Rating: 
Summary: Haunting
Review: This is not a book that I can easily forget; the contrast between the 1st WW trench warfare and events behind the lines makes for an emotional rollercoaster that at times is exhausting and at times beautiful. I first read this some years ago and am thinking that I need to read it again.
Sebstian Faulks paints with words in the same way as a watercolor artist works; there is a clarity and transparency to his writing that is rather haunting.
Rating: 
Summary: A Pedestrian, Clumsily Written Story.What Duped the Critics?
Review: I was overseas when my British friends practically forced this novel on me, assuring me I'd be swept away. As an historian and novelist myself, I gladly picked up a copy after having read the glowing reviews by bigtime publications like the NYT.
It took me eight months to plod through "Birdsong" with its endless exposition, two-dimensional protagonists, overly written love scenes, comic book-graphic war segments and a legion of utterly foregettable secondary characters that rival in number the KIAs at the Battle of the Somme. The first hundred pages, devoted to a torrid love affair, are s-l-o-w reading.
Faulks' failure to follow basic dictums of novel writing, such as incessant narration over dialogue and action, smack of amateurism rather than artistic innovation.
"They had dead brothers and friends on their minds; they were galvanized beyond fear. They were killing with pleasure. They were not normal." Fascinating. Just think what a competent novelist could do to put life into such battle scenes through the use of characters' actions and dialogue. "Muscadet. Is that very special? I don't know anything about wine." "I think you'll find it's pretty good." Snooze. This between a 1978 granddaughter of the protagonist and a suitor.
"Birdsong most definitely is NOT one of the last century's best novels. It's not one of 1993's best novels in my opinion. Where it captures some of the pathos of the "Great War," it dilutes it in a sea of aimless narration. The love scenes lack spark. The battle scenes describe but don't move. The characters' interactions are flaccid. The dialogue is stale and clunky. The ending is laughably pat. I just don't get it What did the critics see in this pretentious amateur production? Read instead some of the WWI-based novels recommended by other reviewers on Amazon. "Birdsong" is a large, deteriorating landmine with no fuze -- in other words a dud!
Rating:
Summary: Sorry, I can't agree....
Review: Mr. Faulks work is disappointing. I was particularly interested in his novel being a keen student of this period and having visited its fields of war. Even allowing consideration for artistic license, this plodding narrative drifts along as a continuing stream of disappointments. The novel's plot line is strong and almost believable, but Mr. Faulks' character development is shoddy and his story is complicated by too many physical improbabilities. It's as if he tried hard to emulate Sebastien Japrisot's excellent "A Very Long Engagement," or Mark Helprin's modest "A Soldier of the Great War," but decided instead to pen for Oprah's Book Club. His protagonists are doomed to failure. This in itself is no fault, but my interest lies in learning why they did not succeed and who they really are. Mr. Faulks fails on both counts because they are vapid to the point of disinterest. This is not Prufrock's vapidity; they lack physical being and emotional interest. In fact, not one, single major character is described well enough to visualize. Jeanine and Steven, the two young people entangled in a torrid, steamy but ultimately plebian love affair, prove to be transparent. The fact that they vanish before the story ends is coincidental and telling. But this reader, by that point, hardly cared. There are well describe scenes of horror, and Mr. Faulks does a splendid job reconstructing the nature of this war. His trench scenes and descriptions of manly, platonic love between soldiers are excellent. Compromising all his fine efforts is the improbability of Steven repeatedly surviving so many close encounters. Mr. Faulks' plot strays beyond the point of possibility, and reading suffers. For example, Steven's battalion is destroyed in a fruitless charge against machine guns across No-Mans-Land, but he lives and afterward goes for a swim in a nearby river. Steven, trapped underground by a mine explosion, counter-mines the tunnel. Instead of blasting his brains out by its enclosed concussion, he is rescued intact by souvenir offering, German soldiers. Please! My greatest criticism, however, is reserved for Mr. Faulks' soap opera dialogue and silly use of irritating, meaningless ancillary characters. What is the point of wasting pages on peripheral issues that contribute nothing to plot or character development? I was finally reduced to scanning the last chapters of Mr. Faulks' novel, hoping he could consolidate his messy, unnecessarily complicated, foolish ending. Alas, here too, I was frustrated.
