Review: Regeneration

Regeneration
Pat Barker

"Rivers was roused from [his] thoughts by the crunch of tyres on gravel. He reached the window in time to see a taxi draw up, and a man, who from his uniform could only be Sassoon, get out. After paying the driver, Sassoon stood for a moment, looking up at the building. Nobody arriving at Craiglockhart for the first time could fail to be daunted by the sheer gloomy, cavernous bulk of the place. Sassoon lingered on the drive for a full minute after the taxi had driven away, then took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and ran up the steps.
Rivers turned away from the window, feeling almost ashamed of having witnessed that small, private victory over fear." (9)


I finished this book all of two minutes ago. I feel the need to review this while it's still fresh in my mind, before I've "digested" it, and while I'm still fresh from my inexplicable crying.

I don't have the words to describe how impressive a read this was. I'll be the first to admit that books often drag all kinds of emotions out of me: love and sentimentality, fear and despair, a rare joy. I can count on one hand the number of books that have compelled in me a truly visceral reaction: Where the Red Fern Grows back in 4th grade, A Streetcar Named Desire in my freshman year or so of college, The Prince of Tides in that murky transition period between sophomore and junior year. It's interesting that the former two pulled an unstoppable flood of tears from me (which failed to make me put the books down), and the symptoms of the latter didn't manifest except in front of friends. Now to this list I have to add Regeneration, and unlike the other novels on this list, I can't trace a definitive thing that made my emotions tangle and snap. The seamless play of this novel, its unforgettable characters--even those who appear for only a paragraph or two--, the way their personal conflicts unfold and are shown to be inextricably connected in ways that seem unimaginable at the novel's outset: these elements and more place this book on a very influential pedestal for me, personally and as a writer.

The story is set during World War I and very loosely revolves around the committal of the noted poet and renowned British war hero Siegfried Sassoon to Craiglockhart War Hospital, an institute for soldiers classified "mentally unsound." Sassoon is committed for writing a declaration stating his belief that "the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it [...and...] that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest" (3). The narrative is told from several viewpoints, primarily that of Rivers, the neurologist and social anthropologist in whose care Sassoon (along with most of the other patients in this novel) is placed; Sassoon himself; the mutist and asthmatic second lieutenant Billy Prior; Sarah, a working girl who eventually becomes Prior's lover; the noted poet Wilfred Owen; etc. etc.

This is a work of historical fiction and it is brilliantly executed. The voice is in perfect keeping with the times; dialect is unobtrusive; the extensive knowledge and depiction of wartime shell-shock and various forms of war trauma and its treatment are incredible. I don't know how much research it took for Barker to write this; I know I never could. It is beyond my writerly understanding how Pat Barker managed to make so many of these characters so incredibly sympathetic without spending forever on each one of them. For instance, you never get into Burns's head, yet he was one of the most sympathetic characters for me, and not merely on account of his suffering and the revolting experiences and strain that led to his breakdown. The depiction of his room in rural Suffolk was enough for me to start crying (from there, I didn't really stop until I finished the book, just now).

Rivers himself is a compelling, heartbreaking character and I was with him from the beginning. His duty is to "cure" Sassoon of his anti-war belief and send him back to the war. He only does it because it is his duty. And Sassoon, who lacked a father figure and very quickly begins to look up to Rivers, is influenced... but I won't spoil the plot for you. Let me just say that I vehemently didn't support Rivers's so-called "duty," but it didn't stop me from sympathizing with him completely, and even from being a little in love with him by the end of the book, enough to have to give myself a few minutes to clear my eyes and catch my breath.

...Despite its subject matter, this book is not a depressing one. It is not melodramatic, it is powerful without asking for tears, it seems to entirely reject the idea of armchair-empathy and demands a more qualitative response that I have no background to give. What I'm saying is that this isn't a "tearjerker novel" and despite my near-public crying jag while reading, I'm inclined to believe it is anything but.

I am in awe of Barker's ability to juggle so many issues and themes in divers characters without being obvious or preachy. He addresses issues of writing, male-male companionship, and from there to the very veiled theme of homosexuality (Sassoon, Owen, and many minor characters in the novel are homosexual); he discusses friendship, surrogate fathers, heterosexual love; he takes the psychiatrist-patient relationship one step further by illustrating how like a father-son relationship it is, how intimately tied together the two are: Rivers, despite his contrary thinking, can't seem to break away from his patients, visits them when they ask him to do so even after they've been discharged; he goes on helping Burns after Burns has been discharged and seems for the first time truly deranged. Rivers's self-sacrificing is so believably real, it came as a great shock to me so I won't spoil it here. Barker's choice of placement of information and diction and pacing... incredible.

I could go on forever about this, also I'm still shaky and need to sit still for a moment or two. I wish I could write this book. As is, I can only go out and buy the two sequels in this trilogy: The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road. I strongly recommend you do the same.