Coquitlam Public Library

Birdsong, the novel of the first World War, Sebastian Faulks

eng

no index present

novels

Birdsong

Sebastian Faulks

the novel of the first World War

"In the travails of Stephen Wraysford, a British officer trapped in the troglodytic netherworld of the Great War's western front, readers will discover a convincingly rounded character whom the fates nearly grind into a nullity. But in Wraysford's being, despite the bestial filth of trenches, tunnels, and random death, an ember of self-preservation resists annihilation. And though several scenes skirt the melodramatic, as in a brotherly love armistice embrace with a German soldier, the author bracingly dramatizes survival in that war. From conveying the heart-pounding anxieties of leading men over the top, Faulks moves to soften Wraysford's increasingly cold fatalism with memories of his torrid prewar liaison with a French woman, Isabelle. The affair ruined her life but produced a child whose daughter furnishes Faulks' vehicle for flash-forwards to the 1970s, when that granddaughter becomes curious about who Wraysford was. As typical of the "lost generation" of Britain, the Wraysford antihero realistically conveys what a waste -- in lives and psyches -- the trench experience was."--Booklist

Bird song