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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
What a book. Pat Barker writes beautifully and viscerally in this interweaving story of fact and fiction.
Regeneration follows the harrowing stories of British soldiers being treated for 'shell shock' at Craiglockhart War Hospital in 1917. We follow anthropologist and psychologist William Rivers as he treats patients suffering with what we would now call PTSD. One such patient is poet Siegfried Sassoon, who has been sent to Craiglockhart for releasing an anti war declaration, claiming that men are dying needlessly as the war continues with no end in sight. Billy Prior, David Burns and Wilfred Owen are other notable patients struggling to recover and reconcile with their time in France. Barker covers topics such as war, class, homosexuality, suicide, trauma and masculinity.
I also enjoyed the book's portrayal of women during the war, including how many women took up jobs they wouldn't otherwise be permitted to during peace time. And how for some women dealing with unhappy or abusive home's, having their husbands away in France was a chance for them to find freedom and contentment.
Haunting and heartbreaking, but written brilliantly.
Regeneration follows the harrowing stories of British soldiers being treated for 'shell shock' at Craiglockhart War Hospital in 1917. We follow anthropologist and psychologist William Rivers as he treats patients suffering with what we would now call PTSD. One such patient is poet Siegfried Sassoon, who has been sent to Craiglockhart for releasing an anti war declaration, claiming that men are dying needlessly as the war continues with no end in sight. Billy Prior, David Burns and Wilfred Owen are other notable patients struggling to recover and reconcile with their time in France. Barker covers topics such as war, class, homosexuality, suicide, trauma and masculinity.
I also enjoyed the book's portrayal of women during the war, including how many women took up jobs they wouldn't otherwise be permitted to during peace time. And how for some women dealing with unhappy or abusive home's, having their husbands away in France was a chance for them to find freedom and contentment.
Haunting and heartbreaking, but written brilliantly.
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
War and poetry encompassed into a novel. I loved this book and looking into the "unknown" vulnerability of men/soldiers in that time period. It was really nice to see the argument coming through that men are allowed to cry and feel sh*tty at times of stress... LIKE WAR. Pat Barker definitely makes a good critique of war through Siegfried Sassoon.
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Book one of the Regeneration Trilogy by the brilliant Pat Barker.
This is an acutely observed, and compassionately rendered story of Siegfried Sassoon's brush with PTSD after time in the trenches of France. Sassoon is the central figure, though not necessarily the most interesting, and the story of "regenerating" soldiers back into combat serves as the pivot point for a study of war, class, psychiatry, and even homosexuality, and poetry.
I'm looking forward to continuing with book two: The Eye in the Door.
This is an acutely observed, and compassionately rendered story of Siegfried Sassoon's brush with PTSD after time in the trenches of France. Sassoon is the central figure, though not necessarily the most interesting, and the story of "regenerating" soldiers back into combat serves as the pivot point for a study of war, class, psychiatry, and even homosexuality, and poetry.
I'm looking forward to continuing with book two: The Eye in the Door.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Agony in the Garden 1917
Historical fiction is the antithesis of murder mystery. We already know who done it, how it was done, and why. The only possible plot involves the psychological drama which lies behind the action, not the motive but the motivating forces which establish the dramatic tension that leads to a motive.
So from the start the reader knows the outcome of Regeneration: Siegfried Sassoon goes back on the line. He needn’t have gone back to the front; he was already a decorated hero who had been assigned a post in a training command. How and why he manages to put himself there is the substance of Barker’s story.
The story has a dynamic, a flow of forces which has an uncertain result until the end comes. It starts in medias res at the point that Sassoon has already committed himself to a Christ-like course of action. Or rather to a Christ-like aspiration since he has been thwarted by his friend Robert Graves, an anti-Judas, from presenting himself before a courts martial of fellow officers, the equivalent of the prefecture of Pontius Pilate.
Sassoon’s emotional state is at this point profoundly confused. As a platoon leader he has an intense loyalty to the men he commands, which is amplified by an equally intense need for the camaraderie that he finds with them at the front. However he also has an overwhelming revulsion for the horrors he and these men have experienced. And that revulsion is then associated through a sort of psychological transference with anyone who has not experienced those horrors yet remains enthusiastic for the war effort.
So Sassoon hates more or less everyone except his fellow soldiers - senior officers, non-combatant soldiers, opinionated civilians of all ages and professions, and the civilization of which they are parts. It is this hatred which has driven him to throw his Military Cross into the Mersey and to write and publish his Declaration condemning the war - much in the spirit of Christ’s righteous anger at the merchants of the Temple. Sassoon recognizes that both actions are futile. But, even more to the point, they prevent him from exercising the fraternal love he has for his fellows. If he succeeds in being publicly judged, he will be permanently separated from them.
