Birds Without Wings

By: Louis de Bernieres

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in Southwest Turkey (Anatolia) in the early part of the last century - a quirky community in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have coexisted peacefully over the centuries and where friendship, even love, has transcended religious differences.

But with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the onset of the Great War, the sweep of history has a cataclysmic effect on this peaceful place: The great love of Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim, a Muslim shepherd who courts her from near infancy, culminates in tragedy and madness; two inseparable childhood friends who grow up playing in the hills above the town suddenly find themselves on opposite sides of the bloody struggle; and Rustem Bey, a wealthy landlord, who has an enchanting mistress who is not what she seems.

Far away from these small lives, a man of destiny who will come to be known as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is emerging to create a country from the ruins of an empire. Victory at Gallipoli fails to save the Ottomans from ultimate defeat, and as a new conflict arises, Muslims and Christians struggle to survive, let alone understand, their part in the great tragedy that will reshape the whole region forever.

©2004 Louis de Bernieres (P)2004 Books on Tape

Journey in another time

This book transports you to a small village in Turkey (Ottoman Empire)in ther early 1900's. How people of diffrent core beliefs can live together and yes trust each other because they take them for what they are - human. How simple things make life better for us all. However a larger less friendly and less understanding world is just outside their village, and when it arrives everything changes - forever. You walk hand in hand with the characters as they journey through their lives and feel both the joy and sorrow of their changing world.
Wonderfully written and the narration by John Lee is just superb. He makes you feel like your living in this village. I highly recommend!

good story, fascinating history

This is a long book, and not always riveting, but still a tremendous read. The narration is excellent. The book itself surrounds the political travails of the Ottoman Empire as it dissolves and is replaced by the nation of Turkey, in the process going from being extremely multiethnic to being more nationalistic. It interweaves the stories of ordinary people in an ordinary village with a description of the historical events through the character of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). It gives a great feel for the culture, geography, and time period in which it is set, and the characters are sympathetic and well drawn. Writing about this era is bound to be controversial, and depending on your politics, you can find him anti-Greek, anti-Turkish, anti-Kurdish, anti-Armenian, or whatever you want. The author tries to be even-handed, though personally I thought he was a bit too pro-Turkish and against everyone else, but as biases go, it was pretty slight. Great book!

What a wonderfully woven story

Though the story took place in a fictional ottman/turkish village, the stories of love and tenderness even in the worst of times, war and its devastation, innocence and innocence lost are universal. BWW made me laugh, cry and hope the story would go on forever. The odd juxtaposition of the rise of Mustafa Kamal became more meaningful as the characters developed, and as the villagers of Eskabache were so sorrowfully affected by the coming and progress of WWI. Someday, I may listen again, or read the book. You will not be disappointed.

Simply the best

This marvelous book kept me enthralled. The characters are fully developed - I felt as if I knew them, and I deeply cared about them. The narration is superb and adds greatly to the feeling of personal intimacy with each character. The historical sweep is grand, covering the period immediately before the first world war and continuing to well after, paralleling the rise of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, whose biography is interwined throughout. I am sorry that the story has come to an end. My only question: when will Audible offer another of Louis de Berniere's books to its listeners?

Captivating

This book -- both wonderfully written and narrated -- transports you to the small villages in Turkey in ther early 1900's. Birds allows you walk hand in hand with the characters as they journey through life largely driven by decisions made during and after WWI had and experience the lives of the Turks and Greeks at that time.

Echoing the suggestion of another reviewer, I highly recommend reading Paris 1919 in conjunction with Birds Without Wings. Together they provide a complete perspective on how these -- and other -- countries were forever altered by both the war and the decisions made at the peace table.

Birds Without Wings is wonderful love story, a lesson in history, and a tremendous insight into Muslim and Christian religions. I even bought a waterproof Ipod case so that I could listen to the book while swimming!

Great piece

Good story, great characters, and a masterful rendering by the reader, who adds so much to this wonderful title. A no brainer this one. The best audio book I found to date (out of 10).

Strong start...

If you want to grow attached to quirky characters set in what we now know as Turkey and then listen to hours of their lives being ravaged by war, then this is for you. Provides interesting historical, cultural, and political background. Awesome performance. Ratio of peace to war was effectively oppressive.

Great

Loved every minute. Great narration. Fascinating history. Really a masterpiece. Relevant for this moment in history.

Loved it! Great book!

An absolutly fascinating story! A great narrator. Higly recommend this book. I have learned a lot about the history of Turkey and enjoyed a story very much endeed

Bird Without Wings

I so was moved by this book that I'm writing my first reader review. I previously read Paris 1919 and the two should read in sequence. Paris 1919 tell us of the machinations of rather stupid political leaders( Lloyd George, Wilson and Clemenceau) who in their effort to sort out national interests and greed for colonies, after WW 1 destroyed lives, nations and cultures. The Ottoman empire made many bad decisions such as joining the Germans in WW 1Turks as well as Greeks and Armenians paid a terible price. But their are enough tit for tat atrocities for all to share blame equally.. Thereare are no heroes,except the little people who are surviviors. De Berniere, in this well-told book tells us, in initmate. eloquent and graphic terms the implication of decisions by leaders caught up in their own national and self interest (something like Iraq today) reaping horrible unintended consequences on the lives of little people in a small town in Anatolia - todays Turkey. Bird without Wings is a story of people whose lives were greatly altered if not destroyed by so called bigger people who exercised horrible political judgments which fed nationalisitic and religious ferocity.
The little people of this novel are wonderfully colorful and full of delightful rural small town normalcy and quirkiness. De Bernieres uses fascinating literary strategies. A gentle man who is both merchant and philanthropist. is shot and thrown into the bay. While drowning he spends his last seconds ( about 10 minutes of dialogue) telling us, in eloquent and forceful language of the sequence of political and personal events by the Paris 1919 leaders that led to his self witnssed. death.
I wish there more stars than five. Again- read in conjunction with Paris 1919. The two together are powerfully good reads ( listens).