"a rich, mottled chorus, an amalgam of subplots that weave and
complement each other in such a way that the town itself might be
better called the central character. . . . For those who do not
devour it immediately, Birds Without Wings will
sit as great epics sit, on one''s shelf demanding to be read,
making one feel irresponsible and guilty, provoking resolutions of
''must read this before death.'' Do read it before you die. It
would be a terrible thing to have missed a work of such importance,
beauty and compassion."
-Camilla Gibb, The Globe and Mail
"De Bernières has unquestionably crafted a masterpiece."
-The Chronicle Herald
"De Bernières is at his finest when he allows us to experience
hardships and horrors through the lives of the villagers. He writes
movingly of the battle of Gallipoli from the Turkish point of view,
and the brutal, dehumanizing conditions of trench warfare."
-The Seattle Times
"Highly impressive in its ambition and relative readability, to say
nothing of its relevance for a time when the intersection of
religion, nationalism and war is once again reshaping the
world."
-National Post
"De Bernières demands complete attention from his readers, but that
close attention required is well rewarded. . . . Part novel, part
historical document. This is a difficult book that stretches the
traditional form of the novel."
-Edmonton Journal
"This is a work that will move you deeply. A profound sadness and
world-weariness pervade it, though at times it moves us to anger
and pity…. What makes the work so poignant is de Bernières'
exquisite ability to draw complex and fully realized characters
about whom we come to care…. De Bernières will not let us forget
that these things have happened and will happen again."
-Kitchener-Waterloo Record
"De Bernières distributes his scorn and his compassion evenly,
concerned as he is with questions that cut across lines of
nationality and religion. An undertone of righteous disgust at what
the powerful inflict on the powerless is felt throughout this book.
It's affecting and not pedantic, because de Bernières is so good at
depicting the good things that always seem to get trampled…. With a
book as rich as Birds Without Wings…we're free to
sit back and enjoy a huge story well told."
-The Gazette (Montreal)
"Birds Without Wings is superbly written,
gathering people and their hearts and souls and all their baggage
of loss and hope together in one place and giving a point to life.
It is, in every sense, a sublime book."
-The Irish Times
"An absorbing read about a remote but captivating time. The Ottoman
world''s break-up is a rich, poignant story, and Mr. de Bernières
is a good storyteller. At times he is nearly as good as Dido
Sotiriou."
-The Economist
"[Birds Without Wings] bears de Bernières'
literary hallmarks - vast emotional breadth, dazzling
characterization, rich historical detail (and gruesome battle
scenes), swerving between languid sensuality and horror, humour and
choking despair."
-Scotland on Sunday
"He is to be understood not as a one-hit wonder who arrived from
nowhere one year and then disappeared, generating whispers of
writer''s block for the next 10, but as a prolific and ambitious
writer with a rather astonishing body of work, notable for its
dense lyricism, fierce wisdom, soaring passion and remarkable wit.
In this tradition, Birds Without Wings is
pure de Bernières."
-The Globe and Mail
"This is one of the great novels about the early 20th century
and the emerging modern world, an epic of human disaster, on small
and grand scales. Against the background of the collapsing Ottoman
Empire, armies march, populations flee, and mountains of corpses
lie rotting, the landscapes of horror brought fully to our
imaginations in terms so visceral we could weep. . . . One of the
most profound and moving books you''re likely to read."
-The New Zealand Herald
"The most eagerly awaited novel of the year. . . . In counterpoint
to the varieties of love, Birds Without Wings
delivers the hideous violence of mechanised warfare. Its 100-page
centrepiece, in which Karatavuk ("Blackbird") recounts the terror,
squalor and fitful heroism of the Gallipoli campaign, will have
critics reaching for their War and Peace. In
truth, de Bernières . . . is too centrifugal and carnivalesque a
novelist for the Tolstoy comparison. However, he makes of the
carnage a mesmerising patchwork of horror, humour and
humanity."
-Independent (UK)
"[Birds Without Wings] bears de Bernières'
literary hallmarks - vast emotional breadth, dazzling
characterisation, rich historical detail (and gruesome battle
scenes), swerving between languid sensuality and horror, humour and
choking despair."
-Scotland on Sunday
"Dazzling. . .a fabulous book in the tradition of Tolstoy and
Dickens. . . . So joyous and heartbreaking, so rich and musical and
wise, that reading it is like discovering anew the enchanting power
of fiction."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Louis de Bernières is in the direct line that runs through Dickens
and Evelyn Waugh. . .he has only to look into his world, one
senses, for it to rush into reality, colours and touch and
taste."
-A. S. Byatt
Praise for Captain Corelli''s Mandolin:
"Captain Corelli''s Mandolin is an
emotional, funny, stunning novel which swings with wide smoothness
between joy and bleakness, personal lives and history...it''s
lyrical and angry, satirical and earnest."
-The Observer
"From the very first paragraph one regrets that 434 pages are
not going to be enough...a humanist epic told with such sparkling
intelligence, sympathy and control that you can only grovel at the
author''s feet."
-The Guardian
"Brims with all the grand topics of literature - love and
death, heroism and skull-duggery, humor and pathos, not to mention
art and religion."
-The Washington Post Book World
"A wonderful, hypnotic novel of fabulous scope and tremendous
iridescent charm."
-Joseph Heller