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A well crafted and compassionate story

Customer Rating:

Regeneration is set in the First World War and revolves around the patients of Craiglockhart Hospital near Edinburgh. The men are being treated for shellshock by Doctor W.E.Rivers, and through his relationships with them we get to learn much about the war and the men who fought in it. The narrative is structured around real events and people such as Rivers himself and the poet Siegfried Sassoon. Barker weaves fictional major characters into the story who feel just as real and important as these historical figures. The novel is not just about the war and its tragedy. It is also a book about writing, mental illness, and a change in the structure of society to name but a few themes. Barker manages to explore a lot in a relatively short novel. The story is driven by the characters who are realistic and interesting enough so that the narrative only rarely becomes bogged down. I felt that the novel did lose focus somewhat in the middle, when the storyline moves away from Craiglockhart, but Barker doesn't let us languish with Rivers at his brother's farm for too long. I found the ending to the novel to be both climactic and also to raise many questions which make me want to read part two of the trilogy. The end is climactic partly due to the shocking nature of one particular scene. Indeed, Barker does not shy away from the gruesome images that are often part of a war novel. She chooses her moments though, and we are never desensitised from too much. Unlike most war novels the women characters are drawn very well. At the beginning of the novel women are largely absent but one particular character at least becomes a compelling portrait. It is refreshing also to read a war novel that seems mostly concerned with life away from the front. Barker's prose is economical with some choice descriptions which are quite beautiful at times. There were one or two clumsy images which grate, and this is a shame for someone who obviously writes with such skill. Overall this is a well crafted and compassionate story. I will definitely read the rest of the trilogy.

Subtly powerful

Customer Rating:

This thoughtful, elegantly written novel is a powerful evocation of the horrors of war - and its aftermath. Barker skilfully blends fact and fiction, incorporating elements of Siegfried Sassoon's spell in a Scottish mental hospital following his anti-war declaration, including his friendship with Wilfred Owen. The novel shows how the first world war destroyed a generation of young men, both physically and mentally. Their experiences emerge not through graphic descriptions of battles and dramatic set-pieces, but through their often complicated relationship with army psychiatrist Dr Rivers. He himself is a deep and complex character, his own feelings about the war becoming increasingly ambivalent as he watches the men he has 'cured' return to the front - and near-certain death. It's a quietly haunting novel, and I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy.

Complex and creative, but raw

Customer Rating:

In Regeneration, Pat Barker fictionalises an encounter between H. R. Rivers and Siegfrid Sasson in a military psychological hospital. In Craiglockhart, near Edinburgh, there are numerous war wounded, whose experiences in the Flanders trenches of the First World War have left them psychologically, as well as sometimes physically scarred. The symptoms are many and varied. In Sassoon's case it is possible that the motivation might even be political, rather than psychological. Rivers attempts to analyse his patients and his own responses to them. He is of the modern school, unlikely to resort to the blunt-edged methods of some of his contemporaries. Description of some of these established treatments read very much like torture. They were, after all, in the cases described, trying to make someone talk. How appropriate. But Rivers is unimpressed and he pursues his own line. Along the way, he also develops new, ground-breaking treatments of his own invention. Sassoon befriends a young man called Owen, whom he encourages to write. Another friend called Graves visits whenever he can. Together, Sassoon and Owen work on some of Owen's writing. The results, they both agree, are improvements. The power of Regeneration is the relation between its overall idea and its setting. It presents the creative process as a reflection on experience and sets this in an institution where formal reflection on experience is a treatment. Eventually, it is not just the individual patient who benefits from the cathartic process of reflection, but also the analyst and, ultimately, all of us when the relief takes the form of great poetry.

psychology at war	Customer Rating:
Elegantly written, in good old-fashioned English, this attempts to describe both the relationship between First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon and the army psychiatrist he has to engage as a result of his anti-war protest. More broadly, this looks at the mental damage inflicted on the young men of the British infantry and, to a lesser extent, the psychology of working women during wartime.

Fix Their Minds So They Can Go Back Into The Slaughter of World War I

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When the First World War broke out, most people assumed it would be over in a few months as their nation (whichever one that was) sent the others packing. In fact, many raced to enlist fearing that "the fun" might be over before they got there. Instead, what they discovered in Western Europe was a stalemate with trenches dug from the North Sea to the Atlantic Coast across which English, French, and German soldiers faced each other for years from cold, wet, corpse-filled, and disease-ridden trenches. No one knew how to break the stalemate. Millions died as shelling continued against these fixed positions. Every so often some general would convince himself that a massive charge would break the other line. Each time this was tried, the slaughter accelerated as men ran into point-blank machine gun fire and artillery barrages. Regeneration looks at the disillusionment that led one decorated English officer and poet, Siegfried Sassoon, to remonstrate against the military leadership in public. Rather than court-marital Sassoon, the military chose to send him to a psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers. Regeneration creates a fictional account of their relationship at Craiglockhart War Hospital. The book also looks at how Rivers treated other "mental" cases sent his way. The most interesting parts of the story come in looking at the ethical dilemma of being asked to help those who cannot mentally deal with the war any more . . . when that "help" may lead to them going back to France where their life expectancy is measured in weeks. I was reminded of stories I've read about patching up people who tried to kill themselves so they could be legally executed. There's a revolting section on how less sensitive physicians dealt with these "mental" problems . . . basically torturing soldiers until they wouldn't resist going back to fight. The book has two weaknesses that mar its obvious strengths in recapturing that difficult moment in English history. 1. Ms. Barker assumes that her readers already know about Siegfried Sassoon (or at least that they don't mind her holding back details about what he did for some time). I had never heard of him so it was annoying to try to figure out what all the fuss was about in the early pages. The book could use an extensive historical footnote as a prologue for those who don't know about the incident. 2. The book often skates around the edges of how Sassoon and Rivers related to one another. Much is tacit, and I found it hard to understand in all scenes what Ms. Barker was trying to suggest each one was thinking. I commend Ms. Barker for picking real characters and bringing them to life in a way that's very poignant (even for those who aren't English) 90 years after the events have taken place.