I have read a number of books by de Bernieres the first being Captain Corelli's Mandolin, (I enjoyed both the book and the film) I then went on read The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts, then The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman (two of his Colombian trilogy) which I didn’t particularly enjoy as they were in the magical mystery genre of Gabriel García Márquez, whom Bernières greatly admires. However I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Birds without Wings’ and was blown away by the vast amount of historical research he had undertaken in the writing of the book, which opens in 1900 and ends in the early 1920's. The book's title is taken from a saying by one of the characters, Iskander the Potter, "Man is a bird without wings, and a bird is a man without sorrows.""Birds without Wings" is set during the declining period of the Ottoman Empire, in the small Anatolian town of Eskibahce. Despite all the criticisms of the Ottoman Empire, the degree of tolerance between ethnic groups and different religions was quite remarkable. In the small town the mix of Turks, Armenians, and Greeks, both Muslims and Christians, live side-by-side in a comfortable and relatively peaceful existence, often inter-marrying. When the Franks, as the Ottomans called the Western Europeans, and a throw-back to the name given to the Crusaders by Mediterranean Muslims, and then the Greeks invade their country, the harmonious existence of the residents of Eskibahce is torn apart by external events. The Sultan declares a holy war against the invaders. The Muslim Turks are conscripted as soldiers and the Christian Turks are sent into labour battalions. The Armenians are evacuated from the region in a death march, in response to the Armenians helping the Russians to slaughter thousands of Turkish Muslims in other parts of the empire. We are again reminded of this by the news that the French Senate on 24th January 2012 approved a bill which will make it illegal to deny that the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 in the Ottoman Empire was genocide. Cynical French politicians see this move as a way by Sarkozy to gain votes from the 500,000 ethnic Armenian French voters in April’s Presidential elections. This has infuriated the Turkish government, which has threatened France with permanent sanctions. So the events depicted in the book are still having their impact even today.Going back to the book, during the Balkan wars when the western powers were competing with each other to seize territories formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, the Italians occupy Eskibahce. Then the Christians are forced to relocate to Greece. Throughout it all, the residents struggle to survive amidst the turmoil. There are some beautifully drawn characters in the book the childhood friends Karatavuk (Turkish for 'Blackbird') and Mehmetcik (Turkish for 'Red Robin'), who are inseparable until war breaks out. Karatavuk becomes a soldier who participates in the battle of Gallipoli, and Mehmetcik, who is forced into a labour battalion. He later defects and becomes a notorious bandit. There is the beautiful Christian girl Philothei, who is engaged to Ibrahim the goatherd and whose death is foreshadowed at the start of the story. There is the landlord and town protector Rustem Bey, who casts out his adulterous wife and takes a mistress. There are Abdulhamid Hodja and Father Kristoforos, holy men who call each other infidels yet are good friends. I found the chapters depicting the life and career of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, fascinating as he moves up the military ranks to win the fight for an independent Turkey. Reverting again to the book’s title I found it interesting that ‘Birds’ are present throughout the story. They sing throughout the night, carry letters to the dead, have their voices captured in clay whistles, and live in cages outside the entrance to many homes. The town residents are portrayed as wingless birds that are grounded in the reality of war and unable to flee the turmoil. In some ways ''Birds Without Wings'' is quite a challenge for readers having 95 chapters, and a six-part epilogue it's not surprising that de Bernières has cited ''War and Peace'' as a model for his work. In the end, this is a book about mourning, about grief at the loss of a community where Muslims and Christians were more than neighbors, where the imam went out of his way to bless a Christian child and Christians prayed to the Virgin Mary for their Muslim brothers.
*******SPOILER ALERT*******I read this as part of a larger WW1 themed study to get a more focused perspective of the Great War from the point of view of the lives of the people of Eskibahce. I was fully aware that this was a work of historical fiction but my hope was that the author would use this fictional village in the Ottoman Empire and its fictional occupants as a mirror through which I could see the effects the Great War took on the everyday lives of these Ottoman citizens of Muslim, Greek and Armenian background. Like most other principalities in that region the behemoth that was the Ottoman Empire had its own nationalistic issues and the war seemed only to bring the nationalistic sentiments of these various groups to the forefront, and the village of Eskibahce with its mixed population was not immune. The book started off by introducing these charming villagers and their peaceful home; the backgammon playing gendarmerie forever stationed in the meydan, the mischievous kids trailing each while living out the unchanging country childhood, women gossiping and going about their daily chores, and men going about their individual labours or gossiping while sipping sweetened tea and smoking tobacco.There was almost a timeless quality about it all and I enjoyed it on a superficial level but I have to admit I had a hard time in the beginning getting involved in the story, feeling connected and I’m not sure why. The prose was beautiful, the characters were interesting and quirky, the humour was wry and made me laugh out loud a lot of the time, and I appreciated the author’s use of Mustafa Kemal’s life as a timeline. If I were to hazard a guess I’d say its because I didn’t really like any of the adults until the chapters dealing with the Galipoli campaign. Once I hit that part, I couldn’t put the book down. The descriptions of what life was like for these men drew me in. I felt for them and got a tiny glimpse into the hell of trench warfare. Charming as these people were I thought, mistakenly that I’d see a village perhaps unaffected by the ravages of the war, that maybe these people stood up for their neighbours and that the commonality of being Ottoman with its religious freedoms and other rights would outshine their various petty grievances. But as I got to know these people more, I realized that there were things I just couldn’t get past. An example of this is the enthusiastic participation of the villagers in the stoning of Tamara Hanim. For the most part, I liked the kids and the adults they grew up to be-I think the relationship that I cared for most was that of Karatavuk and Mehmetcik. The former’s friendship with his fellow soldier Fekrit and their back and forth with the Anzac troops are my favourite parts of the story. On a wider scale, the utter wastefulness of the carnage and brutality of the troops towards the civilians in the name of religion and ethnic superiority had an almost numbing effect –here they go again This paragraph from the book sums up this sentiment :“In the long years of those wars here were too many who learned how to make their hearts boil with hatred, how to betray their neighbours, how to violate women, how to steal and dispossess, how to call upon God when they did the Devil’s work, how to enrage and embitter themselves, an how to commit outrages even against children. Much of what was done was simply in revenge for identical atrocities..”The book is filled with lines I could include and I wish I was more so inclined. I can say that my impression of the Armenians, Turks and Greeks was different at the end of reading this as when I started out. At the end of it all, I just ran out of sympathy for these people who seemed to go out of their way to repeat the atrocities that were done unto them so that they may be forever repeated in the vicious cycle that is history repeating itself. As far as powerful messages go, this is one of them. Another is perhaps the ludicrousness of war in general and people in particular.
