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aj_x416 's review for:
The Ghost Road
by Pat Barker
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).