“This is a rousing historical tale interestingly told“
“The use of theatre and artists throughout adds an interesting dimension to the effect of war on everyday people and especially on those without deep foundations.”
“The author beautifully balances the interesting story of individuals and the complex history of Napoleonic Europe so that neither is overwhelmed. It makes the novel a delightful surreptitious education.“
– Felicity Burke
The Freedom of Birds is a chronicle of foundlings, performers, those outside society trying to make their way about Europe in the midst of the Napoleonic wars. Those displaced, without roots, often with a background of desertion, seek family and acceptance. The freedom they possess at times is that of wild birds: never secure, never safe, sometimes exhilarating, often dangerous. They are both searchers and those being pursued.
This is a rousing historical tale interestingly told in two voices, one of the storyteller and the other of Remi, who starts out as a vain, selfish 16 year old and ends as a better man. It is an epic saga spanning Europe when Napoleon was beginning to loose campaigns and his fate is echoed in the flights of the performers from country to country and from oppressors of many kinds. The use of theatre and artists throughout adds an interesting dimension to the effect of war on everyday people and especially on those without deep foundations. There are strong women characters trying to make change and highlight injustices, but at times they feel a little contrived to empahsise the themes of oppression and subservience.
Birds can fly away as do Remi and Pascal from Paris as more and more men are conscripted for the army. Like birds, they struggle to find a place to belong, having lived on the fringes of society with performers and theatre people, never knowing true family, or betrayed by it. Remi loves the freedom of the open road wheras Pascal, faithful, unrequited friend, longs to go back to the theatre in Paris, the only place he feels at home.
The French boys make their way around Europe, telling stories to feed themselves. Even this living is endangered by the advent of The Brothers Grimm committing tales to paper for anyone to access. Saskia, a circus waif, similarly displaced and without family escapes a cruel captor and throws in her lot with Remi and Pascal.
The machine of war rumbles and pushes them across Germany, Prussia, Poland and Italy, all territories increasingly hostile to the French. They all travel to Venice and become involved in dangerous political theatre. Love begins to entwine Remi, Pascal and Saskia, each in separate liasions, but invasion, affiliations and armies make relationships fraught. Saskia turns out to have more grit than the boys and eventually goes to war disguised as a man to find her lover as the boys return to Paris.
All of the characters are searching; for liberty, for family, for stability, for justice, but often they themselves do not understand what they seek. In the end all they have left is each other.
The author beautifully balances the interesting story of individuals and the complex history of Napoleonic Europe so that neither is overwhelmed. It makes the novel a delightful surreptitious education.
Felicity Burke, On The Page
Author: Stephanie Parkyn
Publisher Allen & Unwin
Published 30 Nov 2021.
Category Historical Fiction
RRP $32.99
