The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. The book can be found on the BBC Book List.
Continuing my trend to try and finish the BBC Great Read book list, I decided to tackle Birdsong, which was the highest ranked story I had left on the list (at #13), and so I was anticipating at least an interesting story. The book was listed as the second book of a trilogy, however from what I had read, the trilogy was a loose trilogy focusing mostly on the settings and not really the main characters, so I opted to skip the first book (The Girl at the Lion d'Or), and go straight into Birdsong. If I had missed anything by skipping the first book I am totally unaware of it. The book follows a couple of soldiers during and before World War I, as well as a decedent some years after the war. The book mainly follows Stephen Wraysford, from about 5 years before the war and then jumps into his time with the war, where we get the bulk of his story. The second POV soldier the story follows is Jack Firebrand, who is introduced during the war as a tunneler for the Allied side. While interesting, and very horny, the pre-war section of the book was kind of slow and didn't really draw me into the story at all. Even the first part of the war was plodding at times. As the war dragged on though, we get into the psychological aspects of war on the soldiers and how that same war was viewed by the people at home. It was an interesting dichotomy between the two worlds, with quite a bit of PTSD ("shell shock") thrown in the mix. By the time we get to the last main section of the book, I could not put it down. I had to know what happened to our heroes because by this point I felt anything could happen, even with our glimpses of the future with our occasional jumps in time. Overall, I found the book a rather interesting look at soldiers and how war leaves them broken people, not sure how to reintegrate themselves back into a society that has known no direct conflict. This is especially disheartening by witnessing the occasional looks at the family members who "just don't get it". I would say that this was good book to read, but the slow parts, and a lot of just unlikeable characters, have me leaning towards not putting this on my list.
