Genre Fiction
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![Sebastian Faulks - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00LR3OBRW.jpg)
Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A mesmerising story of love and war spanning three generations and the unimaginable gulf between the First World War and the 1990s
In this "overpowering and beautiful novel" (The New Yorker), the young Englishman Stephen Wraysford passes through a tempestuous love affair with Isabelle Azaire in France and enters the dark, surreal world beneath the trenches of No Man's Land. Sebastian Faulks creates a world of fiction that is as tragic as A Farewell to Arms and as sensuous as The English Patient, crafted from the ruins of war and the indestructibility of love.
In this "overpowering and beautiful novel" (The New Yorker), the young Englishman Stephen Wraysford passes through a tempestuous love affair with Isabelle Azaire in France and enters the dark, surreal world beneath the trenches of No Man's Land. Sebastian Faulks creates a world of fiction that is as tragic as A Farewell to Arms and as sensuous as The English Patient, crafted from the ruins of war and the indestructibility of love.
Editorial Reviews
Published to international critical and popular acclaim, this intensely romantic yet stunningly realistic novel spans three generations and the unimaginable gulf between the First World War and the present. As the young Englishman Stephen Wraysford passes through a tempestuous love affair with Isabelle Azaire in France and enters the dark, surreal world beneath the trenches of No Man's Land, Sebastian Faulks creates a world of fiction that is as tragic as A Farewell to Arms and as sensuous as The English Patient. Crafted from the ruins of war and the indestructibility of love, Birdsong is a novel that will be read and marveled at for years to come.
Readers Top Reviews
Jake ShortlandJoan
I first saw this book in the airport and was enticed by the cover art of the lonely soldier standing by the cross. After giving the blurb a glance, I added it to my reading list. Then a couple months later, I mentioned it to my dad who told me that it was his favourite book and that he has re-read it almost five times. I thought that this was high praise, considering that my dad is not fond of reading, and finally purchased the book to read over Christmas. I finished it within three weeks. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about this novel. The imagery is mesmerizing and captures the horror of the war that leaves its readers in a perverse awe whilst simultaneously capturing the beauty of the world outside of the self-contained sphere that is Flanders. Its characters are intriguingly complex yet so fragile and human that we weep for them. This is not your typical war novel; this is a story about humanity and its darkest depths. Even as I write this I am struggling to do this craftmanship justice with my words, but I know I must spread the word about it because it has forever changed my perspective on WW1 and has blessed me with a newfound empathy of the great sacrifice this generation paid so that we may live in peace.
MR W
I'd heard of this book years ago but never gave it much thought. My mum and father in law both recommended it and because of my growing interest in the Great War, I got the kindle version. From the start I was gripped, it's equal parts love story ,war story and a haunting document to the Great War and the fallen. At first I was sceptical about the time structure, which moves from a few years before the War, during the war and characters and relatives in the late 1970's. This time structure is interesting though, as it allows the author to comment and bring in to focus his theme of the forgotten war. How the soldiers had a code of silence, never telling relatives or other people outside the military of their experiences and horrors. This has had the result of lost information and Faulks's book is in part about finding and remembering these experiences before they are lost to all time.The book has moments of intense action and tension, the battle of the somme is very cinematic and reminded me of the opening of saving private ryan. Graphic and haunting, I recommend it fully.
Mr. Trevor Belshaw
Beautifully written, with some mesmerising imagery that touches every emotion, the story details the elation and desperation suffered by a young man as he is taken from the bed of his married lover to the tunnels dug deep below the enemy lines as the insane battle rages on the Somme. Stephen is a complex character, not really an anti-hero but not always likeable, who, following serious injury, refuses home leave and a job in the relative safety of the staff quarters because he wants to know, how it all ends. As his friends fall about him, Stephen details his daily life in the trenches in a series of coded diaries which are later found in an attic by his granddaughter some sixty years on. Despite the beauty of the prose, Birdsong is not a novel for the faint hearted. Faulk’s description of the horrific conditions suffered by the men under Wrayford's command are described in stark detail as the madness of the war is laid bare. No punches are pulled. From the lice infestations to the dreadful food rations, Faulks captures the misery and despair of the front line, yet, amongst the madness and slaughter are moments of real, heart-warming, compassion when dying friends are held close as they breathe their last. My only criticism of the book are the sections written in 1978 where his granddaughter begins to take a bit of an interest in her family history. I found this quite an unnecessary addition and would have been much happier just finding out whether Stephen survived the war in one piece and whether his bourgeoning relationship with Jeanne was continued. Birdsong has now been placed on my small, 'must read again,' list. The last novel that earned that award was The Book Thief.
