"Birdsong" By Sebastian Faulks

Okay, so I recently finished this book, like what? Last week, I think. I just want to take this opportunity to say that I have never have cried when finishing a book, not even after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! The thing is, it wasn't even a sad ending, well, it was incredibly bittersweet I'll say that. I juat want to apologise for this mega long review, it was neccessary!
It's 1910 and the book begins with our twenty year old protagonist Stephen Wraysford arriving at the house of the Azaires, the family he is to stay with during the time he was given to work in his benefactor's textile factory. He explores northern French life and gets to know the Azaire family while becoming increasingly curious about Azaire's wife, Isabelle. The two eventually fall in love and have a doomed affair which leads to them running away, tearing the Azaire's apart. However, once Isabelle realises she is pregnant with Stephen's child she leaves him without a word. Flashforward six years and we're in the middle of the First World War, we are taken along Stephen's perilous journey to get through the war and his complicated relationships with the soldiers around him. While the war is continuing we are often taken forward to another generation, 1978. Here we are introduced to Elizabeth who is moved by information she has found out about the First World War and goes to all lengths to find out every piece of information she can about her grandfather.

It seems that the book jumps around a bit, it does. But the story is so satisfying so this doesn't present itself as a issue becuase the charcters are so brilliantly handled. Stephen comes to France, a young yet very serious man. He is often described to stare a lot, and come across as quite an imposing figure yet he doesn't really say very much or express himself often which is what made him so compelling for me to read about. No one is ever sure about what is running through his head and even Isabelle whom remains the first woman he ever loved was uncertain about him. During the war, the soldiers consider him mad and strange because of his resilience and determination to stay alive and get through the war despite his passionate hatred for it. But that is what I think the book is, he is a strange character and throughout the novel you realise that Stephen doesn't really understand himself and the war acts as a catalyst for him to find himself amongst his heartbreak (Isabelle) which has turned him cold and his humble beginnings in life. It's a search to find that sympathy, care and tenderness again that he desperately needs (MILD SPOILER!!!) and eventually finds with Jeanne, Isabelle's sister which arguably makes her the heroine of the novel.

The romance at the beginning moved me, I'm not going to lie. It was a goooood hundred pages or so and normally I can find romance quite difficult to read becuase sometimes it can come across as too soppy or too detailed when describing emotions and feelings where it just reaches the point of repetition which can often be tedious. But this was perfect becuase you were sometimes given insights to how the characters were feeling but you were never fed what was running through their heads, you knew it was passionate, that was certainly made edvident from their first time of making love together moments after Stephen had proposed the affair! But the focus wasn't only the romance, it was them getting to know eachother during the affair, it was the effect of their forbidden, intimate relationship on others around them. That was what made it interesting for me.

The First World War scenes have to be some of the greatest character moments I have ever experienced with a novel. I swear, reading this, it was so vivid I could've been sitting in a cinema watching the war play out right in front of me. We follow a group of different soldiers that all have certain connections with Stephen in the novel, or will. Prominent characters are Jack Firebrace, a tunneller who is unable to go on leave to tend to his dying son and Captain Weir who Stephen forms a close relationship with and views as the only person he ever felt he had experienced traumatic experinces with all the way through. The gory images that are illustrated during certain parts of the book stay with you becuase they are so horrifying along with the frantic battle scenes that manage to mention the boy soldiers who are nothing but horrified and shocked to see the reality of what they had signed up for.

At first I wasn't sure of Elizabeth and her role in the1978 part of the book becuase I wasn't at first aware of where it was leading. But when she became interested in the War that was when I knew it was going to work because there always had to be a connection between her and Stephen, it was just what that connection was going to be. I loved her moments of dicovery in Northern France and finding out about all the soldiers. I loved the gradual revelation throughout the third act of the novel so that it wasn't suddenly bombarding you with information.

Overall, a great novel well worth your time and my tears. If you do decide to check it out, look out for a certain tunnel scene towards the end of the book with two prominent characters that just had my heart sinking and my eyes glued to the pages. I heard that someone has the rights to make this a film and all I can say is cast wisely. If you don't have the right Stephen, you don't have a potentionally very great Birdsong movie adaption. Maybe they should consider an unknown actor so people will be interested to know more about the character than be thinking about something else they've seen him in.

All I can say is, read it.

*****

Journey to The Front

Probably one of the best (and most depressing) school trip I've ever been to. A few weeks ago, well, we're talking about March 11th we got up really early and journeyed to France from where we took a coach all the way to Belgium. Obviously, I knew why we were going, this was history, this was what we had been looking at but to be honest I had no idea what to expect. I had been fasicnated with WW1 for quite a long while now becuase of it's interesting history but I guess I have a deep interest for the individuals of the war and their phycological changes and traumatising experiences. That makes me sound morbid but there is something just as interesting as all the artefacts and weapons as the soldiers who all had lives before the war that resulted in the drastic changes on their perspective of life.
Our first stop was the first of many visits to several different Commonwealth War cemetries. I was immediately struck by the haunted beauty of it all. The rows and rows of similar graves marked with the names of different soldiers, some unknown, but many were there. I was most surprised by the fact that the British bothered to bury the Germans but then I think about my interest in the individuals and you just think they were soldiers just like everybody else, some fighting for reasons they did not even know. Our guides could not be more interesting as they told us real stories during the time period and about the only female ever to be buried in a commonwealth war cemetery, Nellie Spindler.
Our visit to the German front line just outside the town of Ypres was when it really kicked in that I was actually where I was. On the edge of a battlefield. We were told all about the battle of Ypres and shown the British front line which was positioned to a disadvantage as it was downhill. We entered Ypres and it was so hard to belive that the buildings were so young becuase the town was rebuilt exactly as it previously after the mass destruction the war had had on the town.
The most emotional part was Tyne cot, the largest commonwealth war cemetery in the world and I was there. The rows and rows of the white stone were just like all the other cemetries we had visited but this had a sort of nostalga to add to it as the sun was setting over the hill to conclude a memorable and emotional day. But the beautiful and massive war memorial dedicated to all the missing soldiers was mesmerising. I'll never forget it. I urge all of you who have not been to make a trip to Belgium and visit the war cemetries to try to comprehend very slightly the scale of the war and what resulted from it all those years ago.
I have a few souvenirs from the museum in Ypres, a few postcards which I have now been stuck on my wall but I doubt I will need them the remember what I saw becuase my it will stick in my memory for a long time. Even now I'm reading books about world war 1. It's Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks and I'm loving every page of it.

