Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks)

Member Name: laukez

Product:	Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Date:	21/08/09 (431 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Evocation of trench life

Disadvantages: Foray into 1970s is comparitively weak

This is an outstanding novel. The quality of Sebastian Faulks' writing is brilliant, and the story kept me engrossed to the (almost) final page (see below). While the novel is not flawless as an introduction to literature about WW1 this is a brilliant novel.

The story follows Stephen Wraysford from being a young man having a passionate love affair while working in France to his enlisitng and service in WW1 as an officer. Of particular note in this novel are the passages which follow the 'sappers', the miners who laid explosives under the German trenches and the conditions they faced. Faulks' skill really comes out here. The story is followed right through to to the somewhat depressing conclusion of Stephen's life. While it is disappointing what Faulks brilliantly conveys is that veterans of this war did not live out their lives after the war as heroes but more as men who struggled to adapt.

While I loved the passages of the story which followed Stephen's story for me the biggest flaw in the novel is when Faulks introduces the 1970s character Elizabeth, Stephen's granddaughter. I found this unsatifactory, and felt her banal and (relatively) frivolous concerns served not to enhance Stephen's story but detract from it.

However, there is much still to love about this book. Some of the characters are expertly crafted - the physically imposing but sentimental Jack, the vulnerable Weir and Stephen himself particularly grabbed me. Some of the imagery in the book is also brilliant - the red theme which runs through from the red room in the French house, to the blood in the trenches and the blood of childbirth at the novel's conclusion there is beautiful symmetry and poetry in the impications of the red of love, death and birth.

All in all this is one of my favourite novels. While it isn't perfect it is outstanding. It says it all that I first read this book for my A Level exams, and have re-read it several times since and each time found something new to appreciate.

Summary: An excellent novel!