little bitty girl

I must admit that I have never read any of Louis de Berniere's works. I can already hear the audible gasp going around the internet. But what about Captain Corelli's Mandolin, you ask? My answer would be, there are just so many books out there and so little time!

This was a gift from a friend and I really love books as presents because it forces you to read something that you might not have picked yourself.

Birds Without Wings is a story based in Anatolia, around the 1900's. In a little village, Christians and Muslims live harmoniously together before the greater forces of the world and other people's ideology force these neighbours to be torn apart. The stories are written in third person in several of the main characters' voices. It gives the reader an insight to the struggles that the different generations and sexes have to overcome during this tumultuous time.

There is the lovely Philothei, a Greek Christian who has been loved and has loved her childhood friend, Ibrahim, a Turk Muslim. There is Rustem Bey, an official within the village who is constantly seeking the love of his wife, who cannot love him back. The book speaks of these villagers, whose lives are so interwoven into each other's that when forces drive them apart, the reader cannot help but be left with such an immensely large sense of loss.

Louis de Berniere is obviously a master craftsman when it comes to the English language. Each passage is so intricately and beautifully written. Every word is weighed out thoughtfully and even though the larger sense of the book has tragedy and sadness, he also manages to capture light and laughter.

What I loved about the book is that it enlightened me on a subject that is nearly unknown to me -- the turn of the century struggle for the Ottaman Empire, which inevitably led to the exile and removals of Greeks and Turks from their birthlands, to form the two separate nations. It is a book that is so significant especially in these current times of turmoil and misunderstanding among nations.

It illustrates how one person's or a few people's ideology of what "should be" can destroy a nation and separate individuals. The book suggests how even the sanest and wisest of people can be caught up in the madness of a nation when pushed enough. At the end, it illustrates how we humans tend to inflict death and destruction upon one another for "causes" that will no longer make sense to us at the end of it all.

"Man is a bird without wings, and a bird is a man without sorrows......Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us."