Blinded by infatuation: Encounters with fanatics

As you're a teenager and your growing up through school surrounded by other teenagers there is always going to be a new craze. Whether it be a new Youtube star *cough* Justin Beiber *cough* there is always going to be something that all the girls and all the boys go for. I attend an all girls school in North London and as you can imagine there are individual fanatics at every angle.
I'm not completely complaining. Sometimes others being obsessed with something can be quite fascinating when they are so interested that they tell you everything they know about it, as long as it's not stupid. Now some girls are ridiculous but I'm not going to act all innocent here becuase you should see me and Harry Potter but when their interest goes as far as saying something is good becuase of good looking guys/girls, basically eye candy I find it ridiculous. You can fancy someone, have a celebrity crush, but I recently met a girl who I had such a fierce debate with on the topic of Justin Beiber I just had to question it and really stop and think about it.  We were talking about his new movie "Never say Never" which I haven't seen but had heard quite a bit about it and how it documented his rise to stardom and all. All I said was that there were so many other mega talented people that never got recognised (but the main point) is how she basically lept up and attacked at my opinionated words. Yes, she had a right to her opinion I was just shocked that someone could get so angry and defensive about someone she didn't even know.
I don't know, maybe she was just passionate but the way she defended him really made my insides squirm. Her arguemts were "He's so ammmaaaziiing, he's so amaaaziiiiiinnnng, he's sooooo buuufff!"

Okay... Tell me how....

"He's just sooooo amazzzinngggg..."

I was actually starting to question the sanity and intelligence of the female sex. And I'm the last person to be critising females, believe me. I'm very proud to be female.
Now you compare that to people who are interested in Justin Beiber for the quality of his music, his morals and what that means to them. Those are the people I fully respect. So sometimes I just wish people would open their eyes and mind and really figure out why they liked something. I'm culprit for it, I'm sure everyone is for at least one point in their early lives becuase when your a teenager you're easily blinded by infatuation.

The twilight saga: An innocent and useful series or an excuse for critism

Don't get me wrong, I'm the last person to expect to be taking a trip to the cinema to attend a midnight screening of Breaking Dawn: Part 1 this fall as many of my friends are. I've only read the first book of the series which I considered nothing special and I've only watched the first film of the series properly (having seen New Moon and effectively dozed off) and it didn't seem to have as much of an affect on me as it did for everyone else. I am of course talking about the TWILIGHT SAGA, a series of books written in the first person and films centered around the annoying teenage protagonist Bella Swan who is reduced to moving to a miserable and small town, Forkes and soon falls in love with the irresistable and broody vampire, Edward Cullen.
For me the nature of the books are completely ridiculous. I could say that approximately 100 out of approx. 400 pages of the first novel is entirely dedicated to Miss. Swan passionately describing how amazingly beautiful Mr. Cullen is but what does it matter what I think? I'm one out of many of millions of teenage girls across the world, the majority of whose brains have been hindered by the FICTIONAL handsome image of Edward Cullen. There are several others critisms I could attack these books with but there is no denying the phenomenal effect these books have had in the recent years.
Apparently these books have existed since 2005 and they have enjoyed growing commercial success since but I'm sure the majority of people across the world (certainly in the UK) wouldn't have been aware of them until the first film was released in the fall of 2008. What I find most fascinating about the Twilight series in general is not the dramatic series of events that Miss. Swan goes through but the inspiration from its success that it has sparked in pop culture since. Thinking about modern cinema for example, you can never expect to be too far from the release of a supernatural teenage action/drama film. A most recent example would be "I am Number Four" a simple fantasy story involving a guy with un-human powers and, you guessed it, trying to juggle an impossible high-school romance at the same time. But it isn't just simple teenage films, Twilight has also rebirthed the horror genre back into prominence again. Hammer, the legendary Biritish horror film production brand released the brilliant re-make "Let me in" last year, another broody vampire flick but a lot smarter than your average vampire flick, trust me. I'm glad that this has happened. Yes, it has encouraged film studios to have the confidence to try to come up with new Harry Potter's but it has also encouraged a new angle on horror films aswell, moving away from torture porn, blood and guts to character driven, moving and hanuting films that have an emotional impact but have the capability to take you on a ride aswell.

 But it's not just pop culture, its got youths thinking, particularly me. What is good literature? Could you argue that the Twilight books are guilty pleasures or do you personally belive them to be good reads? Go on Youtube and you can view people passionately battling their hearts out, determined to convince you that these books are complete bollocks or they are the most inspiring books they have ever come across. They research their arguments out and everything, some articulate and present well backed up points proving that they are only educating themselves futhur in terms of what good literature actually is and what good films are.