Why would birds be made without wings?
The riveting novel by Louis de Bernières asks this question. The images and stories within his landscape shatter the reader’s heart, just as the clay bird whistle of a boy crashes and fractures as he attempts to sacrifice himself for his friend. A beautiful young girl’s love lies waste as war tears the capacity to love from her fiancé’s heart and a devoted father, filled with passion and enthusiasm, wounds the one whom he loves most. So many characters walk the pages of Bernières’s story and nearly all mourn dreams that are thwarted and plundered.
The novel is set in the beautiful countryside of Anatolia, a region sleeping between Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East, and dreaming of peace and customs as war rushes towards it. Greeks, Turks, Russians, and Armenians all mingle in the old town where homes of pink rock are carved out of the hillside’s crevasses; the walls of the valley run down into woody groves and the boulders build up to wild mountain deserts and cliffs that drop dramatically to the sea. Yet the beautiful and idyllic scene stands as a striking metaphor for the calm and communal lives of the villagers which will not stand up to the growing movements of nationalism and self-determination as the Ottoman Empire limps into the 20th century.
Just as the ruins above the town lie quiet, so will the town be eventually silenced by these modern currents.
The author achieves a tremendous feat by relaying important historical information without detracting from the engaging characters. The multi-faceted narrative voice allows certain characters to reflect upon the historical events that forced later decisions and prodded them onwards to their current place. Indeed, by following the growth and career of Mustafa Kemal, a talented and driven boy who grows into an unbeatable general and Turkey’s first president, the narrative injects the various episodes of life with suspense and foreshadowing. The reader already knows the ending when he raises the cover and commences reading, yet the desire to understand how different persons responded to the unfolding of history lures one to the next page over and over again. Though one’s personal comprehension of this time and region may be limited, the dates and maps integrated to the story also stay one’s the focus on the drawing end.
One of the few characters who survives through the last pages is Rustem Bey, a charitable merchant who often comes to the aid of his neighbors, regardless of their ethnicity or class. Yet neither his Turkish background nor his wealth can preserve him from sorrow. The constraints of his religion keep him from forgiving his wife’s adultery and restoring her to their home; likewise, the eyes of society and past woes prevent him from satisfying the vulnerable desires of his mistress.
He is truly the man in the middle, who cannot overturn the passions that pull him from within and without.
Philothei, the beauty of the village who is born within the story’s first pages, is not the main character but acts as the personification of this people’s love and longing. In a striking scene, her friends play as children and launch themselves from the local tomb outcroppings in attempts to fly. One of the boys falls and cries. A mother from the village comforts him and soothes,
“If we had wings, do you think we would suffer so much in one place? Don’t you think we would fly away to paradise?”
Perhaps the grim setting has impressed her motherly consolation with a deeper message. Philothei isn’t present for this sweet scene, though; just pages before she has declared, “I want wings”, and her sheltered youth shuts out the real experiences that would save her from crashing to earth.
The villagers live on. Mothers and widows care for the graves of those lost while looking for the traditional signs that they have passed between worlds peacefully. A caravan of men travels to nearby Smyrna on various business and compete to share the funniest story, be it bawdy or self-deprecating. Whether they are chortling over a joke or acknowledging a moment when God has laughed at them, relishing the pleasure and humor of life speeds their journey forward.
Every story within the novel serves as both a microcosm of the larger struggles of peoples and cultures and as a manifestation of the deeper, internal battle within each man.
The story’s ultimate question is summed up by one woman, young and then grown old in exile, who writes, “But sometimes one should also forget the things that were wonderful and beautiful, because if you remember them, then you have to endure the sadness of knowing they have gone…Why does God give us a garden, and put a snake in it?” Her frustration in not understanding why rings through every character’s lament. The despair within these people – so real by the novel’s end – could sodden the reader’s own heart. Indeed, the crazy man of the village – called “the Dog” – who is half feared and pitied to the point of endearment could stand as a symbol for pathetic man, tormented by sorrow and unfulfilled rational pursuits.
Yet, the story’s beauty endures. Even the Dog has his moment of triumph, an opportunity to save another villager. Those in exile mourned the good things they have loved and lost, but the truth is one cannot lose anything unless one has loved.
While the destructive forces of man are displayed blatantly by the story’s tragedies, the goodness of this village’s life and the value of each person who lived within its now crumbled walls are carved onto the soul of this book.
There is sorrow in the remembering, but there is goodness there too. The last letter-writer notes sadly, that “[we] once fancied ourselves as birds…but we are always confined to earth.” But are we? Doesn’t the very beauty of the world and the love shown by so many defy this final thought? We mourn the fallen. The lost innocent ones. But whether or not Bernières intended the novel’s most haunting refrain, by the story’s end each reader will nevertheless be filled with an aching desire to fly.
