The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
Feb. 18th, 2014 10:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
1918, the closing months of the war. Army psychiatrist William Rivers is increasingly concerned for the men who have been in his care – particularly Billy Prior, who is about to return to combat in France with young poet Wilfred Owen. As Rivers tries to make sense of what, if anything, he has done to help these injured man, Prior and Owen await the final battles in a war that has decimated a generation …
The Ghost Road is the Booker Prize-winning account of the devastating final months of the First World War.
It’s August 1918. Billy Prior and Wilfred Owen have re-enlisted in the army and are waiting to return to the Front. William Rivers continues his work with the psychologically and physically injured men sent to his London hospital. As Prior thinks about the life he is leaving behind and the life awaiting him, Rivers reflects on his pre-War years studying a Melanesian tribe, comparing his work then to his work now. With the War entering its final throes, both men must come to terms with who they really are and what they are doing …
Pat Barker’s Booker Prize winning conclusion to the REGENERATION TRILOGY is a thoughtful, moving novel that reflects on the duality demanded from the men involved in it. I particularly enjoyed Prior’s diary sections recounting his journey to the Front but Rivers’s experiences in Melanesia were equally moving as he seeks to understand the tribe he’s visiting. I did wish that there had been more scenes with Sarah, although the encounters with her family are effective and give some much needed humour. As with the earlier books, there is a sameness to some of the characters but Prior and Rivers have enough to depth to carry you through to the sad end. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this and will check out Barker’s other World War I novels.
The novel’s largely divided between Prior and Rivers. I’ve found Prior to be a fascinating character who’s really grown over the course of the trilogy. Here the focus is on how he’s caught between the domesticity offered by Sarah and the duty calling him back to the Front. I was very moved by his relationship with Sarah, who has already lost one fiancé to the War and doesn’t want to form an engagement with Billy, despite the wishes of her mother who’s determined that being a widow is better than nothing.
Rivers’s storyline is more introspective and his memories of Melanesia are show him treading the line between action and observation and not fully comprehending the things he bears witness to. There’s also more of his childhood here and although we don’t learn what happened to cause him stammer, there’s plenty of material there to enable you to draw your own conclusions.
All in all, this is a great conclusion to an excellent trilogy and I will check out Barker’s other World War I novels.
The Verdict:
Pat Barker’s Booker Prize winning conclusion to the REGENERATION TRILOGY is a thoughtful, moving novel that reflects on the duality demanded from the men involved in it. I particularly enjoyed Prior’s diary sections recounting his journey to the Front but Rivers’s experiences in Melanesia were equally moving as he seeks to understand the tribe he’s visiting. I did wish that there had been more scenes with Sarah, although the encounters with her family are effective and give some much needed humour. As with the earlier books, there is a sameness to some of the characters but Prior and Rivers have enough to depth to carry you through to the sad end. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this and will check out Barker’s other World War I novels.
1918, the closing months of the war. Army psychiatrist William Rivers is increasingly concerned for the men who have been in his care – particularly Billy Prior, who is about to return to combat in France with young poet Wilfred Owen. As Rivers tries to make sense of what, if anything, he has done to help these injured man, Prior and Owen await the final battles in a war that has decimated a generation …
The Ghost Road is the Booker Prize-winning account of the devastating final months of the First World War.
It’s August 1918. Billy Prior and Wilfred Owen have re-enlisted in the army and are waiting to return to the Front. William Rivers continues his work with the psychologically and physically injured men sent to his London hospital. As Prior thinks about the life he is leaving behind and the life awaiting him, Rivers reflects on his pre-War years studying a Melanesian tribe, comparing his work then to his work now. With the War entering its final throes, both men must come to terms with who they really are and what they are doing …
Pat Barker’s Booker Prize winning conclusion to the REGENERATION TRILOGY is a thoughtful, moving novel that reflects on the duality demanded from the men involved in it. I particularly enjoyed Prior’s diary sections recounting his journey to the Front but Rivers’s experiences in Melanesia were equally moving as he seeks to understand the tribe he’s visiting. I did wish that there had been more scenes with Sarah, although the encounters with her family are effective and give some much needed humour. As with the earlier books, there is a sameness to some of the characters but Prior and Rivers have enough to depth to carry you through to the sad end. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this and will check out Barker’s other World War I novels.
The novel’s largely divided between Prior and Rivers. I’ve found Prior to be a fascinating character who’s really grown over the course of the trilogy. Here the focus is on how he’s caught between the domesticity offered by Sarah and the duty calling him back to the Front. I was very moved by his relationship with Sarah, who has already lost one fiancé to the War and doesn’t want to form an engagement with Billy, despite the wishes of her mother who’s determined that being a widow is better than nothing.
Rivers’s storyline is more introspective and his memories of Melanesia are show him treading the line between action and observation and not fully comprehending the things he bears witness to. There’s also more of his childhood here and although we don’t learn what happened to cause him stammer, there’s plenty of material there to enable you to draw your own conclusions.
All in all, this is a great conclusion to an excellent trilogy and I will check out Barker’s other World War I novels.
The Verdict:
Pat Barker’s Booker Prize winning conclusion to the REGENERATION TRILOGY is a thoughtful, moving novel that reflects on the duality demanded from the men involved in it. I particularly enjoyed Prior’s diary sections recounting his journey to the Front but Rivers’s experiences in Melanesia were equally moving as he seeks to understand the tribe he’s visiting. I did wish that there had been more scenes with Sarah, although the encounters with her family are effective and give some much needed humour. As with the earlier books, there is a sameness to some of the characters but Prior and Rivers have enough to depth to carry you through to the sad end. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this and will check out Barker’s other World War I novels.
