BIRDSONG | BOOK REVIEW | JUNE 2017

BIRDSONG BOOK REVIEW

Birdsong was more than what I expected. I've always loved war fiction, and this is an absolute classic so I had to read it. The book has retrospective narrative of Stephen Wraysford, the soldier serving in World War I and his granddaughter, Elizabeth. Faulks described the horror of the trenches perfectly, the loss of fellow comrades and the effects it brings on them. The parallel universe of being in France, and thinking of home- how will it ever be normal? The novel lets you enter the emotions of the soldiers that fought in World War I, and what they went through- it makes you understand in some respects the pain of going through the brutality of a war. The double narrative of Stephen and his granddaughter involves Elizabeth trying to find out more about her grandfather, where she visits and talks to some of his comrades that her grandfather fought with. The ending is the only ending that I truly feel comfort with, once Stephen escapes from the underground trenches and reunited with who he thinks is an Allied soldier, he soon finds out that it is a German soldier. The suspense of this moment-- you're thinking obviously he's going to get killed, but instead he looks around, there's nobody around, the German trenches have been broken- the war was over. Love, brotherhood, pain and care is what comes to mind whilst describing this book. Faulks beautifully combines this tragedy with the comfort of brotherhood of people caring about each other, without even having to show it. At the start of the novel, it starts with a love affair between Stephen Wraysford and Isabelle Azaire. The emotion of that affair is carried with Stephen throughout the novel-- his emotions don't recover from her. She ran away from him when she found out she was pregnant with his child, whilst she was still married to her husband. Stephen doesn't get over her all the intensity of that relationship, which reflects with his persona later on in his life. I was definitely not expecting the love affair entwined within the novel, but this made it more personal and intimate from the character of Stephen Wraysford and the reader. Not only does Faulks provide an in detail view of the trenches but he battles with the feelings of the soldiers; whether it be the mental traumas or the relationships of the men, the trauma that they would never repeat to anyone else. their comrades would only know what it was like and it's not worth explaining to anyone else that was back home when they were fighting because they wouldn't understand at all, which Faulks made essential to the novel the parallel world of England and the soldiers families versus the soldiers in the trenches, in the underground tunnels, in the fields of France. Again the ending of the novel is unexpected, as a reader you are almost certain its the end for the character of Stephen Wraysford; the novel takes an unexpected turn to hope and friendship with the enemy they've been fighting. I think this develops an underlying feature of wars and conflicts; even though there is fighting and brutal murder, when it's all over they'll still be love and compassion between men that have fought for opposing sides and for everyone back home, they've been through a journey together, despite being against each other, the soldiers that fought in World War I will always have the memories, mostly probably being bad, that they would never be able to talk about and they've suffered terrible injuries, but the shock and disgusting conditions they were living in would never be talked about because of the mental and physical brutalities that came alongside those memories. If you are a big lover of novels, with numerous themes throughout, especially war fiction definitely pick this up. It is definitely not what you expect from a general war novel, but more, through mental and physical pain that the men that fought in the War endured, I've never read a book like it. It is a CLASSIC and every reader should be exposed to the works of this novel.