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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A quiet, deceptive look at WWI, based on real-life persons and their lives during it. Starring the famous psychiatrist William Rivers and his most famous patient, the poet Siegfried Sassoon, who is best known for his satirical antiwar poetry, the book examines their time together in a hospital, as well as a look at many other patients. It's written quiet deceptively, with a quiet, gray sheen over the entire thing. You don't fully realize how devastating the book is until you reach the end and have time to reflect about what you've learned. This is tragedy at its finest.
I have absolutely no knowledge of WWI, but I was still able to read this book, and I learned a lot too. It's part of a trilogy, the last of which won a Booker prize, and I am quite looking forward to reading the two others in the series.
I have absolutely no knowledge of WWI, but I was still able to read this book, and I learned a lot too. It's part of a trilogy, the last of which won a Booker prize, and I am quite looking forward to reading the two others in the series.
I'm glad I slowed down a little bit with this one because I almost missed this weird wry humor that popped up in the oddest of scenes. I enjoyed that, though. And I enjoyed that, despite being a book scarcely over 200-something pages long, Barker was able to fully develop so many characters (Rivers and Prior were my favorites, although I'm very partial to Sassoon). I've never read a book that so uniquely blends truth and fiction so as to be plausibly real but undeniably fabricated. Maybe I'll actually read the last sequel, even though I didn't like The Eye In The Door that much.
Early treatment of PTSD, the electrical treatments were harrowing, this follows Siegfried Sassoon and the psychologist who treated him after he publishes his declaration of protest against the continuation of the war. Features several characters from history.
Not a bad one but the narrator didn't really gel with me.
Not a bad one but the narrator didn't really gel with me.
“If anything, he was amused by the irony of the situation that he, who was in the business of changing people, should himself have been changed and by somebody who was clearly unaware of having done it .... A society that devours it’s young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance.”
Beautiful story focused on the psychological impact of war. The first installment of a trilogy set in World War I - with officers convalescing in a psychiatric hospital. The book looks at the differences between the predominantly upper class officers and the lower class men they are responsible for, the way the mind responds to the stress of war and the following period of inactivity when recuperating from a wound. The two main characters are Rivers - one of the doctors at the psychiatric hospital - and Sassoon an English poet (both real) whose poetry is interspersed in the story.
So I started book this year's ago during AS Level English and though I never finished it...I decided I wanted to one day.
I finally found a copy recently in a charity shop and added it to my TBR.
This was a book I enjoyed but some of the last few chapters felt pointless and were hard to get through. I did however find the book and subject matter interesting. And even amongst the seriousness and horror there were some amusing lines.
I may one day finish this trilogy depending on how I feel in the future.
I finally found a copy recently in a charity shop and added it to my TBR.
This was a book I enjoyed but some of the last few chapters felt pointless and were hard to get through. I did however find the book and subject matter interesting. And even amongst the seriousness and horror there were some amusing lines.
I may one day finish this trilogy depending on how I feel in the future.
'A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance.' A really, really interesting read, excited to read the next two.
I had to read this for school, and I'm glad I did because it was interesting, if slow and with a clear message: war is bad. This novel focuses on Rivers and a group of patients with shell-shock at a ward during World War I. It's a look at early techniques in psychiatry and how absolutely horrible war is. Regeneration also includes many historical characters; Rivers himself was real, Sassoon was a conscientious objector and of course, the poet Owen is also present.
There are a handful of other characters that stand out: Burns, who can't eat due to his trauma, and Prior, who is selectively mute. It's an interesting demonstration of how war trauma affects people. My complaint is that at times it felt like the novel was written simply to showcase the horrors and aftereffects of the war; there wasn't much of a plot other than that.
I feel like how Baker uses fictionalized versions of real characters to tell a story lessens its impact. Now, I actually have read a history book about Britain's anti-war movement, and I can't remember reading about Owen or Sassoon, but this book makes me want to revisit it. Is it better to read a fictionalized version of events that gets the message across, or a history book that tells many different sides? I guess it's just preference.
There are a handful of other characters that stand out: Burns, who can't eat due to his trauma, and Prior, who is selectively mute. It's an interesting demonstration of how war trauma affects people. My complaint is that at times it felt like the novel was written simply to showcase the horrors and aftereffects of the war; there wasn't much of a plot other than that.
I feel like how Baker uses fictionalized versions of real characters to tell a story lessens its impact. Now, I actually have read a history book about Britain's anti-war movement, and I can't remember reading about Owen or Sassoon, but this book makes me want to revisit it. Is it better to read a fictionalized version of events that gets the message across, or a history book that tells many different sides? I guess it's just preference.