Regeneration by Pat Barker Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Regeneration
Book Review: Not My Cup of Tea. Maybe It's Yours.
Summary: 1 Stars
I wanted to like this book. I can't say that I didn't try. But after the first hundred pages or so, I still could not get interested in the book. The basis for the novel is promising:
REGENERATION is the story of the English poet, Siegfried Sassoon, and his time spent in an insane asylum during World War I. Sassoon was committed for making a declaration that the war was "being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it". His objection to the war was not based on religious or pacifist reasons but because the war had come to a point of being pointless to continue.
I kept on waiting for the book to take me somewhere. It did not. The novel plods on and on and on with no apparant plot other than Sassoon being in a war hospital for mental patients. There's no suspense, no real storyline, just people being and doing and saying. The book concerns the case histories of various men in the mental hospital. However, each of these characters are based on the real stories told in Sassoon's poetry. So, I suppose that the reason that I had difficulty distinguishing between characters was that their viewpoints were all based on the original viewpoints of the same man: Sassoon.
There was only one small storyline in the novel that seemed to be come alive to me -- a small love story of sorts. However, the love story ended abruptly as if the author got bored with it.
This book was recommended to our book club by someone who said that this book had changed her life. So, obviously, some people have truly loved this book. The author even made it into a trilogy. But this bookworm won't be continuing the series . . . even if one of the books in the trilogy did win a Booker award.
Book Review: Not your typical war story
Summary: 4 Stars
I began this book thinking it would be exactly like other books I had read about World War I. I thought it would be like "All Quiet on the Western Front," complete with gore, death, and tragedy. However, "Regeneration" turned out to be more about the tragic effects of the war rather than the brutal warfare. This was a new perspective for me. Pat Barker's characters questioned the war and its aims. The novel begins with Siegfried Sassoon's declaration opposing the war, questioning the figures of authority, and advocating a peace negotiation. Yet, as the novel continues, the reader sees how conflicted the characters really are. While two of the main characters, Sassoon and his doctor Rivers, constantly see what the war has done to the British youth, they also feel the need to be present at the front so they can protect the other soldiers. It is a complicated feeling that is never completely resolved. Barker makes a connection to a caterpillar's metamorphosis to a butterfly. If one were to cut open the cocoon, one would not see a creature that was half butterfly and half caterpillar. Instead, the caterpillar would be in a state of decay. The views of the characters decay and discretely develop as the novel progresses. Through seeing the effects of the war, the characters begin to develop new opinions of the war and its direction.
Simultaneously, Barker incorporates authentic poetry written by the soldiers to display the different ways the war affected the different characters. Both Sassoon and Owen, another patient at the hospital, write of the war. Sassoon writes of the brutalities and realities while Owen writes of the utter hopelessness. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It provided new insight for me into the World War I British society.
Book Review: One man's horrid experiences are...inspirations for another man's poetry//a random assortment of opinions on Regeneration
Summary: 3 Stars
From the very beginning I was interested by this book, but for some reason it took me a ridiculously long time to read.
I thought it was very interesting how non-fictional characters such as Siegfriend Sassoon, a poet who really existed, as well as Wilfred Owen, were incorporated into this fictional story. I appreciated the fact that Sassoon was against the war although he was a decorated war hero. It is rare to find a story about war in which the protagonist is against the war. Although I have not read any other books on WWI other than "All Quiet on the Western Front", this is the first time I have seen the war looked at from the psychological post-war effects. I thought that was interesting despite the fact that not many psychological cases are examined in detail in this book. I enjoyed the fact though, that the time in which Rivers spends with Sassoon ends up forcing Rivers to question himself and everything he previously stood for- a kind of role reversal of doctor and patient. The title of the book refers to the medical studies attempting to reattach nerve endings and restore senses to wounded men. I think this is slightly ironic though. This is because the men who loose feeling in their body become so do to horrific wounds which are painful and violent enough to tear apart nerves which leave them unable to feel, but when these nerves are reattached, the men are only able to feel their pain, restoring also sense-memory images of the horrific war as well as the physical and mental pain they did, are, and will feel.
Book Review: Outstanding.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a terrific book. One of the best novels I have read in years, it contains wonderful writing, superb character studies, and addresses moral questions of great importance. While this book will be read and enjoyed by everyone, it has some special interest for physicians (like me). This book contains the best deciption of the complexities of the doctor-patient relationship I have ever encountered and uses the special nature of this relationship to highlight the moral dilemma inherent in balancing the claims of the state with that of individuals. Readers should be aware that the central metaphor of the book, regeneration, is drawn from a famous experiment in clinical neuroscience, performed by one of the protagonists of this novel.
I also recommend very strongly the other books in Pat Barker's WWI trilogy, especially the concluding book, The Ghost Road. The concluding section of The Ghost Road is a tour de force of remarkable power.Book Review: Poets, Patients and Psycological illness.
Summary: 5 Stars
Pat Barker's booker prize winning book made for excellent reading with an in depth but readable story of mental health. With some intriguing looks into the decisions the army made, during the first world war, regarding mental health and it's treatment. This book provides a gripping look at a place where the real world meets the imagained and the people on the borderline of both. All in all, a great read, one which will make you want to read the sequels and learn what happens to all the carachters.