Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

[Scheherazade]

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

When I picked this book up from the library, I was very excited because of its cover based on WWI so, needless to say, I was very surprised as I started reading.

Stephen Wraysford, a 20 years old Englishman goes to France to be trained at a factory in 1910. During his time in France, he stays with the family of the factory owner and cannot help falling in love with his young wife, with whom starts a passionate affair. Despite their best attempts, their relationship is doomed from the start. Later on, Stephen goes to war, when the greater part of the novel takes place.

Birdsong is a hard novel to summarise due to different sub-storylines intertwined. Stephen's love affair with a married woman reminds me of a Lawrence book and the scenes during the WWI does remind of All Quiet on the Western Front , and Faulks' writing is almost as good. However, the parts he tells the story of Stephen's granddaughter seem very lacking and flat (especially so during the last 100 pages of the book). What could have been a good read deteriorates into a mediocre drag.

6/10 KitKats!

[Michael T]

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

However, the parts he tells the story of Stephen's granddaughter seem very lacking and flat (especially so during the last 100 pages of the book). What could have been a good read deteriorates into a mediocre drag.

6/10 KitKats!

I agree. Especially disappointing after all the hype and media attention the book seemed to receive.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

I don’t know if the author meant to make the central character Stephen come across as rather self-centred but I certainly found him so. I also found Faulks’ attempt at sex scenes rather poorly done – even a little cringing. I initially enjoyed the introduction of the present-day character Elizabeth to the plot and it was promising to begin with. However, that too seemed to go ridiculously awry. I have no idea what part the man who quickly asked her to marry him after the dinner played in the novel, it seemed utterly superfluous as did the culmination of the visits to the nursing home. As you say, the book seems to fizzle out at the end due to a lack of depth of character or any feeling of empathy for Elizabeth or her lover Robert. It’s almost as if the Faulks himself didn’t know what to do with them. I think if the author had stuck to the battlefields of WW1 it would have been a better novel.

[oopsycandy]

I agree, I enjoyed it but only really found the WW1 story line engaging. It did receive massive hype and I read another one of his after that was so forgettable I cant remember the title! Green Dolphin street? something or other like that lol x

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes, I was not overly impressed with this one either.

[Emil Miller]

The fact that he has recently written the latest James Bond book probably says more about him than his previous work.

[Historianic]

I agree with most of the other posters. I too enjoyed part two of the book best, which takes place right in the thick of WW1. I found that section of the book the most compelling. I also didn't like the section with Elizabeth and found it unnecessary. In his introduction to the book, Sebastian Faulks writes that Elizabeth is supposed to stand in for the position of the modern reader. In terms of establishing why someone in contemporary society should even bother finding out and caring about this history. Supposedly she should illustrate the relevance this history has to our lives now.

But what I found was that by that section of the book, I'd already worked that out for myself. So the journey that Elizabeth begins, I as the reader, had already made and was waiting for the character to catch up with me. Thus that section became incredibly tedious for me. I had to force myself to keep going because I just didn't care about Elizabeth and found her completely uninteresting.

I'd built an affinity with Stephen and the rest of his war company, and was eager to get back to what was going on with them. Elizabeth's storyline really disrupted that for me and I actually struggled a bit to get back into the book after her first interlude.