Amy Buckle
For a long time I have wanted to read this book and its reputation definitely precedes it. I have to admit, it took me a long time to get through its 500 pages, but only because the sheer gravity of what Faulks was communicating was immensely powerful. The novel is mainly from the perspective of Stephen Wraysford, an Englishman, who spends the years leading up to the first world war in France staying with the Azaire family, where he falls in love with a woman called Isabelle. The first half of the book is set in 1910, while the latter six parts swap between dates of the first world war and sixty years on in 1978-79. During the narration of the war we see Stephen now a lieutenant in the British army. Faulks depicts an honest and brutal account of what the men in the trenches had to go through, recounting the First Day on the Somme and the Battle of Messines, he doesn’t leave any details to the imagination. This morbid account is a huge contrast to the narration from the 1970s which reflects the indescribable difference between the first world war and a few centuries on; it reinforces the condemnable truth of how easily mankind can forget. Birdsong was written over twenty years ago but Faulks’s message is as relevant today as it was then and as I’m sure it will be in another twenty years. This intense novel is about love, loss and courage, but most importantly it is about how limitless human compassion and strength can be. Birdsong creates an unfaltering image of the undying and resilient force of mankind and ultimately reflects their unwavering hope and enduring courage throughout the horrors of the trenches. Birdsong proves that while the scars of war may run deep, the everlasting compulsion of love runs deeper. I struggle to find words to describe the phenomenal impact that this book has had on me, but I think Faulks sums it up fairly nicely: “I do not know what I have done to live in this existence. I do not know what any of us did to tilt the world into this unnatural orbit. We came here only for a few months. No child or future generation will ever know what this was like. They will never understand. When it is over we will go quietly among the living and we will not tell them. We will talk and sleep and go about our business like human beings. We will seal what we have seen in the silence of our hearts and no words will reach us.”
HMS Warspite
In 1993's "Birdsong", author Sebastian Faulks crafts a multi-generational drama around the undoubted horror of trench warfare on the Western Front in the First World War. The novel is beautifully written, even haunting, if overambitious in the arc of its narrative. In the first part of the story, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford arrives in Amiens, France, in 1910 to work with a local clothing manufacturer named Azaire. He stays at Azaire's home, and shortly begins a passionate affair with Azaire's young and abused wife, Isabelle. Stephen and Isabelle will elope, but when Isabelle learns she is pregnant, she abandons Stephen without explanation. The story fast-forwards to 1916 and the First World War. Stephen Wrayford is a brand new subaltern, just promoted from the ranks and leading a British infantry platoon on the Western Front. One of his responsibilities is to assist an engineering company digging tunnels under the German lines. The leader of the engineering company, one Captain Weir, will become Stephen's best friend during the horror of the fighting. One of the enlisted engineers, Jack Firebrace, will be with Stephen at several points of mortal peril during the war and the two men will bond over their shared experience. As the war winds on, and Stephen struggles to find reasons to survive, he unexpectedly meets Isabelle's sister Jeanne. From Jeanne, he will learn Isabelle's story, and from her, he will also learn to draw strength. The third portion of the narrative concerns a woman in her late 30's named Elizabeth, working as an executive at a small clothing design company in 1978 London. Elizabeth is single, childless, and carrying on an extended affair with a British diplomat. Her story overlaps with Stephen's, as we wonder whether he will survive the war while she deals with a surprise pregnancy and a sudden interest in the First World War. At the climax of the novel, Stephen is trapped in a collapsed tunnel beneath the lines while, two generations away, Elizabeth prematurely begins to give birth in a seaside cottage. Faulks is a wonderful writer. His prose is exceptional, especially the portions of the novel concerning the Western Front, which are graphic in their telling and haunting in their insight. The initial portion of the novel serves to introduce us to Stephen Wrayford as a person, so that the changes driven by the war will be more visible to us. The connections between the first and second parts, as Stephen accidently encounters Jeanne, are important to Stephen's survival but less compelling as a continuation of the love story. The looping of Stephen's and Elizabeth's stories together is frankly awkward and strains to be plausible. The novel might have been better served by a shorter narrative. "Birdsong" is highly recommended as a well-written, dramatic, and moving story of t...
