Birdsong (original 1993; edition 1994)

SPOILERS AHEAD

Part One: France 1910

Stephen Wraysford, a young English man, travels to France for business. He stays with Azaire and his family while he complete his work. He soon finds himself falling for Azaire's young second wife Isabelle. She is a few years older than Stephen and the two soon embark on an affair.

We learn that Azaire is cruel to his wife and Stephen had a horrible childhood and was left with no guardian or caretaker for much of his youth. Also, he's got a serious fear of birds, which judging by the title I think might be a bit of foreshadowing.

So Isabelle and Stephen decide to run away together. Leaving her husband and step-children, the two lovers begin a life together in France. Stephen works during the day and even though they love each other, they grow a bit distant as they adjust to their new circumstances.

Isabelle, struggling with her guilt over their affair and he fear that she will have a miscarriage, leaves Stephen to go live with her sister Jeanne. That's where we leave the tragic couple.

Part Two: France 1916

Six year later and we are in the midst of World War I now. My first thoughts, where is Stephen, where's Isabelle? Did she have the baby? But I think we'll have to wait awhile for those answers.

We meet Jack Firebrace, a tunneler working for the English. We do soon meet Stephen again, but he's a cold officer in the army. We see Stephen get injured and then dumped with the corpses. Oh my gosh that was a chilling scene! Stephen is terrified of abandonment and so these moments, when he thinks he is about to die, bring that fear into a sharp focus.

“He would die without ever having been loved, not once, not by anyone who had known him. He would die alone and unmourned. He could not forgive them – his mother or Isabelle or the man who had promised to be a father.”

He slowly recovers and we get a horrifying glimpse of other injured soldiers in the hospital. He and his friend Michael Weir are reunited behind the lines when Stephen reuses to take the leave offered to him. We also learn more about Firebrace and tragically about the death of his young son. I was surprised by how heartbroken I was for him. He is surrounded by death and yet it’s miles away, safe in England, where tragedy strikes his family.

The scenes on the battlefield were simply terrifying. I haven’t read another book that showed World War I in such a vivid and frightening way. I’d never thought before of how scary it must have been for the soldiers to come up against tanks and machine guns. These were often quiet farmers and machine warfare was a completely new concept.

“He watched the men harden to the mechanical slaughter. There seemed to him a great breach of nature which no one had the power to stop.”

Part Three: England 1978

We travel forward to the ‘70s where we meet Stephen’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Benson, a successful business woman embroiled in an affair with a married man. She begins to research her grandfather’s time in World War I after finding some of his journals.

Part Four: France 1917:

Back in France we see Stephen return to the small town where he met Isabelle. While there he stumbles across her sister Jeanne and then eventually meets up with Isabelle. She is both physically and emotionally changed; scarred by the war and in love with another man. Stephen soon finds himself corresponding with Jeanne after saying his goodbyes with Isabelle.

Back at the front Weir is once again terrified of what the future will bring. In one scene he tries to say a preemptive goodbye to Stephen in case anything should happen to them and Stephen rebuffs him. Stephen is so cold and dismissive, but he obviously acts that way because he can’t stand the thought of losing someone else he loves. Weir is killed before Stephen can apologize.

Part Five: England 1978-79:

We’re back with Elizabeth as she learns about WW I. A few blind dates, attempts to break Stephen’s journaling code and then an unexpected pregnancy leave her life in turmoil.

Part Six: France 1918

Our finally section with Stephen is so painful to read I could hardly stand it. He and Jack Firebrace find themselves trapped underground after a regular inspection of the tunnels goes awry. The two men take solace in each other, talking about their lives and their loves as they try to dig their way out. Then Jack dies and once again my heart broke. Stephen is found by German soldiers who are grieving the loss of their own men and in that moment it doesn’t matter what color their uniforms are, they are brothers in grief.

Part Seven: England 1979

Elisabeth, pregnant with her child, learns the truth behind her mother’s parentage. She is the daughter of Stephen and Isabelle, but was raised by Stephen and Jeanne. When Elizabeth has her baby, naming him John after her Jack Firebrace’s son who died too young, she brings the story full circle, new life balancing death.

My Thoughts:
The final few chapters are so intense. The whole book feels like it lopes along at a steady pace, then in those final 100 pages there is just such an overwhelming feeling of both joy and sorrow. There’s a constant give and take: Stephen lives, but Jack dies, Elizabeth has a baby, but Jack looses his son. The balance of the destruction and devastation of war is pitted against the enduring nature of love, especially that between a parent and a child. I've never read something that pairs the two so beautifully.