The process of ‘regeneration’ is therefore one of clarifying the criterion for correct action in what is an intolerable situation. This is Sassoon’s agony in the garden. Each gospel account of Christ’s contemplation of the motivation for his own self-sacrifice provides sparse and different details. Barker’s account could well be the missing content of these gospel stories. The essential issue of both the gospels and Barker’s fiction is not what to do but why to do it.
It is through his poetry and the poetry of his friend Wilfred Owen that Sassoon finds the proper criterion for action. Both elements - the writing which objectifies the situation, and the relationship with Owen and others which corrects and amends the creative object - are necessary for the discernment of what constitutes Reason in a patently unreasonable world. Fortunately, unlike Christ’s friends, Sassoon’s didn’t sleep through his efforts.
I am captive to the thought that Barker’s title refers not merely to Sassoon’s struggle but also is a Joycean double entendre for the agony of an entire generation.
Historical fiction is the antithesis of murder mystery. We already know who done it, how it was done, and why. The only possible plot involves the psychological drama which lies behind the action, not the motive but the motivating forces which establish the dramatic tension that leads to a motive.
So from the start the reader knows the outcome of Regeneration: Siegfried Sassoon goes back on the line. He needn’t have gone back to the front; he was already a decorated hero who had been assigned a post in a training command. How and why he manages to put himself there is the substance of Barker’s story.
The story has a dynamic, a flow of forces which has an uncertain result until the end comes. It starts in medias res at the point that Sassoon has already committed himself to a Christ-like course of action. Or rather to a Christ-like aspiration since he has been thwarted by his friend Robert Graves, an anti-Judas, from presenting himself before a courts martial of fellow officers, the equivalent of the prefecture of Pontius Pilate.
Sassoon’s emotional state is at this point profoundly confused. As a platoon leader he has an intense loyalty to the men he commands, which is amplified by an equally intense need for the camaraderie that he finds with them at the front. However he also has an overwhelming revulsion for the horrors he and these men have experienced. And that revulsion is then associated through a sort of psychological transference with anyone who has not experienced those horrors yet remains enthusiastic for the war effort.
So Sassoon hates more or less everyone except his fellow soldiers - senior officers, non-combatant soldiers, opinionated civilians of all ages and professions, and the civilization of which they are parts. It is this hatred which has driven him to throw his Military Cross into the Mersey and to write and publish his Declaration condemning the war - much in the spirit of Christ’s righteous anger at the merchants of the Temple. Sassoon recognizes that both actions are futile. But, even more to the point, they prevent him from exercising the fraternal love he has for his fellows. If he succeeds in being publicly judged, he will be permanently separated from them.
The process of ‘regeneration’ is therefore one of clarifying the criterion for correct action in what is an intolerable situation. This is Sassoon’s agony in the garden. Each gospel account of Christ’s contemplation of the motivation for his own self-sacrifice provides sparse and different details. Barker’s account could well be the missing content of these gospel stories. The essential issue of both the gospels and Barker’s fiction is not what to do but why to do it.
It is through his poetry and the poetry of his friend Wilfred Owen that Sassoon finds the proper criterion for action. Both elements - the writing which objectifies the situation, and the relationship with Owen and others which corrects and amends the creative object - are necessary for the discernment of what constitutes Reason in a patently unreasonable world. Fortunately, unlike Christ’s friends, Sassoon’s didn’t sleep through his efforts.
I am captive to the thought that Barker’s title refers not merely to Sassoon’s struggle but also is a Joycean double entendre for the agony of an entire generation.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Bought this a bit on a whim while stranded in a train station; devoured in a few sittings. I loved the way she weaves fiction and history together, the characters are beautifully drawn and the reflection on the traumas of war is thoughtful, incisive, sad, hopeful, humanist... a challenging read but wonderful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, War, Injury/Injury detail
I bought this book ages ago at Tattered Cover in Denver and it has sat on my shelf untouched for years. And I have no idea why. I think I bought it because it is the first in a trilogy, the last of which won the Booker, and y’all know how I feel about Booker books. Anyway, this book was also selected by the NYTimes as one of the 4 best novels of 1994. And? It was excellent! It is about British officers during WWI who are ordered a stay in a hospital, where they can address their emotional problems and go back to the front. Doesn’t sound exactly like a page turner, and the content was difficult at times, but I love the characters and felt that some of the issues were still timely today. While I might read something else next, I will certainly read the other two books in this series.