Last week was the book club discussion on Louis de Bernieres' Birds Without Wings, which I finished less than 24 hours ahead of time. (It goes by pretty fast, all told, but it's still a really long book.)
I was very pleased with the discussion, which was almost uniformly positive and struck a good balance between focusing on the book itself and wandering off on related tangents. And as a historian, I was pleased that so many other readers expressed their delight in learning more about a place and era that was new to them. Someone made the point that Americans are likely to be unaware that WWI took place anywhere other than Western Europe. I myself was particularly intrigued with this look at how nationalism took hold (piecemeal, to be sure) and brought about the downfall of one of the great multi-ethnic empires.
The fate of the village - which in a way is the novel's main character - and the villagers is poignant and interesting and seems authentic. I won't give any details, but I felt satisfied.
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