Regeneration by Pat Barker Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Regeneration
Book Review: Haunting character study
Summary: 5 Stars
This excellent book is one of the most haunting and beautiful I have read of late. Its vivid cast of characters and their poignant struggles -- both without and within -- challenge the reader to understand the ramifications of the Great War and define what it means to be a member of society.Book Review: Home from the Front
Summary: 4 Stars
Pat Barker's novel details the real-life encounter of the WW1 poet Siegfried Sassoon and the psychiatrist William Rivers in Craiglockhart Hospital for officers suffering from mental trauma as a result of their experience in the trenches. Sassoon, a decorated hero, is saner than most and certainly no coward, but he has published a declaration denouncing the war, which presents a problem to the government. It is Rivers' job to persuade him to go back to France, but he is also acutely aware of the risk of destroying his patient's individuality in so doing. Although the horrors of trench warfare are always there in the background, the author's sympathetic treatment of the leading characters is such as to make it very pleasant to spend time in their company, and it is only towards the end that the novel fully generates the moral force promised by its theme.
Perhaps I was conditioned to respond in a certain way to this book. As an Englishman of a certain generation, the dialogue and texture of the writing was warmly familiar. As an English major, I was absorbed by Pat Barker's treatment of Sassoon's process of distilling his experience into poetry; although he was already known to me, the book made me think of him even more highly, and likewise his contemporary Wilfred Owen, who also appears as a character. A further personal factor is that my own father, like Sassoon, similarly served as a lieutenant in the trenches; he was similarly decorated and I think similarly traumatized. This book makes me wish that I had been able to ask, and he to talk, about the events that clearly destroyed even the survivors of an entire generation.
There is horror in the book for certain, but its greatest effects, like those of the War itself, linger on in the souls of the men who are supposedly out of it. Nothing that Pat Barker descibes of trench warfare come close in immediacy to what I consider the masterpiece of the genre, Sebastian Faulks' BIRDSONG. And by far the most horrific chapter in the book is a so-called medical treatment by a sadistic (and also real-life) London psychologist called Yealland, which is the diametric opposite to the humane methods employed by Rivers, who is a thoroughly admirable and complex individual. So admirable, in fact, that Sassoon feels guilty after a while for spending months among gentlemen in comparative luxury while his men are being slaughtered in France. This reader felt a bit the same: caught up in an easy and even rather escapist read, pondering issues in a somewhat hypothetical way, while the real conflicts are occurring elsewhere. This impression is increased by the more perfunctory treatment of the lesser characters (as other reviewers have observed), who seem to come more from a Masterpiece Theatre script than from real life.
All the same, the questions that are posed in the last third of the book have significant gravity, and I look forward to reading the two succeeding novels in the trilogy, THE EYE IN THE DOOR and THE GHOST ROAD, to see whether their weight is allowed to build cumulatively from here on out.*
*[Later: I have now read all three books, and though I found them all interesting, I felt that the special quality given by the narrower focus of REGENERATION got lost when Pat Barker expanded the canvas. See my review of THE GHOST ROAD.]
Book Review: How sad that noone understands anything about the great war
Summary: 5 Stars
A number of people who know nothing about the Great War have written laughable and pathetic reviews of Barker's book. The 1914-1918 war is properly called the Great War and never WW1. THe Craiglockhart hospital, not facility, was set up by William Rivers-Rivers, generally regarded as the father of British psychiatry. It was a hospital for shell-shocked officers. At one time the three geatest British poets of the war--Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen and Robert Graves were all patients at Craiglockhart. The stereotypical view of the war presented by all the misinformed reviewers has been rejected by serious contemporary historians. Any one who would presume to comment on Barker's marvellous novels should know something about the war and about its literature. All the reviews which have been posted so far are worthless.Book Review: Important central issues are discussed more than adequately!
Summary: 5 Stars
'Regeneration' establishes its setting, atmosphere and characters from an early stage, providing a platform upon which the central concerns of the novel can be discussed effectively, and Pat Barker is certainly successful in performing this task.At the very beginning she introduces the controversial theme of the purpose of war, in the form of Siegfried Sassoon's Declaration. This is one of the major central concerns which can be traced throughout the novel. Sassoon believes that enough has been done for negotiations to commence and sees further fighting as a waste. Barker's technique of varying the viewpoint from which the reader sees issues through the use of contrasting characters contributes to the novel's success. For example, Sassoon believes his declaration to be credible whereas the Board see him as 'shell-shocked'. Barker soon changes her emphasis from the purpose of the war to its effects.
The mental effects on soldiers is the other key concern of the novel, from which stem numerous other issues. It is treated extremely seriously. Barker tackles the issue of war neurosis extremely efficiently by portraying horrific events and emotions. The terrible detail in which she goes into is the key way in which she successfully lays down the aims of the novel. She uses a number of characters, each having been exposed to different circumstances and suffering, in contrasting ways. This highlights the extent of the issue, and also divides the reader's emotions.
Pat Barker introduces numerous issues in 'Regeneration' which provoke the reader to consider their own opinions and to become emotionally involved. These issues are then built upon as the novel progresses. A very interesting book!
That is what I thought about it. I would be interested to hear your views!
Book Review: Insightful WW1 profiles from well researched imagined psychological counselling sessions with the `shell-shocked'
Summary: 4 Stars
This book covers some of the same ground as Ben Elton's praiseworthy The First Casualty, although in an entirely different way. Both try to retrofit as mainstream largely post-60s values towards homosexuality, pacifism, and atheism (in the latter case by omission in writing as if Christianity was as marginalised as it is today, an historical absurdity), but in their defence it could be reasonably argued that of course homosexuals, pacifists and atheists/agnostics were plentiful. While Elton surrounds his message with action and a crime story, Barker instead goes deeply into conversation and rumination, and in both cases there's so much more to the book than mere preaching.
Barker ambitiously imagines encounters between real and fictional historical figures. Of course once she's imagining dialogue that's not recorded her characters are all fictional, but her painstaking research (and the availability of so much detailed material) makes for some powerfully authentic writing. Moreover she has an impressive ability for informed empathy: she asks herself, "What would Dr. Rivers, or Sassoon have been thinking? How would they have reacted?" and comes up with some fascinating and plausible answers. Plausible? Hang on a minute: they seem plausible to me, a guy who'd never even heard of Rivers or Sassoon before reading this book! It would be interesting to hear reactions of others who had studied (or knew) them.
There is not a standard plot, and much of the book is composed of recreations of counselling sessions between `shell-shocked' soldiers and their psychologist. Barker's version of Dr. Rivers is a real triumph - one of the most developed characters I've probably come across. Hats off to Barker for having the skill, compassion and intelligence to convince us of Rivers' skill, compassion and intelligence by what she has him say and do. He's not a quaint historical curiosity, but clearly someone Barker has read extensively and admires. The way she's immersed herself in writing from the time making her characters not `just like us', but still wonderfully real reminds me of O'Brian's marvellous RN stories (much as the authors portray quite distinct attitudes towards battle).