Birds Withought Wings - Louis De Bernieres

Birds Without Wings is a novel by Louis de Bernier, well known as the writer of the best selling Captain Correlli’s Mandolin. The film adapted from the novel did not do it justice and it would be a mistake to judge de Berniere by this flawed production. I think however that this present novel which appears to be a prequel to Captain Correlli is deeper and more mature. In Birds without Wings he has written a wonderful human story. He champions the ...
...These poor people wish to live in peace with their neighbours with enough food on the table and a roof over their head. Their plight is to be worn down by events outside their control and to be persecuted by the powerful. What’s it about? The novel takes place in a small town on the coast of Southwest Anatolia. It is an all too familiar tale with a resonance for our modern world. Greek Christians and Turkish Moslems are living happily together having ...

silver40 29.03.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Birds Withought Wings - Louis De Bernieres

...but Iskander makes wonderful pottery birds that when filled with water make a whistling sound similar to a birds call, from these individual whistles come the longer names that are used throughout the story, to describe the characters of both boys. Rustem Bey is another character that features in many of the stories; he is the principle landowner, a rich Muslim, who is kind and generous to all his tenants. His wife Tamara, has an adulteress relationship, ...
...time they played at being birds when they were children. The final paragraph is a joy to read and sums up the lessons to be learnt by war. It would be fitting to end with this, but the title is summed up more concisely in the words of Iskander, the potter, “man is a bird without wings” and “a bird is a man without sorrows” >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Summary. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, even with the historic ...

Elffriend 05.08.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Birds Withought Wings - Louis De Bernieres

...Birdsong) and unfortunately, that’s what Birds Without Wings is - a disappointment. This isn't because it’s not as good as Corelli, but because it’s fraught with problems. Based on the setting for the story (or lack there of) it initially appears that the village in which Birds... is set, is an attempt to replicate Cephallonia in the Ottoman Empire. Luckily, that is not the case, and Birds... does go on to establish its own identity. The main problem ...
...books plot, is Bernieres obsession with the eventual leader of the Empire, Mustafa Kemal. Overall a sizeable twenty two out of one hundred and six chapters are devoted to him, roughly about a fifth of the book. These chapters are written in the clearly intentional style of something approaching a historical paper, not a novel. This being said, de Bernieres way of detailing the accomplishments of Mustafa are laced with irony, and it appears as if ...

BurntheWitch 25.08.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Birds Withought Wings - Louis De Bernieres

Part fiction, part history, I would heartily recommend this book. It tells the tale of the inhabitants of a small multicultural Turkish community a drift in the outside world at the beginning of the 20th century through the eyes of it's inhabitants. De Bernieres builds brilliant scenes and his style leads you on an emotional. At times I laughed, at the description of two close friends, an Imam and A Priest sneaking disguised through the town to talk ...
...times I neary cried, at the cold hard descriptions of young men thrown into the horrors of Gallipoli. It is also a history book - it tells of wars, outrages and massacres that we don't here about in school and points at the roots of modern Turkish and Balkan politics. As well as enjoying I learnt a few things I didn't know. In summary, highly recommended. ...

vipper_of_vip 23.08.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Birds Withought Wings - Louis De Bernieres

As usual Louis de Bernierers' storytelling is masterful and his depiction of the village where the story is set is so effective you can almost hear and smell the atmosphere whilst reading. This book can easily be split into two parts, the 'real' story and the 'history lectures'. The 'real' story is about the search for love and the effect that unrequited love can have on people's behaviour. This is not constrained to romantic love between a man ...
...The other part of the story deals with the ongoing disputes and religious animosity between the Turks, Greeks, Armenians and the rest of Europe. To be perfectly honest I found most of these chapters either dull or too graphic in their descriptions of the suffering during wartime and ended up skimming these to make sure that I wasn't missing any plot developments in the story that I was really interested in. ...

siocled 21.11.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Birds Withought Wings - Louis De Bernieres