect, it deserves them. I'm going to say something anyway, but you can ignore it -- just beg, borrow, or buy a copy of this book and read it. Why on earth it didn't win, or even get shortlisted for, the Booker prize I'll never know.
It starts out as a defiantly 19th-century novel, reminiscent of Flaubert. No plunging the reader into the action or attempting to arouse curiosity, the first page is a description of a dull suburban street in Amiens! This first section describes the passionate affair between lonely Englishman Stephen Wraysford and the wife of his French host, a few years before the First World War. Faulks' writing is so vivid and sensual that this is utterly compelling despite the fact that "nothing much happens".
We then skip ahead to the war, and much of the book is taken up with s brutally realistic description of trench warfare. Sometimes I felt Faulks went a bit far with his no-holds-barred descriptions of dragging decomposing bodies out of shellholes, seeing men with their brains dribbling out of their eye sockets -- but it's above all about the reaction of Stephen and other soldiers to extreme stress, as well as a testimony to the appalling inhumanity/insanity of which human beings are capable. Yes, there have been other books and memoirs written about this, but this moved and angered me more than any book since Vera Brittain's [b:Testament of Youth|374388|Testament of Youth (Penguin Classics)|Vera Brittain|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174266011s/374388.jpg|364275].
This novel is about characters, not plot -- Stephen is a real person, with real thoughts and feelings, real flaws, and you are completely absorbed into his experiences. The description of the attack on the Somme, and all of the last 100 pages, are compelling -- you can barely breathe as you read.
Inevitably the 1978 interludes with his granddaughter Elizabeth finding his notebooks and discovering more about him were less successful. I couldn't believe that Elizabeth could be so ignorant about this war and of course her daily dilemmas were a lot less interesting. But the resolution in the final chapter rounded off the story touchingly. And it is one of those books where you immediately turn back to the beginning.
It starts out as a defiantly 19th-century novel, reminiscent of Flaubert. No plunging the reader into the action or attempting to arouse curiosity, the first page is a description of a dull suburban street in Amiens! This first section describes the passionate affair between lonely Englishman Stephen Wraysford and the wife of his French host, a few years before the First World War. Faulks' writing is so vivid and sensual that this is utterly compelling despite the fact that "nothing much happens".
We then skip ahead to the war, and much of the book is taken up with s brutally realistic description of trench warfare. Sometimes I felt Faulks went a bit far with his no-holds-barred descriptions of dragging decomposing bodies out of shellholes, seeing men with their brains dribbling out of their eye sockets -- but it's above all about the reaction of Stephen and other soldiers to extreme stress, as well as a testimony to the appalling inhumanity/insanity of which human beings are capable. Yes, there have been other books and memoirs written about this, but this moved and angered me more than any book since Vera Brittain's [b:Testament of Youth|374388|Testament of Youth (Penguin Classics)|Vera Brittain|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174266011s/374388.jpg|364275].
This novel is about characters, not plot -- Stephen is a real person, with real thoughts and feelings, real flaws, and you are completely absorbed into his experiences. The description of the attack on the Somme, and all of the last 100 pages, are compelling -- you can barely breathe as you read.
Inevitably the 1978 interludes with his granddaughter Elizabeth finding his notebooks and discovering more about him were less successful. I couldn't believe that Elizabeth could be so ignorant about this war and of course her daily dilemmas were a lot less interesting. But the resolution in the final chapter rounded off the story touchingly. And it is one of those books where you immediately turn back to the beginning.
I’d heard Alan Davies talking about this book on an episode on an episode of QI that I’ve seen a few times. I finally got around to picking it up and am so glad I did.
Set mainly in the trenches of the First World War, this is a stupendous piece of work about love, bravery, loss, friendship, discovering oneself, losing oneself, and the human need for redemption. It’s not a novel “about” war, it’s simply the setting in which the protagonist eventually finds himself in through a chain of events that he wasn’t prepared for.
Can’t recommend this one highly enough and I’ll most certainly be exploring Sebastian Faulks’ other work.
Set mainly in the trenches of the First World War, this is a stupendous piece of work about love, bravery, loss, friendship, discovering oneself, losing oneself, and the human need for redemption. It’s not a novel “about” war, it’s simply the setting in which the protagonist eventually finds himself in through a chain of events that he wasn’t prepared for.
Can’t recommend this one highly enough and I’ll most certainly be exploring Sebastian Faulks’ other work.
I think I loved this book, and the main idea behind it being about the legacy we leave for our children...but I'm also not 100% convinced that I loved it. Need more time to process.