Birdsong (novel)

Birdsong

First UK edition cover
Author	Sebastian Faulks
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Fiction War novel
Publisher	Hutchinson
Publication date	16 September 1993 (UK)
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	407 pp
ISBN	0-09-177373-3

Birdsong is a 1993 novel by English author Sebastian Faulks. Faulks' fourth novel, it tells of a man called Stephen Wraysford at different stages of his life both before and during World War I. Birdsong is part of a trilogy of novels by Sebastian Faulks, together with The Girl at the Lion d'Or and Charlotte Gray; the three novels are linked through location, history and several minor characters.

The novel came 13th in a 2003 BBC survey called the Big Read which aimed to find Britain's favourite book. It has also been adapted three times under the same title – for radio (1997), the stage (2010) and television (2012).

Plot

While most of the novel concentrates on Stephen's life in France before and during the war, the novel also focuses on the life of Stephen's granddaughter, Elizabeth, and her attempts to find out more about her grandfather's experiences in World War I.

Birdsong has an episodic structure, and is split into seven sections which move between three different periods of time before, during and after the war. This is similar in many ways to the structure Faulks adopted in his later novel The Long White Winter. Throughout Birdsong there are echoes of several war poets such as Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

France 1910

The first stage is set before the war in Amiens, France. Stephen Wraysford is sent by his wealthy but dispassionate benefactor to work with René Azaire at his textile factory. He stays with Azaire and his family (Isabelle, Lisette and Grégoire). He spends the early part of the novel experiencing the comforts of middle class life in industrial Northern France whilst around him Azaire's workers foment unrest and threaten strike. He also senses an unease in the relationship between Azaire and Isabelle and is curious about her. Their friends, Bérard, Madame Bérard and Aunt Élise come round for dinner on occasions but there is always distance between them and Isabelle.

It is revealed that Isabelle is substantially younger than Azaire and is his second wife. Azaire is embarrassed by his inability to father a child with her and beats her in erotic-consolatory anger. Lisette, the child of Azaire's first marriage, who is 16 years old, makes suggestive remarks to Stephen but Stephen does not reciprocate.

Lucien Lebrun, one of Azaire's workers, gives food to the families of workers which he gets from Isabelle. This occurs behind Azaire's back and a rumour stirs that they are having an affair.

Realising that their lives have been similar battles for self-determination which have now crossed, Stephen and Isabelle engage in a passionate affair which they believe is 'right' and will last forever. Isabelle confronts Azaire with the truth and he evicts Stephen, telling him that he will go to hell. Stephen and Isabelle run away but Isabelle, finding she is pregnant, momentarily loses faith in the relationship. Without telling Stephen, she flees, returning to her family home and the one constant in her life – her sister Jeanne. Later, Isabelle's father makes a deal with Azaire for her return in exchange for her maintained honour; Isabelle is forgiven but soon realises her mistake. Stephen hears no more of her and knows nothing of his child that she bears (a girl called Françoise) and later raises with a German soldier called Max.

France 1916

We rejoin Stephen some years later as a lieutenant in the British Army and through his eyes, Faulks tells the reader about the First Day on the Somme in July 1916 and the Battle of Messines near Ypres in the following year. The energetic character described in the first chapter of the novel contrasts with the depiction of Stephen hardened by his experiences of war. During his time in the trenches, we learn of Stephen's mental attitude to the war and the guarded comradeship he feels for his friend Captain Michael Weir and the rest of his men. However, Wraysford is regarded as a cold and distant officer by his men. He refuses all offers of leave; so committed is he to fighting and staying involved with the war.

His story is paralleled to that of Jack Firebrace, a former miner, employed along the Tunnelling companies of the Royal Engineers in the British trenches to listen for the enemy and plant mines under the German trenches. Jack is particularly motivated to fight because of the love he has for his deceased son John back home. Faulks describes how a soldier called Hunt is terrified of going underground as an exploding shell could trap the soldiers underground causing them to suffocate. Stephen is badly injured but survives.

The troops are told to make an attack on the Hawthorne Ridge but the attack seems doomed to fail with the senior officers being blamed.

Stephen feels lonely and writes to Isabelle, feeling that he has no one else that he can express his feelings to. He writes about his fears that he will die, and confesses that he has only ever loved her. This section of the novel ends with a bombardment leaving many soldiers in no man's land.

England 1978

Alongside the main story, there is the inquisitive narrative of Stephen's granddaughter, Elizabeth, who, whilst struggling with her married boyfriend, Robert, unearths the stories of World War I and the remaining links to Stephen's experiences at Marne, Verdun and the Somme. Elizabeth finds Stephen's journals and endeavours to decipher them.

France 1917

Weir is on leave and finds it impossible to communicate to his family how bad the war is. After a chance encounter with Jeanne, Isabelle's sister, while on leave in Amiens, Stephen convinces her to allow him to meet with Isabelle and finds that her face has been disfigured by a shell with scarring caused from the injury. Stephen discovers that Isabelle is now in a relationship with Max, a German soldier.

