A moving and poignant tale of love and war. (Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks)

Member Name: bookguy

Product:	Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Date:	05/08/08 (364 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, engaging and deeply satisfying.

Disadvantages: Quite grisly in places.

There have been many books about the First World War, but Birdsong is one of the best I have read.

A few years ago, I was asked to curate an online exhibition of letters home from soldiers who had fought in the First World War, including some that had eventually fallen at Ypres and the Somme. I had to read many heart-wrenching letters that highlighted the awful drabness of life in the trenches, punctuated by moments of extreme, disabling horror.

The ennervating effect of life under fire, in a state of almost constant terror, is captured with absolute authenticity by Faulks in this book, and there are many grim passages. The indomatibility of the human spirit is the main theme, however, and Faulks has woven a beautiful, uplifiting narrative from the grisliest of cloth.

All is not doom and gloom, though, and the book is framed by two supplementary narratives, the first, at the opening of the book, is the story of the main character, Stephen Wraysford's, affair with the wife of a local factory owner with whom he is lodging - and these passages burn with an erotic intensity which never descends into coarseness.

The second narrative, interwoven with the WWI soldiers story, is set in 1978 and follows a young woman, Elizabeth Benson, trapped in an unhappy, dissatisfying love affair with a married man, who begins to trace the history of her grandfather.

There are several other engaging characters, including Jack Firebrace, an expert trenchbuilder, who slowly builds up a friendship with Wraysford, despite thier different ranks and classes.

The final passages of the book are amongst the most poignant and moving that I have ever read, and the convergence of the the various threads of the story are both convincing and satisfying.

Summary: A powerful and moving book.