Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

AZ: "Set before and during the great war, "Birdsong" captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself."

Often heard people say this was brilliant but never attempted it because I'd already read one book on the effects of World War I on the minds of people (2 actually, Pat Barker's Regeneration which I either didn't get or found overrated, and Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier which I found too good to want to read anything else on the subject) but then I read Engelby via the book group and was captivated by Faulks and decided to begin with the French trilogy of which Birdsong is the first novel. Plus, reverse snobbery I guess.

Birdsong is brilliant, I wanted so much to know more, hear more about the characters and yet opening as it does in 1910 knowing the Great War is only 4 years away and will come down like the wolf on the town of Amiens gives us a kind of narratorial omniscience and curiosity about characters so immersed in their lives and the politics of the fabric industry, unknowing unlike Damocles that the sword is about to fall on their head.