Faulks to read 'Birdsong' at Borders

Elizabeth, one of the main characters in Sebastian Faulks' generation-spanning novel "Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War," finds herself driven to forge a connection between her life in 1978 and her grandfather's life during World War I. After reading his diaries, she discovers that "Although she was happy enough with what she had become, it was this continued sense of the easy, the essential nature of what she did, that most irritated her. She thought of Tom Brennan, who had known only life or death, then death in life. In her generation there was no intensity."

PREVIEW
	Sebastian Faulks Tonight at 7:30 Borders Free

Reading this book, we can't help but agree with her. The contrast between Elizabeth's mundane grocery list of a life and the landscape of war is acute; even Elizabeth's affair with a married man seems like something she's doing to pass time, while two generations ago her grandfather seemed nearly obliterated by the flame of passion. Though Faulks' point is reasonable, I admit that I felt as if by giving Elizabeth - the representation of recent generations--such a comfortable life, he was slightly belittling the unique struggles of our modern existence. Indeed, the two lives seem so far apart that when intertwined they resemble a clumsy couple doing the two-step.

These awkward connections are perhaps the only weak part of Faulks' skillful, complex novel. The sections of the novel set early in the century are forceful enough to stand on their own as stories of innocence and passions thwarted by war. Faulks' roots as a journalist explain his obsession with detail, which is alternately delightful and painful. No sense is left unexplored, be it the taste of a woman's skin or the smell of decaying bodies. The scenes in the trenches seem well-researched and are genuinely moving.

Also beautiful is the unsubtle but effective way Faulks deals with the theme of recording the past for future generations. Both written and oral narrative are given high importance, and Faulks praises procreation as the best way to carry on values into the next era. The author must be praised for giving equal voice to female characters in the novel; it's rare to receive a feminine viewpoint in a novel about war.

"Birdsong" is Faulks' fourth novel, and it spent more than a year on Britain's bestseller list. The author will be reading an excerpt from the novel tonight at 7:30 at Borders to celebrate its paperback debut. Both lovers and warriors are bound to find something provocative to think about in Faulks' weighty and redemptive narrative.

09-19-97