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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Very atypical. A story with little plot, more about character and, mostly, about the big themes -- the biggest -- the human meaning of life and death. The tale of two men in the closing days of WWI: Dr. William Rivers, an historical figure who ten years earlier had studied a Melanesian headhunting tribe's death rituals and now worked as psychiatrist treating shell-shocked soldiers; and Billy Prior, an asthmatic officer sent to Dr. Rivers after his third tour and who wishes to return to the front though he could easily avoid this duty.
The writing is incredible. Luminous details, deep-drilled insights into the characters' thoughts, dialogue that's razor sharp when it wants to be (sometimes, especially among the soldiers, it's not meant to be). There's such authorial confidence from the first page that it left little doubt in my mind it all could have occurred. Interestingly, Barker portrays Prior as highly sexual and unflinchingly details several of his "interludes", and they are not vanilla.
The book alternates chapters between Prior and Rivers, with Prior proceeding more or less chronologically through the final months of the war, and Rivers flashing back from that period to his time on a South Pacific island studying the local rituals, particularly around death. The only weakness for me, and it's a quibble, were some of the transitional devices meant to trigger Rivers' flashbacks. In any case, the parallel is drawn between the warring tribes of WWI and Melanesia insofar as their rituals.
It seemed the point was pointlessness. That war and death were a cycle we're stuck on as humans, that maybe we need war to make sense of life and death. I need to give that more thought.
NB: I haven't read the first two books in this trilogy (yet).
The writing is incredible. Luminous details, deep-drilled insights into the characters' thoughts, dialogue that's razor sharp when it wants to be (sometimes, especially among the soldiers, it's not meant to be). There's such authorial confidence from the first page that it left little doubt in my mind it all could have occurred. Interestingly, Barker portrays Prior as highly sexual and unflinchingly details several of his "interludes", and they are not vanilla.
The book alternates chapters between Prior and Rivers, with Prior proceeding more or less chronologically through the final months of the war, and Rivers flashing back from that period to his time on a South Pacific island studying the local rituals, particularly around death. The only weakness for me, and it's a quibble, were some of the transitional devices meant to trigger Rivers' flashbacks. In any case, the parallel is drawn between the warring tribes of WWI and Melanesia insofar as their rituals.
It seemed the point was pointlessness. That war and death were a cycle we're stuck on as humans, that maybe we need war to make sense of life and death. I need to give that more thought.
NB: I haven't read the first two books in this trilogy (yet).
Part of the Regeneration trilogy - see The Eye in the Door.
Nah, this book was confusing and also super graphic at times.
Must admit I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as the previous two in the trilogy. Personally, I found the long tracts about Rivers time amongst the headhunters rather boring (I'm sure I'm missing some great big profound parallel/metaphor or whatever). I was disappointed that we really didn't get to spend as much time inside Billy Prior's head (a fascinating place). The reason for the abrupt end is clear and yet I couldn't help feeling unsatisfied at the end. It was probably the most appropriate way to end the book - but that doesn't mean I have to like it!
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11098852
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11098852
Very weak, not even that well-written, though I did like the ending. Disappointing after the excellence of the first two books of the trilogy. The Booker was given to this title, but surely the judges meant it for the whole trilogy.
Third and last part of the Regeneration trilogy. Earlier, I read the first book and that made quite a big impression. In this part two characters are followed further, but now at the end of the war (summer and autumn 1918): Dr. Rivers in London, still trying to tinker injured soldiers, and Billy Prior, the asthmatic officer who absolutely wants to get back to the war. Rivers looks back on his time as anthropologist in Polynesia, where he had lived in a community of headhunters become lethargic and lustless by the British ban on head-hunting; precisely the same Great Britain now sent waves of young men to a certain death in Flanders and Northern France; the theme of war as a vitalist force. Prior is one of those men who aware his fate and resolutely going for it, but at the same time struggling with his social background (proletarian) and his sexual orientation (bisexual, described in some fairly explicit scenes). Barker has made of this last part a very rich book, with numerous vistas to a greater whole; but to me it is less successful than the first part, that went much broader and gave more depth to the theme of psychological traumas.
probably my least favourite book of the three. the ending was great (heartbreaking) but the plot just felt non-existent, and was just filling time until prior dies