Product Description

Within the padded walls of a military hospital sits Birdy, utterly silent. But who is to say that he's really mad? His sub-standard army psychiatrist still hasn't caught on that his patient seems to think that he's a bird, and recruits Birdy's childhood friend to try to get through to him. Out of a young man's need for escape and his consuming obsession with birds and flight, William Wharton has spun a dazzling story shot through with humour, wisdom, tenderness, tragedy and longing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #122991 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author
William Wharton was born in America and is now a painter in Paris.

Customer Reviews

Birdy, more than a book
i first read birdy at fourteen, saw the film at sixteen,and now at twenty eight,i still find the hairs on the back of my neck stand up with an acute sensitivity in the way William Wharton expresses emotion,and questions the fine line between sanity and madness.i was seventeen when i lost my own mind,have since found it again!knowing all too well the difference between both mental states, i am refreshed to find the talent and life experience in any writer able to express such concepts so accurately and delicately,whilst retaining a great balance of normality and humour simply astonishing.

Birdy - soars to great heights.
I have read this book many times during the last 20+ years. I came accross it by chance and after I had read it marvelled at my good fortune in finding it. In those days it was not widely known. The Alan Parker movie had not yet been made and the synopsis of the story may not have motivated you to buy it. But once involved in the depths of the story I found myself telling anyone who would listen what a great book it is. On further readings I uncovered other angles to the story that I hadn't thought about at first. There are immensley strange bits eg. when the main character as a bird is inlove with another bird! But this is necessary to understand his obsession/involvement in this part of his life.

Do read this book but be prepared to immerce youself into the events and you will find you cannot put this book down.

Classic Tale of Friendship
"Birdy" has been often compared to such novels as Heller's "Catch-22", the tendency for the book to be read as a war novel was strengthened by the movie based on the novel in 1985, directed by Alan Parker, which moved the time of its action to the days of the Vietnam War. The book, however, concentrates on the issues of adolescence, growing up, and reaching maturity.
"Birdy" tells a story of two friends Al and Birdy who met in pre-war Philadelphia and who friendship survives the war when Al is invited to a mental ward where Birdy is kept after his traumatic war-time experiences which which brought about his mental-breakdown. The reader becomes gradually acquainted with their adventures in flash-backs and witnesses Birdy re-awakening.
The book rings true both a nostalgic description of the pre-war working class US which no longer exists, a chronicle of friendship and a description of mental disorder. Must read - you can follow the reading with the movie and there is Peter Gabriel's CD to accompany the novel!