Short Excerpt Teaser
FRANCE
1910
Part One
The boulevard du Cange was a broad, quiet street that marked the eastern flank of the city of Amiens. The wagons that rolled in from Lille and Arras to the north drove directly into the tanneries and mills of the Saint Leu quarter without needing to use this rutted, leafy road. The town side of the boulevard backed on to substantial gardens, which were squared off and apportioned with civic precision to the houses they adjoined. On the damp grass were chestnut trees, lilacs, and willows, cultivated to give shade and quietness to their owners. The gardens had a wild, overgrown look and their deep lawns and bursting hedges could conceal small clearings, quiet pools, and areas unvisited even by the inhabitants, where patches of grass and wild flowers lay beneath the branches of overhanging trees.
Behind the gardens the river Somme broke up into small canals that were the picturesque feature of Saint Leu; on the other side of the boulevard these had been made into a series of water gardens, little islands of damp fertility divided by the channels of the split river. Long, flat-bottomed boats propelled by poles took the town dwellers through the waterways on Sunday afternoons. All along the river and its streams sat fishermen, slumped on their rods; in hats and coats beneath the cathedral and in shirtsleeves by the banks of the water gardens, they dipped their lines in search of trout or carp.
The Azaires' house showed a strong, formal front toward the road from behind iron railings. The traffic looping down to the river would have been in no doubt that this was the property of a substantial man. The slate roof plunged in conflicting angles to cover the irregular shape of the house. Beneath one of them a dormer window looked out on to the boulevard. The first floor was dominated by a stone balcony, over whose balustrades the red ivy had crept on its way up to the roof. There was a formidable front door with iron facings on the timber.
Inside, the house was both smaller and larger than it looked. It had no rooms of intimidating grandeur, no gilt ballrooms with dripping chandeliers, yet it had unexpected spaces and corridors that disclosed new corners with steps down into the gardens; there were small salons equipped with writing desks and tapestry-covered chairs that opened inward from unregarded passageways. Even from the end of the lawn, it was difficult to see how the rooms and corridors were fitted into the placid rectangles of stone. Throughout the building the floors made distinctive sounds beneath the press of feet, so that with its closed angles and echoing air, the house was always a place of unseen footsteps.
Stephen Wraysford's metal trunk had been sent ahead and was waiting at the foot of the bed. He unpacked his clothes and hung his spare suit in the giant carved wardrobe. There was an enamel wash bowl and wooden towel rail beneath the window. He had to stand on tiptoe to look out over the boulevard, where a cab was waiting on the other side of the street, the horse shaking its harness and reaching up its neck to nibble at the branches of a lime tree. He tested the resilience of the bed, then lay down on it, resting his head on the concealed bolster. The room was simple but had been decorated with some care. There was a vase of wild flowers on the table and two prints of street scenes in Honfleur on either side of the door.
It was a spring evening, with a late sun in the sky beyond the cathedral and the sound of blackbirds from either side of the house. Stephen washed perfunctorily and tried to flatten his black hair in the small mirror. He placed half a dozen cigarettes in a metal case that he tucked inside his jacket. He emptied his pockets of items he no longer needed: railway tickets, a blue leather notebook, and a knife with a single, scrupulously sharpened blade.
He went downstairs to dinner, startled by the sound of his steps on the two staircases that took him to the landing of the first floor and the family bedrooms, and thence down to the hall. He felt hot beneath his waistcoat and jacket. He stood for a moment disorientated, unsure which of the four glass-panelled doors that opened off the hall was the one through which he was supposed to go. He half-opened one and found himself looking into a steam-filled kitchen in the middle of which a maid was loading plates on to a tray on a large deal table.
"This way, Monsieur. Dinner is served," said the maid, squeezing past him in the doorway.
