“The church bell was tolling and from the garden there was again the sound of birds. With the noise in his ears he fell asleep and dreamed a dream that was a variation of one he had had all his life. He was trying to help a trapped bird out of a window. It’s wings battered frantically against the glass. Suddenly the whole room was filled with starlings, moving with one flock instinct. They beat their wings against the window panes, flapped them in his hair, then brought their beaks towards his face.”
Sebastian Faulks – Birdsong
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks is a story of terror and love – fear and joy experienced in the context war – the image and sounds of birds representing both innocence and carnal primitiveness.
Stephen Wraysford, the protagonist of this story, has a deep seated fear of birds. In the beginning of the novel we are introduced to this phobia, in the context of a dream (as seen in the above quote). Later we see how he reacts to being in the presence of birds when a pigeon lands near by and then again later when canaries are used in the trenches and tunnels of the Somme, to warn against gas. At one point in the novel, Stephen has to enter a tunnel with a fellow soldier, Weir, and a canary in a cage.
“Weir went forward at a crouch into the darkness, carrying the cage in his left hand. Stephen followed three of four paces behind. The bird was chirping, though whether from fear or happiness he could not say. Stephen shuddered at the sound.”
When the tunnel collapses, the bird escapes its cage. Forbidden to leave a canary down in the tunnels (in case the enemy finds it), Stephen has to overcome his fear of the bird and catch it or face a court marshal. When he gets hold of the bird he is overcome by revulsion and begs Weir to kill it. Weir is unable to do so and so eventually Stephen makes the decision to kill it. He cannot bring himself to do it, realising as in the moment the bird seems to represent all the innocence and freedom lost in the horrors of war – recalling men walking into gunfire and screaming into the night – he saves the bird, overcoming the disgust and fear he feels. This moment is particularly poignant, highlighting Stephen’s own innocence in a way, his reluctance to take life needlessly.
Influence in practice
I first read this book in 2003 but picked it out of my bookshelf again recently, after finishing my fourth novel Wherefore Sings the Blackbird. My novel incorporates many images of birds and I wanted to revisit Birdsong to rediscover what the novel’s relationship with its chosen title. I could remember only that the book was set in the first world war and it was also a love story. My novel is set amongst nuclear war and is also a love story, so I was also interested to see how a book I read over twenty-years ago, may have influenced my own writing. The similarities in plot or writing style begin and end with the theme of love and war but the imagery of birds resonates strongly. Sebastian Faulks uses descriptions of birds to allude to emotion or atmosphere within the text: crows as ill omens, doves as representations of peace, canaries as delicate reminders of the fragility of life.
The title of my novel Wherefore Sings the Blackbird is much like the title of Birdsong in that it does not refer to the plot of the book but a more allegorical underlying theme. My title is not a straightforward question but a kind of gentle rhetoric; a metaphor, for the nature of human behaviour which refers to the ancient proverb “a bird does not sing because it has answers, but because it has songs.”