An excellent novel, dealing with an important part of our history. (Regeneration - Pat Barker)

Member Name: mirandamcd

Product:	Regeneration - Pat Barker
Date:	03/06/07 (1122 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Enjoyable and enlightening.

Disadvantages: Very harrowing.

Regeneration by Pat Barker is a moving and insightful novel about the First World War. Loosely based on real life events, it is set in Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, a hospital that looked after soldiers that were suffering mental health problems due to the things they had seen and experienced on the front line.

The main character in the novel is Siegfried Sassoon, a war poet who spent some time in this hospital. After serving on the front line, Sassoon felt that the war was being deliberately ‘stretched out’ by people that had the power to stop it, but chose not to. As the casualty figures soared, Sassoon saw this as a wilful act of mass murder. Sassoon was not a pacifist and was willing to fight and die for his country when there was just cause, however he objected to fighting when the war could be over. The character of Sassoon is a wonderful portrayal and you imagine that Pat Barker must have known him in order to depict him in such a realistic way. He shows the frustration that Officers must have felt sending young men out and seeing very few coming back, this must have been difficult at any time, but when the war could be over this must have become excruciatingly so.

The other main character is the psychiatrist that is treating the various patients at Craiglockhart. He is Rivers, another real-life based character. He is interesting because he at first feels that working here, with these men is taking him away from his ‘real’ work; however as time goes on he realises that what he had once regarded as ‘real’ work is, in fact, insignificant and the work he is doing here is of paramount importance. Rivers becomes burdened with the horrors the men have witnessed and begins to agree with Sassoon that if the war can be stopped it should be.

The other characters in the novel are the various patients in the hospital, all with horrific memories of the war. There is a man who cannot eat because he keeps vomiting, due to having a friend blown up very close to him and he ingested parts of his exploded body. Another man cannot speak when he arrives. They all have terrible nightmares and the wards are kept awake all night with the sound of screams.

I found these memories of what happened during WW1 very distressing, (and even thinking about these parts of the novel now distresses me) but feel it is necessary to read and try to gain an inkling of an understanding of what happened during this time. Many of the soldiers were only boys, signing up at 15 to protect their country and gain the honour of being a war hero, too often they did not return and those that did were dramatically changed forever. There must have been very, very few who returned and did not have some sort of mental health problem. There is surely only so much the mind can cope with.

The final thing I found interesting about this novel was the examination of gender roles at his time. One of the men from the hospital meets a girl called Sarah while out for a drink one night. Sarah is a funny shade of yellow because she works in the munitions factory. This novel shows the beginning of the changes in traditional gender roles. Men found it difficult to be the macho brave men they were expected to be (not crying, not suffering mental illness) in the face of all they had seen. And women were beginning to have more independence and a life outwith the home. This shift must have been difficult for both males and females as they adjusted to these new expectations.

I found this novel very insightful into this period in our history, and I feel I have gained a greater understanding of what it must have been like at this time, though obviously no-one can ever fully understand what it was like to be there. Although this novel is harrowing at times it is never gratuitous and only seeks to ‘tell it like it is’.

Even if you do not think you would like to read about war, you should read this book as it will move you in ways no other book can.

Summary: Everyone should read this novel.