In the dining room the family were already seated. Madame Azaire stood up.
"Ah, Monsieur, your seat is here."
Azaire muttered an introduction of which Stephen heard only the words "my wife." He took her hand and bowed his head briefly. Two...
1910
Part One
The boulevard du Cange was a broad, quiet street that marked the eastern flank of the city of Amiens. The wagons that rolled in from Lille and Arras to the north drove directly into the tanneries and mills of the Saint Leu quarter without needing to use this rutted, leafy road. The town side of the boulevard backed on to substantial gardens, which were squared off and apportioned with civic precision to the houses they adjoined. On the damp grass were chestnut trees, lilacs, and willows, cultivated to give shade and quietness to their owners. The gardens had a wild, overgrown look and their deep lawns and bursting hedges could conceal small clearings, quiet pools, and areas unvisited even by the inhabitants, where patches of grass and wild flowers lay beneath the branches of overhanging trees.
Behind the gardens the river Somme broke up into small canals that were the picturesque feature of Saint Leu; on the other side of the boulevard these had been made into a series of water gardens, little islands of damp fertility divided by the channels of the split river. Long, flat-bottomed boats propelled by poles took the town dwellers through the waterways on Sunday afternoons. All along the river and its streams sat fishermen, slumped on their rods; in hats and coats beneath the cathedral and in shirtsleeves by the banks of the water gardens, they dipped their lines in search of trout or carp.
The Azaires' house showed a strong, formal front toward the road from behind iron railings. The traffic looping down to the river would have been in no doubt that this was the property of a substantial man. The slate roof plunged in conflicting angles to cover the irregular shape of the house. Beneath one of them a dormer window looked out on to the boulevard. The first floor was dominated by a stone balcony, over whose balustrades the red ivy had crept on its way up to the roof. There was a formidable front door with iron facings on the timber.
Inside, the house was both smaller and larger than it looked. It had no rooms of intimidating grandeur, no gilt ballrooms with dripping chandeliers, yet it had unexpected spaces and corridors that disclosed new corners with steps down into the gardens; there were small salons equipped with writing desks and tapestry-covered chairs that opened inward from unregarded passageways. Even from the end of the lawn, it was difficult to see how the rooms and corridors were fitted into the placid rectangles of stone. Throughout the building the floors made distinctive sounds beneath the press of feet, so that with its closed angles and echoing air, the house was always a place of unseen footsteps.
Stephen Wraysford's metal trunk had been sent ahead and was waiting at the foot of the bed. He unpacked his clothes and hung his spare suit in the giant carved wardrobe. There was an enamel wash bowl and wooden towel rail beneath the window. He had to stand on tiptoe to look out over the boulevard, where a cab was waiting on the other side of the street, the horse shaking its harness and reaching up its neck to nibble at the branches of a lime tree. He tested the resilience of the bed, then lay down on it, resting his head on the concealed bolster. The room was simple but had been decorated with some care. There was a vase of wild flowers on the table and two prints of street scenes in Honfleur on either side of the door.
It was a spring evening, with a late sun in the sky beyond the cathedral and the sound of blackbirds from either side of the house. Stephen washed perfunctorily and tried to flatten his black hair in the small mirror. He placed half a dozen cigarettes in a metal case that he tucked inside his jacket. He emptied his pockets of items he no longer needed: railway tickets, a blue leather notebook, and a knife with a single, scrupulously sharpened blade.
He went downstairs to dinner, startled by the sound of his steps on the two staircases that took him to the landing of the first floor and the family bedrooms, and thence down to the hall. He felt hot beneath his waistcoat and jacket. He stood for a moment disorientated, unsure which of the four glass-panelled doors that opened off the hall was the one through which he was supposed to go. He half-opened one and found himself looking into a steam-filled kitchen in the middle of which a maid was loading plates on to a tray on a large deal table.
"This way, Monsieur. Dinner is served," said the maid, squeezing past him in the doorway.
In the dining room the family were already seated. Madame Azaire stood up.
"Ah, Monsieur, your seat is here."
Azaire muttered an introduction of which Stephen heard only the words "my wife." He took her hand and bowed his head briefly. Two...
