Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by christinebeswick
Regeneration by Pat Barker
5.0
This is a brilliant book; harrowing and brilliant, and beautifully written.
The novel’s central character is the anthropologist turned psychiatrist William Rivers, who is treating victims of breakdown at Craiglockhart hospital in Edinburgh. He is a real figure, as are two of his patients, war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. There are also other real characters in the book including Robert Graves, friend of Sassoon, as well as Dr Lewis Yealland, a fellow psychiatrist. Yealland's “treatment” to cure a patient who has been rendered mute by his war experiences is, to me, one of the most difficult to read parts of the novel. Rivers is present as Yealland’s guest at this event during which Yealland uses severe electric shocks as his method, which seemed to me to be barbaric, but did achieve results, though at what expense, wonders Rivers afterwards.
The descriptions of the war in the trenches are horrific and the contrast between them and the lives of the people at home is stark and does not reflect well on many of the people described, almost in passing. The prevalent attitude to “shell shock” during the first world war is, when viewed from a 21st century point of view, almost impossible to credit, but is a consistent thread throughout the book.
Although Rivers’ views and treatment methods are sympathetic and more acceptable to us, he remains contemporary in his views - his belief being that "the war must be fought to a finish, for the sake of the succeeding generations". However, by the end of the book he has become more of the same mind as Sassoon when he considers that “A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance”.
The novel’s central character is the anthropologist turned psychiatrist William Rivers, who is treating victims of breakdown at Craiglockhart hospital in Edinburgh. He is a real figure, as are two of his patients, war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. There are also other real characters in the book including Robert Graves, friend of Sassoon, as well as Dr Lewis Yealland, a fellow psychiatrist. Yealland's “treatment” to cure a patient who has been rendered mute by his war experiences is, to me, one of the most difficult to read parts of the novel. Rivers is present as Yealland’s guest at this event during which Yealland uses severe electric shocks as his method, which seemed to me to be barbaric, but did achieve results, though at what expense, wonders Rivers afterwards.
The descriptions of the war in the trenches are horrific and the contrast between them and the lives of the people at home is stark and does not reflect well on many of the people described, almost in passing. The prevalent attitude to “shell shock” during the first world war is, when viewed from a 21st century point of view, almost impossible to credit, but is a consistent thread throughout the book.
Although Rivers’ views and treatment methods are sympathetic and more acceptable to us, he remains contemporary in his views - his belief being that "the war must be fought to a finish, for the sake of the succeeding generations". However, by the end of the book he has become more of the same mind as Sassoon when he considers that “A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance”.