What do You think about Birds Without Wings (2005)?
4.5 Stars Birds without Wings by Louis Bernieres.A dense, mesmerising, harrowing and yet humorous novel that will bring out all emotions that a reader can experience but did not think possible in one story. Set in the peaceful fictional village of Eskibahce in south west Turkey and home to Turkish Muslims and Greek Christians who have lived for centuries side by side and tolerate and enjoy for the most parts each other's traditions and religions. The author introduces us to a village of characters and when the war is declared and the outside world intruded the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Birds without wings is a personal and political story showing the costs of war. "Where does it all begin? History has no beginnings, for everything that happens becomes the cause of pretext for what occurs afterwards, and this chain of cause and pretext stretches back to the Palaeolithic age, when the first Cain of one tribe murdered the first Cain of Another".,/I>The story is based on a small fictional village in south-western Coastal Anatolia called Eskibahce, although fictional I believe the village is actually based upon Kayakoy a village near Fethiye the ruins which still exist today. Once a thriving Greek Village this town of over one thousand houses two churches, fourteen chapels and two schools was completely deserted in 1923 when the Greek inhabitants living throughout Turkey were deported to Greece by the Government in an exchange policy.The destruction of the Ottoman empire in the First World War and its aftermath put and end to a beautiful tradition of religious and ethnic tolerance and the descriptions depicted by the author of the atrocities inflicted on women and children in this novel are very harrowing(one in particular will never leave my mind) but while it was difficult reading in places I only had to read about it............thousands of woman and children had to endure it. There is also wonderful humour though out the story and some laugh out loud moments that read like a breath of fresh air.The writing, the characters, the setting and the history is all impeccably crafted. I did however have a hard time getting into the novel as I found the first 100 pages hard going and only for a friend had warned me about this I could easily have put this book aside and missed out on a wonderful read. I think the novel at 625 pages was quite a long read and perhaps could have been shortened as some of the chapters are overwritten and very descriptive. That aside I loved and enjoyed the novel very much and I would recommend this for lovers of history.
—Dem
Well I would like to put three and a half stars for this book. This book is about the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the author simultaneously contrasts the happenings of the international political world with that of a small cast-away village where Greek Christians and Turkish Muslims lived side by side. Being from Greece, you are 'taught' that the Ottoman Empire was an evil and repressive empire and hence why Greeks hate Turks and visa versa. What de Bernieres succeeds in doing is not belittle any nations' sentiments or tribulations, but rather demonstrate, how after years boundaries are much harder to find. In the village in the book, everyone speaks Turkish, and the religions mix with Muslims asking their Christian friends to place ex-votos on the icon of the Virgin Mary and likewise Christians praying in the Muslim fashion. Many people did not see themselves as Greek or Turk but rather Ottoman, until the wars of independence. When the two nations 'traded' over their 'citizens' many did not feel like they belonged to their new found nations. I only have two reproaches to this book. One is that for authenticity he uses many Turkish and Greek phrases, but with no translation or glossary. The Greek I could read, but not the Turkish. Second the two characters of Ibrham and Philothei I found a bit bland, empty and boring. I didn't care much for them and preferred hearing about other more colourful characters, although this might have been the aim.
—Rea
“The people who remained in this place have often asked themselves why it was that Ibrahim went mad. I am the only one who knows, but I have always been committed to silence, because he begged me to respect his grief, or, as he also put it, to take pity on his guilt.”Set in southwestern Anatolia (today Turkey) before and during World War I, Birds Without Wings is a wonderful novel about a small village and the people who live there. Prior to the war, the community is made up of Muslims and Christians, who live peaceably together. We have Ibrahim, a young Muslim boy who loves the beautiful Christian girl named Philothei. They plan to marry, but the war will forever change their lives and the lives of everyone in their village.This was the first book I’ve read of Louis De Bernieres (who also wrote the notable Corelli’s Mandolin). To say I was impressed in an understatement. It is nearly the perfect novel. The characters are engaging and unforgettable. The story is riveting. The writing is so eloquent – few authors ever achieve such brilliance. And to top it all off, De Bernieres includes some very real history of an area that most of us (myself included), know very little about. Birds Without Wings is now added to my “favorites” list! 4 1/2 stars!
—Suzanne
