Birdsong (1993) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Stephen Wraysford: The protagonist
• Isabelle Azaire: Wife of Rene Azaire, whom Stephen visits in France to learn of his business. Stephen stays in the Azaire household.
• Jack Firebrace: A "sewer-rat" who digs the tunnels during the war into which mines are laid. Jack also worked on building the London Underground
• Captain Michael Weir: Commander of the miners. He and Stephen have a close relationship.
• Jeanne Fourmentier: Isabelle's sister
• René Azaire: Factory owner. Stephen stays in his house in Amiens.
• Lisette: 16 year old daughter of Rene Azaire
• Grégoire: Another child of Rene's first marriage
• Monsieur Bérard: A pompous friend of René.
• Madame Bérard: Wife of Bérard
• Aunt Elise: Mother to Madame Berard
• Lucien Lebrun: Rebel rouser during the strikes. Later marries Lisette
• Elizabeth Benson: Fashion designer. We encounter her in the "modern" sections of the book (England 1978 etc)
• Francoise: Elizabeth's Mother
• Bob Wheeler: Irene's husband who translates Stephen's war diaries for Elizabeth
• Irene: A work associate of Elizabeth.
• Stephen: Stephen is an enigma in many ways, yet i still found myself developing a huge investment in him and his experience.
• Dr. Levi: A German soldier. Has a brother named Joseph.
• Lamm: A German solider/miner.
• Robert: Elizabeth's lover.
• Thomas McKenzie Gray: A Colonel. Knew Stephen.
• Tom Brennan: An English soldier (?)
• Byrne: Add a description of this character.
• Arthur Shaw: An English soldier/miner.
• Marguerite: Jack's wife.
• Bill Tyson: An English soldier/miner.
• Monsieur
• Douglas Johnson: An English soldier/miner.
• John: Jack's son.
• Stuart
• Margaret
• Evans
• Meyraux
• Barclay
• Lindsay
• Mathilde
• Harrington
• Riley
• Joseph Levi: An German soldier who is killed by an underground explosion.
• Wilkinson
• Albert
• Reeves
• Erich
• Lorimer
• Mrs Simpson: An employee who works at a 'home' where Brennan has stayed in for the past 60 years.
• Adams
• Stanforth
• Madame Bonnet
• Mrs Kyriades
• Aunt Élise
• Anne
• Horrocks
• Hartmann
• Goddard
• Barnes
• Tipper
• Corporal Petrossian
• Coker
• Allen
• Jean Destournel
• Haig
• Béatrice
• Madame Bérard: Wife of Mr. Berard. A family friend of Mr. Azaire.
• Barlow
• Jane
• Hunt
• Mr Vaughan
• Mountford
• Mrs Gray
• David
• Studd
• Delphine
• Monsieur Laurendeau
• Watkins
• Turner
• Françoise
• Cartwright
• Kroger
• Crawshaw
• Lallement
• Leslie
• Jones
• Mark
• Max
• Ellis
• ISABELLE AZAIRE
• Sebastian Faulks
• BIRDSONG Sebastian Faulks
• Mr Wraysford

Quotes edit see section history

• “Jack already immune to death, let their white faces drift from his memory”

  Narrator

• “No child or future generation will ever know what this was like. They will never understand.When it is over we will go quietly among the living and we will not tell them.”

  Stephen

• “Yet still somehow it was difficult to see her own life as the pinnacle of previous generations' sacrifices.”

• “It was not a premonition, more a recognition, he told himself, that the difference between death and life was not one of fact but merely of time.”

  Narrator

• “So, as she had thought, it was possible to keep a secret: people's nosiness was finally exceeded by their indifference; or, to put it more generously, you were allowed to make your own life.”

  Narrator

• “I don't know our life history, but I think children need to believe in powers outside themselves. That's why they read books about witches and wizards and God knows what. There is a human need for that which childhood normally exhausts. But if a child's world is broken up by too much reality, that need goes underground.”

  Captain Gray

• “It was not his death that mattered; it was the way the world had been dislocated. It was not all the tens of thousands of deaths that mattered; it was the way they had proved that you could be human yet act in a way that was beyond nature. (page 188)”

  Narrator

• “Names came pattering into the dusk, bodying out the places of their forebears, the villages and towns where the telegram would be delivered...the places that had borne them, which would be...like dead towns without their life or purpose, without the sound of fathers and their children, without young men at the factories or in the fields, with no husbands for the women...with the children who would have been born, who would have grown and worked or painted, even goverened, left ungenerated in their fathers' shattered flesh that lay in stinking shellholes in the beet-crop soil... (page 189)”

  Narrator

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• London
• England
• Amiens
• France
• Paris
• Rouen
• Petrossian
• Germany
• Hunt
• Thiepval
• Brussels
• Ypres
• Norfolk
• Arras

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Love: This is used to explore the human condition and the reasons behind often conflicting behaviours. Faulk's "love" of the sacrifice the men made during WW1 is also explored in the novel.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Sebastian Faulks (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• BBC's Big Read (April 2003, #13)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 823.914

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Scenes of a sexual, explicit nature and scenes of explicit violence.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › Historical
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Contemporary Writers: Information about the author, Sebastian Faulks

More Books Like This edit see section history