Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
(1993)

Birdsong is a 1993 novel by English author, Sebastian Faulks. The novel follows Stephen Wraysford and his Granddaughter through their experience of The Great War. Birdsong graphically describes the horrors of war with a conservative number of examples of humanity, which serve to simultaneously highlight those horrors and counteract them. Stephen's nostalgia towards his pre-war existence is limited; but when it is present it is primarily focused on Isabelle. Memories of romance are so starkly juxtaposed with his life in the trenches that they prevent the reader from becoming desensitised to the inexhaustible violence he describes. However, the awkward artlessness of Weir around prostitutes conveys an innocence that seems impossible within its surroundings, and Stephen's mercy on the escaped canary shows a kindness that allows the faintest ray of optimism to penetrate the otherwise hopeless situation. 

 "It was not his death that mattered; it was the way the world had been dislocated. It was not all the tens of thousands of deaths that mattered; it was the way they had proved that you could be human yet act in a way that was beyond nature." 

Throughout the novel there is an emphasis on the unnatural nature of a war of this scale. Wraysford frequently reflects on how the acts of the soldiers goes beyond the parameters of "natural" human behaviour, and his fears of the moral framework of society being lost because of it. Nature itself is describes as both transcending war and involving itself in it throughout the text. The landscape surrounding the River Somme foreshadows the violence that is to come as the rotting vegetation is described as "a vision of decay"; here, nature is involved in the horrors of war, just as when a "mass grave" noticed in the previously admired countryside. However, the sound of birdsong as the war ends serves as a reminder of the unbridled power of nature. Despite the degeneration of humanity, nature continues to go on undisturbed and so nature as a motif is another minute glimmer of hope in a desperate circumstance. 

Themes and Relevant Quotes:

Life in the Trenches	Class/Rank	Religion, the Natural, the Unnatural	The Home Front	Comradeship	Attitudes to Death
"Jack looked out behind the row of dumped flesh into the furrows of the ploughed fields" "'He's shouting for his Mother'... 'They always do,' said the medical officer, peeling back the field dressing Byrne had applied almost thirty hours before. They put out of the tent to await transport to the casualty cleaning station or death, whichever should come first." "... thigh-deep in sucking mud that was diluted by the excreta of the overrun latrines and thickened by the decomposing bodies" "This is not a war, this is an exploration of how far men can be degraded." "When he was not retching he sat on the firestep weeping uncontrollably. He was nineteen."	"He blamed the NCO's, who blamed the officers; they swore at the staff officers who blamed the generals." "Ten yards ahead to the right was Colonel Barclay. He was carrying a sword."	"None of these men would admit that what they saw and what they did were beyond the boundaries of human behaviour." "This eruption of natural fear brought home how unnatural was the existence they were leading; they did not wish to be reminded of mortality... If the pretense began to break it would take lives with it." "Horrocks pulled the silver cross from his chest and hurled it from him. His old reflex still persisting, he fell to his knees, but he did not pray." "Nothing was divine anymore, everything was profane."	"He could not bring his mind to bear on the distant world her handwriting suggested." "Constant shellfire is a sure for impure thoughts. I never think of women. They belong in a different existence." "... where his parents and their friends carried on their lives without care or thought for the world he and Stephen had known" "Those fat pigs have got no idea what lives are led for them"	"It would make no difference to the outcome of the war whether he himself lived or died... Let them die, he prayed, shamefully: let them die, but please God let me live," "... never considered any kinship or allegiance they might have to each other or to the country they lived in, because such things existed only in times of war." "Food parcels were common property and a recent on addressed to Wilkinson, some weeks dead, had been cause of particular celebration." "I feel guilty that I have survived when all the others are gone."	"Stephen said 'Every one of the men we've killed is someone's son. Do you think of that when you see them dead? Do you wonder what their mothers thought when they first held them to their breast - that they would end like this?" "If I am fighting on behalf of anyone I think it is those that died, not those living at home." "'Stupid boy didn't get his mask on in time,' said the MO 'They have enough bloody drills!'" "They had dead brothers and friends on their minds... they were killing with pleasure." "We should all go. It doesn't matter. It's only death."

Critical Responses

• "Characters often die in novels, but in this novel deaths cannot be handled in any conventional novelistic manner. The soldiers at the front have learnt not to be shocked, not even to be emotional, at any particular person's death, and the manner of narration has to reflect this. Deaths are narrated through the eyes of particular characters with a numbed factuality. " - The Guardian: Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (John Mullan) 
• "It is not just a matter of realism, it is also a manipulation of the reader's sympathies. " - The Guardian: Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (John Mullan) 
• "Mr. Faulks's elaborate structure merely demonstrates how quickly innovation can be reduced to a formula. The present-day scenes in "Birdsong" are so lackluster that they seem a kind of injustice; I can scarcely believe they're the work of the same writer who in this book's best pages draws on Owen's great poem to provide a genuinely cathartic description of the war's last days." - The New York Times: Tunnel Vision (Michael Gorra) 
• "The astonishingly tense night before the scheduled Somme attack bears comparison with the eve of Agincourt in Shakespeare's Henry V." - Country Life review (Valentine Cunningham)