868. Birdsong

Birdsong
Sebastian Faulks
1993
Around 410 pages

Well Peter Ackroyd appears to have rubbed off on somebody! Here we have another historical plot that switches between two characters from different eras. Usually, there is one storyline that is significantly less interesting than the other one. In this case, I was much more into the World War I arc than our 1970s plot. 

In World War I, Englishman Stephen Wraysford fights in the trenches and has an affair with a French woman. In the 70s, Stephen's granddaughter Elizabeth finds his encoded journals and tries to decipher them, which adds an intriguing metahistorical element to the narrative. 

I'm not sure if it's List fatigue, but I just wasn't as into the story as I have been to similar novels like The English Patient. The tragedy of Stephen and Isabelle's romance was a bit over the top, but that's easier to swallow when you really take to the characters, which I didn't. It was intriguing to focus on the trauma of World War I, which is often overlooked.

This is one of those novels where you can immediately tell the female characters were written by men. They don't exactly behave like real people. Overrated, and if you are in the mood for a historical romance or melodrama I can think of much better works that could satisfy that itch.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Adapted for radio, stage, and television.

Listed as the 13th favorite book in Britain in a 2003 BBC survey called the Big Read.

UP NEXT: Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh