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The romance is one of the reasons Birdsong works so well. The passion in Stephen and Isabelle's relationship is so electric - the snatched, illicit moments of their affair, the excitement of their elopement, the possibilities that lay ahead. And of course, its demise is devastating. All of Stephen's army colleagues have somebody they want to return home to, a face they desperately want to see again that gives them a reason to survive. He tells himself that he doesn't have anyone like this, that he never did. But deep down, he knows that's not true. He's frightened that it doesn't make sense, that there is no purpose. He's afraid that he has somehow strayed into the wrong life."
I found that the frame story, actually a dual frame, diminished the war story tremendously. In fact I wondered, prior to the war story beginning, whether I would want to complete reading the book.All twelve birds have winter or summer ranges in the United States and Canada. This means that readers are sure to see most if not all the birds. whenever anyone asks me what my least favourite book is, i always say this, which seems odd considering it's been voted as the 100 best books on a bbc list or whatever it was. Birdsong is a powerful novel, spanning generations and taking us through the horrors of World War 1. I don't think Stephen's youthful love affair nor his granddaughter's story were nearly as convincing . Still, this is a moving, heart wrenching book and I definitely recommend it. There is a second thread to this book set in the 1970s involving Stephen's granddaughter, Elizabeth. She is trying to decipher some of Stephen's diaries written in code. There are events in her life that run parallel to her grandparents' prewar life which are more acceptable in 1970s society.
oh yeah and all the women want children??? literally all of them??? excuse me but having children is not the be all and end all of womanhood. It's the sort of book which children have to plead with the adults to let them have a look at. Everything about it is superb. Highly recommended."Through poetry, rites and music, Confucian education sought to teach moral subtleties – easily memorised in the form of singing, The Book of Songs helped to lay down rules for behaviour. Its poetry, as opposed to the Western tradition, was largely anonymous and apparently simple. Yet beneath the surface, the poems are multi-layered. To this day, the Songs – and especially the Airs – are speaking in multiple voices. In delightful ambiguity, they have survived every attempt to be reduced, and hence diminished, to a single message or meaning. Birdsong? More like Birdshit. I may have given this book one star, but I really give it 20 piles of steaming birdshit. This is a powerful novel, and certainly not for the faint hearted. I read this for my local book club and I can imagine when we meet in February this book is going to make for great discussion. If I am fighting on behalf of anyone, I think it is for those who have died. Not for the living at home. For the dead, over here."
From lovelorn soldiers, knee-deep in French mud, to privileged ladies taking tea in Blighty, Birdsong is a war story that appeals to both sexes. Class war/ real war; there are so many dimensions to this thunderous epic. The battlefield scenes are so descriptive and cleverly written and at times make harrowing reading but the author makes sure you are in that trench and you are witnessing the vivid descriptions of carnage and brutalities of War. And even those who can recite all of “the three hundred”: if you are unable to apply the poems flexibly creatively according to context, “what use is there for them?” In short, it was never about what the songs – all of them anonymous – originally meant, or where they came from. It was always about something else: how can you make them mean something new?
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A hundred years have passed after World War I, one of the biggest atrocities in our history. The last surviving veteran passed away two years ago, taking the last living memory of those horrible years along with her. It is now up to us to keep alive the memories of those who have endured the war and of those who have not. It is up to us to remember. It is up to us to keep history from repeating itself. Like no other text from Chinese antiquity, the Songs were cherished, and hence survived, in two parallel traditions: one of learned commentary and the imperial examination system, the other of poetic memory and allusion. Remarkably, no ancient source ever shows us the Airs as innocent folk poetry. Early imperial legend knows of royal officials “collecting” the songs from the “lanes and alleys” to reveal to the ruler the social conditions and sentiments of the common people; purportedly, only then were they adapted to court music. Yet there is nothing to support such pious belief in the folk origins of poetry; instead, every reference to, or quotation from, the Songs before and after the foundation of the empire in 221 BCE shows them as part of the élite curriculum that gradually solidified in the form of the Five Classics of imperial Confucianism.
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