Birdsong

Although I have finished reading several other books since I finished this one, it has been on my mind.  It is a piece of literature that stays with you, that causes reflection, that has made me think--a lot.  This is another book from the BBC list (which I am going to post) I am working through, and I am glad I read it. 

The cover of the copy I have reads Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War.  It certainly begins as a romantic novel.  The main character, an Englishman named Stephen Wraysford, goes to France for work and stays in the home of a man who owns a textile factory.  He falls in love with the man's wife, Isabelle, and they have an affair.  As a side note, there are several erotic passages; Faulks leaves little to the imagination.  They run away together, but after a time together, Isabelle leaves Stephen.  

The story then takes us several years forward to WWI.  Wraysford is in the army, fighting in the trenches in France.  Faulks introduces us to the men fighting alongside him, and again, in vivid detail, describes life during that terrible war.  I have yet to read All's Quiet on the Western Front, but I imagine much of this portion of the story--the death, disease, loneliness, heartache, injury--is very similar.  It is distressing and at times very difficult to read.  

Part of the plot centers around Wraysford's granddaughter who wants to know more about him and what his experience during the war was like.  This part of the story is really secondary to the main plot line, but it provides an added depth to the overall narrative that I thought was touching.

I have been thinking about the subtitle, A Novel of Love and War.  I have not been ignorant of the events of WWI, nor the awful conditions endured by those who fought and died or survived that time.  Faulks, however, made it all very real to me.  He is a powerful writer and, I felt, truly evoked a time and place in so detailed a way that I could see the scenes so clearly.  In many instances, it was horrifying.  

There was a different sort of war being fought too.  Several of the characters seem to be at war with themselves.  Wraysford feels deeply and passionately about Isabelle, he feels strongly about his men and colleagues, and struggles with his motivations to fight, and he is not really able to resolve any of those feelings. He had great difficulty finding peace, even after the war.  Isabelle, as a woman, is at war with social mores.  She is trapped in an abusive marriage and wants more for herself, but can't see a way be greater freedom.

This novel is also about love in a variety of forms: erotic love, love of one's comrades in arms, love of country, and parental love.  There is a touching passage near the end of the book when a man describes his love for his son.  The son has died and the father is going to die too.  He says,

I loved that boy.  Every hair of him, every pore of his skin.  I would have killed a man who so much as laid a hand on him.  My world was in his face.  I was not so young when he was born.  I wondered what my life had been about until he came along.  It was nothing.  I treasured each word he gave me.  I made myself remember each thing he did, the way he turned his head, his way of saying things.  It was as though I knew it wouldn't be for long.  He was from another world, he was a blessing too great for me.

This just made me weep.  Actually, several passages throughout the book made me weep.  I read large portions as I biked on my trainer, and I would add, again as a side note, that it is difficult to bike and weep at the same time.  Hard to breathe adequately.  This is a moving book.  I consider it a fine piece of literature, but as with many pieces of fine literature, it is difficult to read (not literally, but figuratively).