132,566
edits
Changes
From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Birdy
|author=William Wharton
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|pages=320
|publisher=Vintage Books USA
|date=February 1992
|isbn=0679734120
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0140053549</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0140053549|aznus=<amazonus>0679734120</amazonus>
}}
His shattered face swathed in bandages from a series of reconstructive surgeries, Al Columbato leaves one military hospital for another. This time it is not for treatment, but to help a childhood friend. When he arrives even Al, well used to Birdy's strangeness, is shocked at his condition. Birdy is in a secure mental unit in a catatonic state, crouched upon the floor unmoving, unable even to feed himself. It is Al's task, given to him by the hospital psychiatrist Dr Weiss, to talk to Birdy, to try to rouse him from his stupor. The two boys have been friends for years, the closest friends imaginable. War had separated them and now that war is over they are together again, and yet they are still apart, for one has returned with terrible physical injuries, the other with his senses destroyed. And only Al knows that Birdy is living his life as he always wanted to live it, as a bird.
{{amazontext|amazon=0140053549}}
{{amazonUStext|amazon=0679734120}}
{{commenthead}}
|name=Kate
|verb=said
|comment=''' My y father recommended this book, and it made me cry, and meant much to me. I've also read Pride and Dad by the same author, and the movies that have been made of Dad and Birdy just don't quite do the books justice.
My father reckons he must have known Wharton (a pen name) - he describes the neighbourhoods my dad grew up in at the right time. My dad and his best friend figure that Wharton was a few years older, and went to the local Catholic school, but they spent many an entertaining hour trying to work it out. I don't think they ever did.}}
