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wyemu 's review for:
Regeneration
by Pat Barker
What started as compulsory reading for A Level English quickly became a pleasure rather than a chore. I'm really not a fan of war stories; the blood, the death, the stupid decisions made by those who get to sit in comfortable chairs while others go out and die. But this was not about that aspect of war, this is about the aftermath, the psychological aftermath to be more precise. What happens to the men who come back after they've seen what they've seen and done what they've done. I'm not saying this is the only, or even the first book, to have explored these themes, but it did make them approachable and easily accessible. Barker doesn't bludgeon her readers either, something else I can't stand in a book. The arguments and points are there but I never felt they were over-laboured. After finishing this I was keen to read the rest of the trilogy, to follow Billy Prior, Dr. Rivers and Siegfried Sassoon as they continue to fight and try to survive with something resembling their pre-war personality intact.