The BBC Top 100 Books- Birdsong
13:24
I finished Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks over breakfast yesterday morning. But if I'm honest, part of me wishes I hadn't! I'm guessing most of you are familiar with that feeling you sometimes get when you come to the end of a really involving book and you feel as though you've lost a little part of your life. Well that's how this book made me feel.
I knew it was going to be good, (if it wasn't, it probably wouldn't be on the 'BBC Top 100 Books' list ) but that didn't necessarily mean I was going to like it. I was partly put off by the fact that I actually started reading it a couple of year ago, but gave up on it for some (bizarre) reason. No doubt I decided I was 'too busy' or it was 'too long'. Granted, there is a fair bit of description in Birdsong, but now that I'm a (slightly) more experienced reader, I appreciated it and found that it really drew me into the lives and experiences of the characters. While the details of the of World War One were often shockingly horrific, the passages of passion and desire were almost unbearably vivid, drawing me in entirely.
Quite often I get frustrated when a book shifts between time zones, as I find myself enthralled in one situation and then suddenly having to readjust to another. However, in Birdsong, the changes occur so naturally, that it hardly felt like an interruption, but more of a continuation. Sometimes I thought one story was over, but then it would be picked up again and developed even further, much to my delight.
I'm not going to give away any of the story line, because I don't think you need any more persuading to give this book a read.
This morning I started The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, which already couldn't be more different to Birdsong!
Harriet x
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