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.
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Set in rural France, a beautifully written and powerful story of love against the backdrop of the horrors of World War One, .
Read this book years ago and there are scenes that continue to resonate in my memory. Particularly a scene in tunnels under the front line of WW I. Harrowing.
Heavy on the war aspects of the story.
Not what I expected.
Borders on pornography.
Belongs in a Harlequin category.
Very dark due to the horrific history portrayed but worth reading, without a doubt.
Although it may have been representative of the times, it was way too dark for my taste.
I feel like I was in the trenches in WWI with this story. The battle of the Somme descriptions were in incredible without being overly graphic. I read that in another review and it’s true. It does give you a sense of the conditions, the state of mind of the soldiers and the absolutely brutal loss of life. That being said, on a different level, …
Unforgettable! I will read this book over and over. What a an enlightening view into the effect of the horrors of war upon the individuals experiencing it.
A wonderful and well-written book about several issues during World War I
The story begins in 1910 with the central character Stephen Wraysford, arriving in Amiens to work. He falls in love with the mistress of the house in which he is lodging and their affair splits the family. The story then follows Stephen and his lover.
In 1914 war is declared and the action jumps to 1916 and the point of view shifts to Jack …
A journey through time following young Brit Stephen Wrayford’s exhilarating, yet hopeless, affair with married Frenchwoman Isabelle before WW1, the doomed existence of British soldiers who serve with Stephen during WW1 mining operations, and Stephen’s granddaughter’s discovery of a diary that unlocks his story. While the first 50 pages or so were …
The author gets inside the heads of his characters and draws the reader in, too. The descriptions of tunnels under enemy lines in WW1 make the heart thump. Fantastic writing.
Memorble story of occupied France in WWII