Vintage Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War

I found this book difficult to read from a compassionate perspective, well written and excellent at highlighting the expérience of some WWI soldiers.

A hugely engaging book, written with empathy for those who suffered the trenches of World War I as well as those who "also served". Although I have no direct way of knowing, Faulks captures the horrors of life in the trenches in an engaging yet horrifying way. He also brings the suffering of those who did not serve (directly) to life. A definite 'page turner', although by the end of the book I felt there was surely more to come in this story. My appetite will have to be assuaged by Faulk's other novels.

Alright ! Let me begin with sharing on how I came to know about this marvelous book. I had heard about Nightingale on several bookTube channels claiming it was a great read if one wanted to pick a great World War book. Then right here on Amazon, I started reading reviews and found someone criticizing the book and sharing that if one wanted to experience the accounts of World War, then one should pick up Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. That's it. That intrigued me and solely based on this recommendation, I ended up buying Birdsong (which was just one left in stock, and I considered myself lucky to have grabbed it).And there was this other nice thing that happened. That was the only item that I bought and the seller didn't even charge me any delivery charge (this has never happened before).The book's edges were a bit yellowish but the book was not used (it was brand new) and had this nice fragrance that satiated me to another level. Flipping over the pages and feeling all excited to go on a World War journey, brought me immense joy.Coming to the story (about which I wouldn't write much because that would spoil your reading experience) - a heartwarming, heart-wrenching and deeply emotional tale that is so lucid and poetic, that is so straight-forward with the world's harsh realities, with the ups and downs, with the questions and answers, with the heart-aches and dilemmas, the book is a true treasure.The ending is the part that I loved the most.All in all, if you wish to pick up a story which doesn't appear to be a story at all, which is more like a true life encounter, I urge you give this book a try and I bet you wouldn't be disappointed.

I liked the pace, the understanding by the author of the time it was taking place. The battle scenes were just enough for you to get the true flavour of them and the actions that took place. Intermingled with the love, family sagas, a book to remember.

Judging by the number of Amazon reviews it has amassed, BIRDSONG is Sebastian Faulks's most popular novel. It is the fourth Faulks novel I have read. I distinctly preferred "Human Traces", and perhaps even "A Week in December", but still I found BIRDSONG quite worthwhile.Faulks's principal attraction for me is that he, more than most contemporary writers of literary fiction, tells a story without resorting to trendy and confusing narrative devices. Furthermore, he creates some riveting scenes and his characters are appealing, albeit usually a little odd or idiosyncratic.Though three of the novel's seven parts are set in the late 1970's, and the lengthy first part in 1910, BIRDSONG is a World War I novel. Its central character, Stephen Wraysford, is a lieutenant in the British Army. He survives the mechanical slaughter of the First Day of the Battle of the Somme (July 1, 1916), and then also the Battle of Messines (June 1917). There are graphic scenes of the war of the trenches and the horrors of going over the top and attacking entrenched German machine guns behind barbed wire that, despite the glib assurances of the high command, has not been cut by the preliminary artillery bombardment. Those sorts of scenes, of course, are a staple of World War I fiction; Faulks handles them better than most. More unusual are BIRDSONG's episodes of subterranean war -- the miners and sappers tunneling towards and under the enemy's lines and planting huge explosive devices. The extended scene at the end of the novel where Wraysford and another major character, a miner named Jack Firebrace, are trapped for days in a tunnel that has been collapsed by German explosives is one of the most harrowing scenes I have encountered in my recent reading.There are plenty of memorable descriptions. Here's one, as night sets at the end of that bloody first day of the Battle of the Somme (when the British incurred 57,000 casualties): "The earth began to move. To their right a man who had lain still since the first attack eased himself upright, then fell again when his damaged leg would not take his weight. Other single men moved, and began to come up like worms from their shellholes, limping, crawling, dragging themselves out. Within minutes the hillside was seething with the movement of the wounded as they attempted to get themselves back to their line. * * * It was like a resurrection in a cemetery twelve miles long."But, in the end, the birds sing, and life goes on. (If I ever re-read BIRDSONG I will make note of every reference to the singing of birds.) And there are the joys of innocent children and the hope of the birth of babes.In addition to war, there also is love -- or at least the subtitle of the novel so proclaims. To me, the two (or is it three? or maybe even four?) love affairs of BIRDSONG pale in comparison to the war story.