Mention Books During Birdy
| Original Title: | Birdy |
| ISBN: | 0679734120 (ISBN13: 9780679734123) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Birdy, Al |
| Literary Awards: | Pulitzer Prize Nominee for Fiction (1980), National Book Award for First Novel (1980) |
William Wharton
Paperback | Pages: 320 pages Rating: 4.04 | 5633 Users | 222 Reviews
Chronicle To Books Birdy
Hailed upon its publication as "a classic for readers not yet born" (Philadelphia Inquirer), Birdy is an inventive, hypnotic novel about friendship and family, dreaming and surviving, love and war, madness and beauty, and, above all, "birdness." It tells the story of Al, a bold, hot-tempered boy whose goals in life are to life weights and pick up girls, and his strange friend Birdy, the skinny, tongue-tied perhaps genius who only wants to raise canaries and to fly. While fighting in World War II, they find their dreams become all too real—and their lives are changed forever.In Birdy, William Wharton crafts an unforgettable tale that suggests another notion of sanity in a world that is manifestly insane.
Details Out Of Books Birdy
| Title | : | Birdy |
| Author | : | William Wharton |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 320 pages |
| Published | : | February 4th 1992 by Vintage (first published December 12th 1978) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Classics. War. Literature. American. Novels |
Rating Out Of Books Birdy
Ratings: 4.04 From 5633 Users | 222 ReviewsWrite-Up Out Of Books Birdy
Holy Jesus with the canary minutiae, I mean SERIOUSLY. Although it was slightly more interesting than what one might think, it's still hours of canary minutiae. Canary minutiae does not a story make.I'd really like to give this 1.5 stars, because I will never read it again, and I will never recommend it to anyone, yet there were definitely bits that I liked. But overall, it was just . . . the author had nothing to say. "Maybe everyone ELSE are the crazy ones!" Gee, never heard that one before,I begin to wonder what men do that's the same as a canary singing. It's probably thinking. We built this cage, civilization, because we could think and now we have to think because we are in the cage. I'm sure there's a real world still there if I can get out of the cage.
Birdy is a surreal fever dream that deals with mental illness and the travesty of war in a way I have never encountered before. It deals with friendship and coming to terms with the unspeakable evils that we are sometimes forced to do. The plot centers around two men, Al and Birdy, who have been friends since high school. They're an unlikely duo, seeing as Al is a sporty, athletic ladies' man and Birdy is a gawky, gangly runt of a thing, but they are inseparable friends. Both of them are drafted
I really wanted more of a story of friendship and less of an ornithology textbook.Every time Al would narrate a chapter, I would be riveted. I really enjoyed his memories of friendship with Birdy and the horrors of his service in WWII. But then it would switch off to one of Birdys chapters, and my eyes would start to glaze over. I could probably raise a flock of canaries myself, due to the amount of detail that Wharton went into about their needs and habits. It quickly got repetitive and dull.
A good friend lent it to me, saying it was his favourite book. I gave it five stars because the structure is so original, the voice pitch perfect...he pulls off something that i would never imagine possible, it is brave, fascinating, funny. The best parts are where Birdy is trying to distinguish between his daytime life and his nighttime dream, between being a boy or a bird, it is delicious, the blending of reality and dream, you start to believe the dream more than the reality, to want him to
One of the rare cases where the movie is actually better than the book.I understand the message behind the story (what is normal?/what is crazy?) but all the goddamn descriptions of canaries and pigeons got on my nerves. I knew from the start that there would be a lot of bird talk but I wasn't expecting THAT MANY?! I think the movie is extremely moving and thought-provoking in the best way possible, but the book made me feel nothing but exasperation.
It is a long time ago that I saw this movie and bizarrely I've never seen it again on tv or as a dvd so when I picked this up in a charity shop I was pleased that the book was as rewarding as i remember the film had been. At its heart this is a brilliant evocation of frienship and the appalling destruction that the experience of war has upon the individual. Al and birdy are polar opposites at school, one a star of the sporting arena, popular with an eye on girls and a good time but with a brutal
0 Comments