Stephen is able to return to England and feels relief at being able to enjoy the Norfolk countryside away from the trenches. When he meets Isabelle's sister Jeanne, he tells her how he dreads returning to the front line after leave. Stephen's closest friend, Michael Weir, is eventually killed by a sniper's bullet while in a trench out of the front line.

England 1978–1979

Elizabeth continues researching the war and talks to war veterans Gray and Brennan (who knew Stephen) about their experiences. During this period, she also becomes pregnant with Robert's child.

France 1918

The novel ends with Stephen and Firebrace being trapped underground after a German mine explosion; with their way out blocked, they talk and share their experiences, with Firebrace grieving for his dead son John and Stephen telling him of his former love for Isabelle. Stephen finds some explosives and Firebrace, himself close to death, tells him how to lay them in order to blast their way out of the tunnel. Before Stephen completes the task, Firebrace dies. The explosion successfully clears a way out for Stephen, and he is rescued by Levi, a Jewish German soldier as the war ends. An ending which is clearly inspired by – and deliberately echoes – Wilfred Owen's 1918 poem "Strange Meeting".

England 1979

Elizabeth finally decides to reveal her pregnancy to her mother Françoise, who is surprisingly supportive. Over dinner, she learns her mother was raised by Stephen and Jeanne, who married and settled in Norfolk after her grandmother Isabelle's premature death due to the postwar influenza epidemic. Elizabeth and Robert then go on holiday to Dorset where she goes into labour and has a son, naming him John (after Jack Firebrace's late son), therefore keeping the promise which Stephen made to Jack when they were trapped in the tunnels under No Man's Land, over sixty years before. The book ends with Robert walking down the garden of the holiday cottage and having an immense sense of joy.

Characters

France: 1910

• René Azaire – Factory owner in Amiens. He states that Stephen will go to hell for his affair with his wife Isabelle. Embarrassed by his inability to have a child with his wife he beats Isabelle.
• Isabelle Azaire (Madame Azaire) née Fourmentier – René's wife. Isabelle has an affair with Stephen Wraysford while stuck in her unhappy marriage to René. However, after this brief affair Isabelle agrees to return to René (after Rene is convinced by Isabelle's father) and she is forgiven by the family. She is the mother of Françoise by Stephen, though she raised her daughter originally with a German soldier named Max.
• Lisette – Is the sixteen-year-old daughter of Azaire, and Step-Daughter to Isabelle. Lisette is attracted to Stephen and is nearer his age than Isabelle. She makes suggestive remarks to Stephen throughout his time at the house in Amiens. Eventually married Lucien Lebrun.

France 1916, 1917 and 1918

• Jack Firebrace – A tunneller or "sewer rat". He survived until 1918 when he became trapped while tunnelling and died.
• Captain Weir – An officer close to Stephen Wraysford killed by a German sniper.
• Jeanne Fourmentier – Isabelle's sister who forms a relationship with Stephen Wraysford.

England: 1978 and 1979

• Elizabeth Benson – Granddaughter of Stephen Wraysford. Elizabeth has a job in company which manufactures garments. She wants to find out more about World War I and her grandfather's actions. She does this by phoning elderly servicemen, visiting war memorials and translating Stephen's diary.
• Françoise – Elizabeth's mother, the biological daughter of Stephen and Isabelle who was raised by her father and aunt Jeanne.
• Irene – A colleague of Elizabeth.
• Bob – Irene's husband. He offers to translate Stephen Wraysford's war diaries for Elizabeth.

Reception

Birdsong has been said to be Sebastian Faulks' best work of fiction. It came 13th in a 2003 BBC survey called the Big Read, which aimed to find Britain's favourite book. It received an "Also Mentioned" credit in The Observer's 2005 poll of critics and writers to find the "Best British book of the last 25 years" (1980–2005). Birdsong was listed in The Telegraph as one of the most consistently selling books from 1998–2008, continuously in the top 5,000 sales figures.

Faulks' literary retelling of the events and attitudes towards the Battle of the Somme and life in the trenches is highly acclaimed, and is often likened to the work of writers such as Erich Maria Remarque and Ernest Hemingway, providing a modern contrast to World War I literature.

Adaptations

Birdsong was adapted as a radio drama of the same title in 1997, and as a stage play in 2010.

In 2012 it was adapted as a two-part television drama. The production starred Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Wraysford and Clémence Poésy as Isabelle Azaire, and was directed by Philip Martin, based on a screenplay by Abi Morgan.

There is also a feature film adaptation in the works. The screenplay is by Rupert Wyatt, and the film is expected to star Nicholas Hoult.

External links

• Sebastian Faulks discusses Birdsong on the BBC World Book Club