The Content Reader

One of the praises, from the back cover of the book At a time Sebastian Faulks' name turned up everywhere around me. Obviously, I bought one of his books. It has since been decorating my TBR shelves. My first encounter with this writer just asks for more. Birdsong  is a wonderful book on all accounts. It starts out very romantically with Stephen Wraysford coming to France on behalf of his employers in 1910, to see how a factory works, from which they buy material for their clothes. He stays with the owner and his family and it is not long before he falls in love with the wife, Isabelle. This happens rather early on, so I think I don't spoil anything here. He thought of Isabelle's open, loving face; he thought of the pulse of her, that concealed rhythm of her desire that expressed her strange humanity. He remembered Lisette's flushed, flirtatious look and the way she had taken his hand and placed it on her body. That day of charged emotion seemed as unreal and biza...

This is a real classic and a book that we decided to read in one of my reading groups. It was totally different from what I thought it would be. I thought it would be heavy, tragic and with horrible details of the times at the front. It is horrible of course but told in an easy and accessible prose. It is told in first person singular with the voice of nineteen year old Paul Bräumer, a soldier at the Western front during the first world war. We follow Paul from the first staggering steps as a new soldier into the more routine soldier who has been there and seen it all. It is told in a matter-of-fact way that makes you feel you are standing beside him and experience all the things he experiences. That is probably also why you can identify with him. You follow him in school with his friends who also enrol. During the initial training which does not prepare them for what they are about to experience. Through the bullies who think the most important thing is the drill and who punish the ...