Book Review

[kenjari]

Regeneration
by Pat Barker

This is the first book in a trilogy about WWI, and it is marvelous. The novel concerns Dr. William Rivers, a psychiatrist for the British military, and Siefried Sassoon, one of his patients. Siegfried is not a typical soldier suffering from a mental breakdown, however. The army has placed him in the war hospital because after participating in some of the bloodiest and most horrific battles, he protested the war, objecting to the prolonged slaughter and terrible carnage.
Regeneration is an anti-war novel. It's central theme is that war is not the business of sane men. Barker is not, however, expressing a simple pacifism stemming from the idea that violence and killing are wrong. Instead, her book posits that war is wrong because it creates a profound state of ill mental health at both the individual and societal level.
I found this novel amazing. Barker is an incredibly perceptive and insightful writer. She makes her points very well without ever getting preachy or even polemical. The book never reads like a treatise, either. Even when making a profound point, Regeneration is a very human story. The characters are real people, not just figures. Highly recommended.

(I did not read this book solely out of a reaction to current events. Nor am I posting about this book in order to get on a political soapbox. I also do not think that the author is trying to make a statement about any specific historical event, except for the obvious use of WWI as a setting. If anything, I thought this book and it's two sequels would perhaps help me gain some perspective regarding my own personal ambivalence towards war in general. So I'm asking folks not to use comments on this entry as a forum for debate on the war in Iraq. General philosophical discussion is welcome, though. Thanks.)

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

WWI is a good setting to use for a book on the psychological aftermath of war, just because the warfare of WWI was so incredibly, incredibly scary. I mean, bullets are one thing, but poison gas and people gagging and choking before you, excellent place to pick up serious trauma.

What year was the book written? And do you have any idea what country Barker is from? I ask because WWI has much more of a conscious grip on Canada and Britain than it has on the US; US symbols from that time are rather divorced from the tales of trench warfare from what I've seen, I'm not sure if most Americans can tell you offhand why the VFD hands out poppies....

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

The book was published in 1992. Pat Barker is British.
Although the action of the book takes place in England, not on the battlefield, there are plenty of descriptions of the warfare itself. And it is extremely horrific. WWI was also the first war to feature the widespread use of machine guns, so even the bullets were pretty scary. Trench warfare also apparently forced the soldiers into a kind of helpless passivity for long periods, too. They had to spend alot of time standing around in holes hoping they weren't going to get blown to smithereens.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

The Canadian War Museum still depicts it as the most horrific fighting conditions ever, just because of the forced passivity and fear. They have a 15 foot trench mock-up walkthrough in the museum, and it's the scariest thing I've ever been in at a museum. I mean, I RUSHED through.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles does a decent job of depicting WWI trenches, I found. I need to get some of those.

[epilimnion.livejournal.com]

thanks to iralithIralith, I read the whole trilogy a year or so ago. Just wait until you get to the finale. It will blow you away. I still think of that final scene, and it still tugs at me emotionally. I think the trilogy is one of the best literary works dealing with war ever. Also note that Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and a few other characters (maybe Dr. Rivers as well) were real people. Iralith knows more about it than I do...

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Yep, Dr. Rivers is also real.