It's not a light read, but it is enthralling. About 3/4 of the way in I wasn't sure how I felt about the book, I really wasn’t loving it, but that final section just moved me. I felt the loss of Weir and Firebrace deeply and my heart went out to Stephen who will always struggle with the guilt of surviving.

In my opinion this book will probably elicit a strong response from anyone who reads it. I think many people would hate it. It’s too slow-going in the beginning, it drastically changes format, from a love story to a war story, there are some unnecessary characters (like that guy Elizabeth was sort of dating in Part Five), there are descriptions of sex that are distasteful at best, etc. And while all of those things affected my reading experience, the thing that I walked away with in the end was an incredibly powerful picture of trench life in WWI and the lifelong impact of friendships born during wartime. The desperation and fear of the men being overwhelmed by their bravery in the crucial moment, the neglect of later generations to learn about and appreciate all that was done for them by soldiers who fought for their country; that is what I will remember.

BOTTOM LINE: It is a flawed novel, but one that left me reeling with its realistic portrayal of war. It is one of very few war novels that I can say impacted me deeply on an emotional level. Don’t expect perfection, but try it if it sounds interesting to you.

“A sense of interest was beginning to penetrate the blankness of his grief; it was like the first, painful sensations of blood returning to a numbed limb.” ( )

Birdsong is one of those few books that haunt you even after you have read the last word. A quote from the first part of the book truly describes its writings. "The function of music is to liberate in the soul those feelings that normally we keep locked up in the heart". This book does the same. It opens up a plethora of emotions experienced by the reader with every passage in the book.
This book focuses on the life of Stephen Wraysford, a World War I veteran, while channeling into the life of his granddaughter Elizabeth Benson, who tries to know more about her grandfather and his war experiences. Faulks sections the novel into seven parts starting with the introduction of a young Stephen Wraysford and his unfulfilled love with Isabella Azaire and concludes with Elizabeth fulfilling her grandfather’s promise made to a certain comrade. Faulks crystal clear writings run smoothly over pages engrossing the reader to feel the heart wrenching emotions of an incomplete love, the psychological effects that a war had on the soldiers and its aftermath. A certain section that touched my heart was the part of the letter writings between the soldiers on the war front and their kin. Makes you wonder how we easily forget those who fight on the brink of death to keep us safe and alive.
It is a truly brave and passionate read. Stephen Wraysford, Isabella Azaire, Jack Firebrace and Michael Weir simply do not seem to leave my memory. I may just revisit them soon.
( )

This book makes me angry with its sentimental approach to the subject of the First World War. ( )

I am not sure what took me so long to read this book. 'Birdsong' opens with a rather presumptuous young English man, Stephen Wraysford. He is staying as a guest on business in Amiens, France and falls instantly in love with his host's young wife. Years later, we are in the trenches with Stephen in the midst of the seemingly pointless, brutal WW1. The novel also works in a more contemporary story featuring Stephen's granddaughter as she attempts to forge a link with the past.

I became ensnared by this novel from the very beginning. Beautiful writing. The prose, pacing, atmosphere are perfect in an unselfconscious natural way. Not gimmicky or elliptical; yet far above the pedestrian. Stephen's emotional state was exquisitely rendered and I felt such pity for him. The best, most affecting part of the novel was life in the trenches and tunnels. Weir and Stephen with the canary in a bandana dangling from his mouth; the explosion in the cave and glimpsing a piece of Turners face go by; Stephen's dramatic liberation from his entombment -- some scenes are just burned in my brain. Haunting.

The parts regarding Stephen's granddaughter in the 1970's were less impressive - I wonder whether they really warranted so much time and detail. It rang a bit hollow given the gravity of the rest of the novel and really wasn't particularly believable. The only reason I can't give the novel a perfect rating.

Highly recommended for those who love literary war fiction. I would put this up there with some of the best war fiction I have read: 'Andersonville,' 'Tree of Smoke,' 'Farewell to Arms,' 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' all come to mind ( )

What a powerful story. The graphic description of life in the trenches for a soldier in WWI was chilling and awing. I find myself dissatisfied with the ending, but only because I want to know more. The characters were compelling and their struggles, hopes, and heartaches were conveyed very well. Not an easy read because of the subject matter but definitely one I would recommend for its writing style and very human themes. ( )