BIRDSONG was a book that i found to be a little confusing in places, however the overall story was intriguing and rather moving, giving an excellent alternative perspective of the great war. Whilst it was a lengthy, and sometimes slow read, I am looking forward to studying it and exploring its themes further. ( )

Beautifully written novel about life, love, friendship, and war. It begins with Englishman Stephen Wraysford’s life prior to the start of World War I. He is sent to work in Amiens, France, where he falls in love with the factory owner’s wife. It then moves forward to France in 1916. Stephen is a lieutenant in the British Army, which is engaged in trench warfare. The last part is based in the 1970s. Stephen’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, is attempting to track down what happened to her grandfather after discovering several journals he wrote during the war.

Faulks’s elegant writing is filled with vivid imagery. We follow Stephen to the battlefield, experiencing the sights, sounds, and horrors of war. There is a scene in which Stephen and another soldier are trapped in an underground tunnel. I experienced a sense of claustrophobia that was almost palpable. We also accompany Elizabeth as she visits a veteran in an asylum many years later, showing him the tenderness and compassion that he has missed in his isolated environment.

This book contains seven sections and three time periods. It explores a wide variety of themes, including love, heartbreak, loneliness, fear, and courage. It also takes a look at the psychological effects of war and the attempt to maintain some semblance of humanity under excruciating conditions. It is a difficult read in many places, but also feels authentic. The book examines the futility of war and the deep wounds it leaves on society. It also includes a hopeful note about remembrance and the circle of life. The characters seem so genuine that I missed them when I finished the book. I simply loved it and am adding it to my list of favorites.
( )

Hall for Cornwall

It's a book that is full of the possibility of emotion, but it falls short. With cliched scenes, predictable plot, and long, sterile descriptions, the novel lingers on and on. The ending was foretold so long before it happened that I lost all interest; there is no suspense.
After p. 350 it finally picked up, and there are some very beautiful and poignant scenes, but at that point it was too late for me.
I recommend instead, [Un long dimanche de fiançailles] by Sébastien Japrisot. ( )

Birdsong is a novel consisting of several arcs that alternate between the passionate tryst of Stephen Wraysford and Isabella Fourmentier, the inhumane, destructive spoils of World War I, and a woman whose curiosity is piqued after reading an article about the anniversary of the Armistice.

Stephen encounters Isabella during his tenure at her husband's house. The other invited guests display gross, ostentatious personas that he strongly dislikes. Stephen is described as a dispassionate character, whose distant facade conceals a barely suppressed emotional volatility. Isabella, an elegant trophy housewife possessing a quietly willful streak, is equally attracted to him, but is frightened by what their encounter beholds. Still, they carry on with their affair, and finally elope, causing a social uproar. Isabella soon discovers that she's pregnant, has second thoughts, and secretly returns to her sister's house. Stephen doesn't hear from her again, until much later, when he meets her sister Jeanne by accident. In the meantime, Stephen is crushed by Isabella's abrupt departure. After enrolling into the army during World War I, he finds his emotional and physical fortitude pushed to the extremes.

The war scenes are described too well to a disturbing extent. The soldiers end up becoming grotesque playthings of flesh, as wave after wave of them are killed. The remaining soldiers have to relive the horror of waking up every day to an uncertain fate. As the soldiers forge strong bonds over battles, women and the brief respites of rest, they are aware of how laughingly tenuous these relations are. Even when they return to their homes, they find themselves isolated by their unwilling burden, their minds suspended in the fight-or-die response of war, tired beyond breaking point. The ones that do survive harden themselves emotionally to survive the physical and emotional onslaught, but this repression inevitably becomes traumatic. Brennan, a WWI veteran, lives out much of his entire life incoherent, his mind forever frozen in the early 1910s'.

This is my first Faulks novel and it's written in an obsessively microscopic, yet curiously detached manner. I'm not yet sure how to feel about this, although it's a solid work on its own merits. The nearest feeling I could come to is a fascination? ( )