This book contains probably the most raw accounts of war, that I have ever read. This is beautifully and skillfully balanced out with a romantic story, which I didn't think I would love as much as I have. Faulks’s main interest in writing Birdsong was to attempt to return to understanding World War I. He felt that, over time, people’s connection to and understanding of the Great War was beginning to fade with time. Birdsong was his way of showing how powerful the experience of World War I remains in human history and human consciousness.

Consistently one of the greatest critiques of the novel concerns its 1970s plot-line. [17] For example, Gorra found that the addition of a parallel narrative "[ran] into problems"—especially concerning Elizabeth Benson, whom he "stopped believing in [as a] character". [9] Unlike other reviewers, the critic Sarah Belo did not question the historical investigation plot, but the depiction of Elizabeth's experience as a 1970s woman in England. [17] On the other hand, almost all of the reviewers describe the novel's war sections as excellently written; for example, the review in the Los Angeles Times called the sections "so powerful as to be almost unbearable". [17] And it all works! I get it, war is bloody awful; but hey this is a thought provoking way of putting that message across. Like a great mainstream movie, this was perfectly pitched, and in the end all the stories match up, and there's a sense you've just been on a great journey. Françoise – Elizabeth's mother, the biological daughter of Stephen and Isabelle who was raised by her father and aunt Jeanne.Escaped from extermination, Stephen feared nothing any more. In the existence he had rejoined, so strange and so removed from what seemed natural, there was only violent death or life to choose between; finer distinctions, such as love, preference or kindness, were redundant.” In 2012 it was adapted as a two-part television drama for the BBC. [20] The production starred Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Wraysford and Clémence Poésy as Isabelle Azaire, and was directed by Philip Martin, based on a screenplay by Abi Morgan. The historian Edward Madigan favourably compared the television adaptation to Steven Spielberg's War Horse as a successful evocation of the experience of the World War I trenches. [20] The novel has been favourably compared to other World War I and II novels, including All Quiet on the Western Front, The Young Lions and War and Remembrance. [19] Gorra described the novel as even more original than Barker's The Ghost Road and the rest of her Regeneration Trilogy. [9] Kate Saunders, reviewing Birdsong for The Sunday Times, praised the novel and described it as "without the political cynicism that colours more modern treatments of this catastrophe". [17] Reviewers have also compared the novel to other literary works; for example, for one critic, the lead up to the Somme was as persuasive as the "scene in Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt", while the novelist Suzanne Ruta writes that Faulks creates characters with a similar depth to those in Thomas Hardy novels. [17] Adaptations [ edit ] It is a shame that it is not possible to award six stars to any book that I review, for Birdsong would surely deserve such an award. This one definitely makes it into my lifetime favourite five. Like many people who chose to take English Literature as an A-Level, I was told that I should read this for my War Literature Module. I’ve had bad experience with course books, experiences that started in high school and stretched right up until I graduated university. So I was sceptical to say the least.

Note: It makes it even more personal to me as I was in the Royal Engineers (Sappers) during my military career. I'm happy to report, though, that I never had to get involved in the activity of sapping, or tunnelling.Wilson, Ross J. (22 April 2016). Cultural Heritage of the Great War in Britain. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. p.183. ISBN 978-1-317-15646-8. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021 . Retrieved 31 August 2016. The story begins in Amiens, northern France in 1910. A young Englishman, Stephen Wraysford, is on attachment from London, working in the textile industry and lodging with the Azaire family. René Azaire runs a large factory where Stephen works; his second wife Isabelle is a woman of unfulfilled hopes, ill-treated by her husband. In the stultifying atmosphere of their town house, Stephen develops a concealed passion for Isabelle. At first, she resists; but this only intensifies his feeling, which she soon comes to share. They finally come together in a series of frankly described sexual encounters, whose physical detail foreshadows the bodily tests that await both of them in the coming war. Stephen and Isabelle flee together to Provence. She becomes pregnant and, for reasons she does not disclose till later, she leaves him.

I loved the characters and they are so well developed that I found they not only had faces but voices and I had such a connection with each and every one of them. There are musical moments, too, from soldiers playing the flute to violins and song, and this brings theatricality but also slows down the pace of the drama which, at two-and-a-half hours, feels long.Enduring Popularity. Since its publication in 1993, Birdsong has become one of the most frequently borrowed books from British libraries, along with J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and books from American crime writer, James Patterson. Elizabeth did some calculations on a piece of paper, Grand-mere born 1878. Mum born…she was not sure exactly how old her mother was. Between sixty-five and seventy. Me born 1940. Something did not quite add up in her calculations, though it was possibly her arithmetic that was to blame.” At a certain point, I was just as fed up with the war as the soldiers in the story. Elizabeth’s episodes were cleverly inserted by the author to provide me for the breaks like Stephen had during the war. Eventually, Stephen is badly injured during a trip into No Man’s Land. Surviving but despondent, Stephen decides to write to Isabelle. His letter is deeply personal, expresses his fears of death, and the fact that Isabelle is his first and only love.