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| Birds without Wings | 
 enlarge | Author: Louis De Bernieres
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £7.98 (100%)
New (23) from £1.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 6354
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.7
ISBN: 0099478986
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780099478980
ASIN: 0099478986
Publication Date: June 11, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
 Very impressive and beautifully written April 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am originally from Izmir, Karsiyaka, and I was really surprised to find some events that happened in Turkish-Greek war that my grandmother had been telling us about, in this book.
For example, the Turkish soldiers taking revenge from Greeks in Izmir because of what they had seen in Anatolia. When Turkish army entered Karsiyaka, my grandmother saw a Turkish soldier, and asked him to spare her Greek neighbours (they were close friends). The Turkish soldier replied back: "do you know what we have seen in Anatolia?!".
Similarly, the story about setting part of Izmir on fire because of snipers killing Turkish soldiers from houses in Christian neighbourhoods.
It is a real pity that these events took place, and I really hope we can learn some lessons and never let that happen again.
For that reason alone, I would recommend everyone to read this book!
 Needs some serious editing October 4, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I loved Captain Corelli's Mandolin when I read it as a teenager over 10 years ago, and was expecting something along the same vein here- I was disappointed however. It's not all bad, but you really have to struggle to stay interested in the characters, and the plot is so disjointed and interspersed with pages and pages of virtually unreadable history. In fact it feels as though it is a history lesson with a story thrown in as an afterthought.
 Mixed feelings July 18, 2007
9 out of 17 found this review helpful
Well, as the title of my review says, I had mixed feelings about this book. Let me say this much, if it weren't for the historical inaccuracies, I would have given this novel five stars. It's beautifully written, an engaging web of stories that just feels so right and true - it *feels like* a wonderfully accurate recreation of events: part poetry, part history lesson, part folk story.
But it is for this very reason that I disliked this novel as well. Although it gives every appearance of having been very carefully and painstakingly researched, the author seems to have fallen for the shameful lies and propaganda put forward by the Turkish government to this day, in which they pretend that atrocities that they committed were in fact committed against them. He appears to have taken all of his research directly from the Turkish government, and completely ignores accounts of events from France, Germany, the US (etc etc etc) - from civilians and politicians and newspapers, not to mention accounts from actual survivors of the Armenian Genocide, who were forced to leave the country between 1915 and 1923. He presents the Turkish government's justifications for their atrocities as if they are fact - when the records of every other government and respected historian in the world states the exact opposite. I read Mr de Bernieres' descriptions of Greek and Armenian "atrocities" and "revenge" with a mixture of anger, sadness and despair. When such a talented novellist has the power to transmit this distorted version of history to a public consciousness that has largely forgotten the Armenian Genocide, it seems likely that the Turkish government will succeed in their efforts to white wash the events completely from history.
note: Turkey still has laws against "insulting Turkishness", and regularly prosecutes Turkish novellists and journalists who try to enlighten their countrymen as to what really happened during WW1. Many of these writers have been assassinated or threatened by nationalists. In this sort of environment, who should you trust - the Turkish government's version of events, or those of respected historians worldwide?
Just too long! May 30, 2007
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed the descriptions of the villagers and their stories, but was very bored by the history lessons. The story is very gripping in places, but 300 pages would have been enough.
Sometimes, less is more April 27, 2007
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Louis de Bernieres can write marvellously, of that there is no doubt. He can touch the heart and he can bring tears to the eyes; he can conjure up the deepest of emotions with the lightest of touches. I hugely enjoyed the Latin American trilogy that preceded "Captain Corelli's Mandolin", and Corelli itself deserved all the critical acclaim it received. Yet despite my anticipation (I have visited Fethiye and walked around the sad ruins of the deserted village close by) I found this latest Turkish offering a little less than a delight. Yes, there are individual chapters that have the de Bernieres magic; yes, there are passages that live up to the best in his previous work; and yes, it is in places erudite, witty, and touching. But put together as a whole there is one overriding flaw, and that is that "Birds Without Wings" is quite simply far too diffuse. While the historical diversions may be edifying, the endless asides make for a tale that can all too easily just become becalmed.
The central character is not a single individual -- rather, it is the village of Eskibahce, and with it the assortment of all too human characters who find their lives transformed forever by tragedy on a global scale, innocents caught up in a maelstrom. De Bernieres' description of the lives of Rustem Bey, Iskander the Potter, Philothei and Mehmetcik (to name but four) is affectionate and detailed. But the problem is how to present the enormity of all that is happening to and beyond this crowd of engaging individuals whilst at the same time keeping the story coherent and focused. It is not a problem that the author solves satisfactorily.
I did learn more than I ever expected to learn about Mustafa Kemal Attaturk; but while all this may be very educational there are in fact 22 chapters on Mustafa Kemal himself, and certainly by the time of chapter 81 the last thing I wanted was a ten page treatise on the death of King Alexander of Greece. There is a time and place for didactic chapters like this, and p481 of a 625 page novel is not one of them. The pace is interrupted and held up like this time and time again: just when things might be building up a head of steam, the story goes off the boil. By chapter 85, to give another example, I really only wanted to finish the book in order to say that I got to the end of it, and then out of nowhere I was embroiled in a superfluous chapter about a drowning Greek -- beautifully written, don't get me wrong: but please, not there, not at this point. If it had not been for the fact that the end was in sight, this would have had me chucking the book at the wall.
Given how much I have enjoyed his other works, it pains me to say -- and I feel disloyal in doing so -- that the long breath I sighed at the end of "Birds Without Wings" was occasioned rather more by relief at finishing it than regret at leaving it. Sometimes less is more, and rather less here would have had me enjoying it a lot more.
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