Rating: 
Summary: spellbinding but not entirely convincing
Review: I'm amused by the NYT reviewer (and others) who found the battle scenes overwhelming and the grand-daughter's life in London banal. Actually, I think it's the other way around. I lived in Europe for four years in the 1950s. Faulks's descriptions of London and Brussels were so real that reading them was like a hallucination. I was reading my own memories, and not 45-year-old ones either, but London and Paris in the rain, at night, just a few years ago. Or so it seemed. I've read many hundreds of novels in my life, though as I get older I prefer history to fiction. But in all the great novels I've read, none has had that effect on me. It was a bit scary, really. Faulks is truly a gifted writer. On the other hand, I've been in the army (two years of that European sojourn was as a soldier in France) and I've seen a bit of war. I reacted to Faulks's war scenes much as I did to the film Saving Private Ryan: great pyrotechnics, but not really convincing. This was especially true of the march across No Man's Land and the battles underground in the tunnels: all the while I was reading them, I knew without question that Faulks was simply making it up out of accounts he had read. So yes, it's a grand book. I read it over two days when I had a lot else to do. But it's not about World War I; it's about modern people seeking the truth about World War I (and not finding it, in my opinion).
Rating:
Summary: Good but flawed
Review: I bought this book after seeing it listed as one of the 100 best novels of the 20th century. As other reviewers have noted, the descriptions of the Battle of the Somme and especially the opening day of the offensive, are overwhelming. I felt both physically ill and emotionally wrought after reading this (my grandfather was there and it gave me a glimpse into his life). I agree with other writers that the character of Stephen Wraysford is problematic. For most of the novel he appears two-dimensional - the sort of character that would appear in a John Grisham or Harold Robbins book. He doesn't have the nature of "everyman", which as a literary device makes tales of the Western Front so much more powerful - the grocers and farmhands he talks about going into battle. However, both Jack Firebrace and Michael Weir compensate for this - well-rounded, complex and identifiable characters coping (sometimes not too well) with the indescribable horror of life in the trenches. I disagree with other reviewers about the 1970's sections. To me they allowed the author to close the story (much better than an epilogue) and I connected with me own experience of discovering what my forebears had suffered. With the exception of the character of Stephen, this book is truly one of the greats of the past 100 years.
Rating:
Summary: Erotica in Beginning is overdone..but the Trench Scenes TKO
Review: Forget the first section unless you have spare time. It's a basic love story,adultery, so explicit practically bad...But the Great War trench scenes which cover most of this book are unforgettable, and almost suffocating to read. The author really knows the horrors of this war, and is not afraid to tell us. Without the unnecessary,drawn out beginning, this would be among the great war novels!! Up there with the best Hemingway, Dalton Trumbo, and Remarque, all written long ago.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Book !!
Review: Truly an amazing book. I am a voracious reader especially World War books. This is one of the best I have ever read. Like Derek Robinson's "Piece of Cake" set in WW II, this book makes the war come alive (and will scare you silly in the process). The contemporary sections are weak but maybe by design. Shows the futility of the World Wars..all those deaths seem wasted on the current generation.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking & Beautiful
Review: This is a book I can't forget, though I read it years ago--it is wrenching, beautifully written, impeccably researched and detailed. You won't think of the first World War in the same way after reading this, and you'll be looking to read all that Sebastian Falks writes. This is his best book, and worth every moment of your time.
Rating:
Summary: how could you not like this book?
Review: I loved the complexity of this book. One minute we are on an erotic ride with stephen and isabelle and the next we are having our stomaches turned as we read about "head wounds leaking out life". If you like historical fiction, you will love this book.
Rating:
Summary: 'Birdsong' a must
Review: I was recommended this book by a school friend, i brought whilst on a trip to the London War museum. I have to say it was and still is the most emotional and erotic book i have read. The storyline and the way the characters just came to live made the book so memorable and effective. I recommend the book to anyone who can read and who is interested in human spirit and most of all the story of love against all odds.
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