Birdsong is a
war novel by English author
Sebastian Faulks, published in 1993. It is his fourth novel, a part of a trilogy
of novels which includes The Girl at the Lion d'Or and Charlotte Gray, all linked through history and location, along with minor characters.
The story tells about Englishman Stephen Wraysford at different stages in his life. In his youth, Stephen goes to France in 1910 to study manufacturing methods, but instead, he has an affair with Isabelle Azaire, whom he lodges with in Amiens. Apparently, she is a neglected wife of his host. Soon the affair becomes intense that she runs away with him, leaving her domineering husband for Stephen. However she discovered she is pregnant and did not tell him. Confused about her feelings for Stephen, Isabelle decides to leave him, and eventually, returning to her much changed husband. Stephen did not know he had a daughter, Francoise, by Isabelle.
The alienated Stephen stays in France and finds respite in the war as an opportunity to focus on his situation and confused emotions. The war is no respite as it proves more terrifying than he could imagine, causing an even depressed and angry Stephen. Sometimes he hoped to die, but miraculously he escapes death while others, including his friends, are falling. For instance, when he is severely injured, Jack Firebrace rescues Stephen who has been left for dead by the medics in their haste to revive other war casualties. Stephen remembers this act of kindness. As the story evolves, Stephen finds solace with Jeanne Fortmentier, older sister of Isabelle. He finds himself more emotionally confused.
Jack Firebrace dies. Stephen said he would name his son or grandson John.
Elizabeth's son was named John.
Sixty years passes. Stephen's granddaughter, Elizabeth Benson, finds herself in a similar situation when she becomes pregnant by her married lover. The interplay of characters introduces the readers to Elizabeth, Stephen's granddaughter who finds Stephen's coded diary. Erich, her colleague, deciphers it. Tracking down the truth about Stephen, Isabelle, Jeanne and the war, Elizabeth attempts to rebuild turmoil in her life, with the help of her grandfather’s coded diaries. Elizabeth gets to know her grandfather in 1979.
Stephen hated birds, yet, he ran towards his German rescuers when they exploded their way in. The birdsong was the first sound of life on the surface he relished.
Some readers may find Faulks’s writing style as detached and clinical in some of his emotional upheavals at the same time it also shows the ethos of genuine caring revealed in his friendship with Jack Firebrace as they are together trapped in a tunnel under the German lines.
It can also be said that his writing style is as much poetic and lyrical as he lightens up life disorder in some situations. The way he weaves overlapping themes of love, sex, violence and death characterizes a brilliant war fiction. Some scenes are sentimental, yet the images of war and the passions of the characters remain as powerful and compelling.