| View Larger Image | Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War | Paperbackby Sebastian Faulks (Author)
| List Price: | $15.95 | | Price: | $10.85 | | You Save: | $5.10 (32%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Page Count: | 496 Pages | | Publication Date: | June 02, 1997 | | Sales Rank: | 26,911th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780679776819
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
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. |
Amazon.com Review
Readers who are entranced by the sweeping Anglo sagas of Masterpiece Theatre will devour Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks's historical drama. A bestseller in England, there's even a little high-toned erotica thrown into the mix to convince the doubtful. The book's hero, a 20-year-old Englishman named Stephen Wraysford, finds his true love on a trip to Amiens in 1910. Unfortunately, she's already married, the wife of a wealthy textile baron. Wrayford convinces her to leave a life of passionless comfort to be at his side, but things do not turn out according to plan. Wraysford is haunted by this doomed affair and carries it with him into the trenches of World War I. Birdsong derives most of its power from its descriptions of mud and blood, and Wraysford's attempt to retain a scrap of humanity while surrounded by it. There is a simultaneous description of his present-day granddaughter's quest to read his diaries, which is designed to give some sense of perspective; this device is only somewhat successful. Nevertheless, Birdsong is an unflinching war story that is bookended by romances and a rewarding read. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 199 reviews)
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War is Hell by Ramona Lunt (Boston)  4 Stars
November 07, 2009
A quite riveting fictional account confirming true historical accounts that WWI was the worst of all possible wars with its description of trench warfare. The use of gas is alluded to but not described. The love story emphasizes the fictional nature of the book.
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Paperback condition by Joseph A. Zullo 4 Stars
October 23, 2009
This book was in very good condition when I received it. It was quickly shipped, too. I would buy from seller again.
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BIRDSONG by KIWI 16841 (LEVIN NEW ZEALAND)  5 Stars
October 20, 2009
An absorbing novel for those who either know about or wish to appreciate the atrocious conditions under which the rank and file soldiers of the First World War fought. Not for the squemish, or those claustophobic. Sebastian Faulks conveys the physical and psychological struggles of trench and tunnel warfare graphically, possibly too graphically for some.
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Powerful by Robert Wales (Perth West australia) 4 Stars
September 04, 2009
Its a bonus to pick up a book that initially seems to offer nothing particularly new or novel (pun), but ends up being one of those stories that lingers memorably long after you put it down. One of those books that you make a point of recommending to friends.
I couldn't imagine that someone who hadn't "been there", could write with such insight on an experience as intensely personal as face to face warfare, but maybe it's an advantage for an observant, experienced author to grasp from his research nuances that others might experience, but dont have the objectivity, expression or awareness to capture. Maybe they are too close to call it ? Whatever. I have read most of the classics that came out of the two World Wars, Birdsong captured the moment and explored the mental impact as good as anything I have read.
Powerful was the word I kept thinking of to describe it best. A powerful account of the tension, the suffering and the bizarre way the mind adapts to cope and survive in a surreal Hell. The impact of the closing page was wrenching, symbolically touching on the unspoken thoughts,deeds and suffering of so many.
I kept thinking how would I perform in their shoes. Whew, I must read it again !.
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What's all the hype about? by Gary Simpson (Geelong, Australia)  2 Stars
August 13, 2009
As a lover of historical fiction, particularly with a war-based background and with several "The greatest book I've ever read" and "Have re-read several times" comments from Amazon's learned reviewers, I couldn't wait to read this book. However, reviews are nothing but opinion and I ended up being disappointed........
Why? Well, I guess I just found Faulk's writing to be quite labourious and his characters bland and uninspiring to me as the reader.
The initial part set before the war was a bit cliched and predictable - "young handsome Englishman wins over repressed older French woman, but relationship is ultimately doomed" - very Mills and Boon type of stuff. Then we cut to the war with the mud and blood, senseless loss of lives, poor leadership, etc etc etc. Seen it all before I'm afraid - "tell me something new" I kept thinking as I ploughed on. The "contemporary" parts with the grand-daughter didn't really grab me either.
All in all, an average read.
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Charlotte Gray
by Sebastian Faulks (Author)
From the bestselling author of Birdsong comes Charlotte Gray, the remarkable story of a young Scottish woman who becomes caught up in the effort to liberate Occupied France from the Nazis while pursuing a perilous mission of her own.
In blacked-out, wartime London, Charlotte Gray develops a dangerous passion for a battle-weary RAF pilot, and when he fails to return from a daring flight into France she is determined to find him. In the service of the Resistance, she travels to the village...
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| The Girl at the Lion d'Or
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"Beautifully written and--extraordinarily moving."--The Sunday Times (London)
From the author of the international bestseller Birdsong, comes a haunting historical novel of passion, loss, and courage set in France between the two world wars. This Vintage Original edition marks its first appearance in the United States.
On a rainy night in the 1930s, Anne Louvet appears at the run-down Hotel du Lion d'Or in the village of Janvilliers. She is seeking a job and a new life,...
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| Human Traces (Vintage International)
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A fateful seaside meeting four years later sets the two young men on a profound course of friendship and discovery; they will become pioneers in the burgeoning field of...
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| Engleby (Vintage International)
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Meet Mike Engleby, a second-year student at university. Despite the fact that Mike is obviously intelligent, and involved in many clubs, it is clear that something about Mike is not quite right. When he becomes fixated on a classmate named Jennifer Arkland, and she goes missing, we are left with the looming question: Is Mike Engleby involved?
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| On Green Dolphin Street: A Novel
by Sebastian Faulks (Author)
The bestselling author of Birdsong and Charlotte Gray delivers an enthralling, vibrantly evocative novel set in America in 1960, when the country stood poised between the paranoia of the Cold War and the ebullience of the New Frontier.
Faulks' heroine is Mary Van der Linden, a pretty, reserved Englishwoman whose husband, Charlie, is posted to the British embassy in Washington. One night at a cocktail party Mary meets Frank Renzo, a reporter who has covered stories from the fall of...
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