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The Eye In The Door by Pat Barker
Feb. 11th, 2014 11:32 pmThe Blurb On The Back:
London, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in the Ministry of Munitions. But his private encounters with women and men – pacifists, objectors, homosexuals – conflict with his duties as a soldier, and it is not long before his sense of himself fragments and breaks down. Forced to consult the man who helped him before – army psychiatrist William Rivers – Prior must confront his inability to be the dutiful soldier his soldiers wish him to be …
The Eye In The Door is a heart-rending study of the contradictions of war and of those forced to live through it.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Pat Barker’s sequel to REGENERATION is another deftly written historical novel that again draws on the psychological horrors of World War I but this time combining it with what was happening on the home front, notably drawing on the real life case of Alice Wheeldon (a Suffragette and atheist who was convicted of plotting to murder Lloyd George) and the real Pemberton Billing libel case that alleged there to be 47,000 homosexuals working for Germany to bring down Britain. It’s a beautifully written novel that goes deeper into Prior and Rivers’s psychology and personal history and I thoroughly enjoyed the home front setting, which continues the themes in REGENERATION but gives more of a sense of the conflict within. Like REGENERATION though, I did find some of the characters samey and in building on REGENERATION it also repeats some of the themes although this didn’t affect my enjoyment and I will definitely read the conclusion.
London, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in the Ministry of Munitions. But his private encounters with women and men – pacifists, objectors, homosexuals – conflict with his duties as a soldier, and it is not long before his sense of himself fragments and breaks down. Forced to consult the man who helped him before – army psychiatrist William Rivers – Prior must confront his inability to be the dutiful soldier his soldiers wish him to be …
The Eye In The Door is a heart-rending study of the contradictions of war and of those forced to live through it.
( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )
The Verdict:
Pat Barker’s sequel to REGENERATION is another deftly written historical novel that again draws on the psychological horrors of World War I but this time combining it with what was happening on the home front, notably drawing on the real life case of Alice Wheeldon (a Suffragette and atheist who was convicted of plotting to murder Lloyd George) and the real Pemberton Billing libel case that alleged there to be 47,000 homosexuals working for Germany to bring down Britain. It’s a beautifully written novel that goes deeper into Prior and Rivers’s psychology and personal history and I thoroughly enjoyed the home front setting, which continues the themes in REGENERATION but gives more of a sense of the conflict within. Like REGENERATION though, I did find some of the characters samey and in building on REGENERATION it also repeats some of the themes although this didn’t affect my enjoyment and I will definitely read the conclusion.
