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Regeneration by Pat Barker
The Blurb On The Back:
Craiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland, 1917, and army psychiatrist William Rivers is treating shell-shocked soldiers. Under his care are the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, as well as mute Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. Rivers’s job is to make the men in his charge healthy enough to fight. Yet the closer he gets to mending his patients’ minds the harder becomes every decision to send them back to the horrors of the front. Pat Barker’s Regeneration is the classic exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men.
In July 1917 Siegfried Sassoon issued a declaration denouncing the Great War. Sassoon should have been court-martialled but thanks to the intervention of his friend, Robert Graves, he was instead referred to Craiglockhart War Hospital for psychological evaluation by the psychiatrist, William Rivers. Rivers’s job is to heal his patients enough to send them back to fight but as he begins his assessment of Sassoon, he finds himself questioning his own role in the war …
Pat Barker’s historical novel looks at the psychological trauma wrecked by World War I on a generation of young men and the development of techniques to try and treat it. The book does a great job of showing the schisms created by the war in terms of attitudes towards psychological disorders, the class system, the treatment of women and, ultimately, attitudes towards the war itself. There are some horrifying scenes in the book – most notably the scenes where Yealland demonstrates his own, more brutal approach to treatment but there are also moments of tenderness, particularly in a scene where Billy Prior is forced to confront what happened to him on the Front. It’s not a perfect book – at times the male patients do merge into one another, there’s a sameness to all of the point of view characters and there’s (understandably) not much in the way of female characters (with the exception of a love interest for Prior). However, I did find it an immensely moving book that utterly held my attention from beginning to end and I can well see why it is held in such high regard.
The book shifts between a number of characters, the main ones being Sassoon, Rivers, Billy Prior (who arrives at Craiglockhart mute and with amnesia) and Sarah (a woman who works in a munitions factory and who forms a relationship with Prior). Each offers a different perspective on the War and the effect that it’s having on people and the country. Although the book hinges on the relationship between Sassoon and Rivers, for me the more interesting sections are those involving Prior and Rivers because Prior’s working class background and clear intelligence makes him more antagonistic in his sessions with Rivers. Barker’s clearly done a lot of research and her detailed author’s note shows where she’s deviated from the fact.
Ultimately, I found this utterly compelling and have no hesitation in recommending it.
The Verdict:
Pat Barker’s historical novel looks at the psychological trauma wrecked by World War I on a generation of young men and the development of techniques to try and treat it. The book does a great job of showing the schisms created by the war in terms of attitudes towards psychological disorders, the class system, the treatment of women and, ultimately, attitudes towards the war itself. There are some horrifying scenes in the book – most notably the scenes where Yealland demonstrates his own, more brutal approach to treatment but there are also moments of tenderness, particularly in a scene where Billy Prior is forced to confront what happened to him on the Front. It’s not a perfect book – at times the male patients do merge into one another, there’s a sameness to all of the point of view characters and there’s (understandably) not much in the way of female characters (with the exception of a love interest for Prior). However, I did find it an immensely moving book that utterly held my attention from beginning to end and I can well see why it is held in such high regard.
Craiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland, 1917, and army psychiatrist William Rivers is treating shell-shocked soldiers. Under his care are the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, as well as mute Billy Prior, who is only able to communicate by means of pencil and paper. Rivers’s job is to make the men in his charge healthy enough to fight. Yet the closer he gets to mending his patients’ minds the harder becomes every decision to send them back to the horrors of the front. Pat Barker’s Regeneration is the classic exploration of how the traumas of war brutalised a generation of young men.
In July 1917 Siegfried Sassoon issued a declaration denouncing the Great War. Sassoon should have been court-martialled but thanks to the intervention of his friend, Robert Graves, he was instead referred to Craiglockhart War Hospital for psychological evaluation by the psychiatrist, William Rivers. Rivers’s job is to heal his patients enough to send them back to fight but as he begins his assessment of Sassoon, he finds himself questioning his own role in the war …
Pat Barker’s historical novel looks at the psychological trauma wrecked by World War I on a generation of young men and the development of techniques to try and treat it. The book does a great job of showing the schisms created by the war in terms of attitudes towards psychological disorders, the class system, the treatment of women and, ultimately, attitudes towards the war itself. There are some horrifying scenes in the book – most notably the scenes where Yealland demonstrates his own, more brutal approach to treatment but there are also moments of tenderness, particularly in a scene where Billy Prior is forced to confront what happened to him on the Front. It’s not a perfect book – at times the male patients do merge into one another, there’s a sameness to all of the point of view characters and there’s (understandably) not much in the way of female characters (with the exception of a love interest for Prior). However, I did find it an immensely moving book that utterly held my attention from beginning to end and I can well see why it is held in such high regard.
The book shifts between a number of characters, the main ones being Sassoon, Rivers, Billy Prior (who arrives at Craiglockhart mute and with amnesia) and Sarah (a woman who works in a munitions factory and who forms a relationship with Prior). Each offers a different perspective on the War and the effect that it’s having on people and the country. Although the book hinges on the relationship between Sassoon and Rivers, for me the more interesting sections are those involving Prior and Rivers because Prior’s working class background and clear intelligence makes him more antagonistic in his sessions with Rivers. Barker’s clearly done a lot of research and her detailed author’s note shows where she’s deviated from the fact.
Ultimately, I found this utterly compelling and have no hesitation in recommending it.
The Verdict:
Pat Barker’s historical novel looks at the psychological trauma wrecked by World War I on a generation of young men and the development of techniques to try and treat it. The book does a great job of showing the schisms created by the war in terms of attitudes towards psychological disorders, the class system, the treatment of women and, ultimately, attitudes towards the war itself. There are some horrifying scenes in the book – most notably the scenes where Yealland demonstrates his own, more brutal approach to treatment but there are also moments of tenderness, particularly in a scene where Billy Prior is forced to confront what happened to him on the Front. It’s not a perfect book – at times the male patients do merge into one another, there’s a sameness to all of the point of view characters and there’s (understandably) not much in the way of female characters (with the exception of a love interest for Prior). However, I did find it an immensely moving book that utterly held my attention from beginning to end and I can well see why it is held in such high regard.