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marc129 's review for:
Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War
by Sebastian Faulks
I very seldom end reading a book halfway, but with this one I did. I agree, the pieces about the horrors of the first world war are gruesome and captivating described; but we already have so many of those stories (not to mention the Ur-source Vom Westen Nichts Neues). Faulks brings his story from the point of view of Stephen Waysford, a man who even after 100 pages still remains quite superficial and shows little or no emotion, apart from a sudden passion for his landlady, an Obvious double of Emma Bovary. The twists and turns the story takes are often implausible and especially the psychology of the protagonists is not really elaborated. I snapped off in the middle part, which is situated in the 70 's in London, and where the clichés started to pile up so high (the hard-working Elizabeth is mistress of a Eurocrat who doesn't want to leave his wife; but she feels her biological clock ticking and absolutely wants a child; but for some reason she feels flaring up a passion for what happened in the first world war), that I no longer persevered my reading. A real disappointment!