The Regeneration Trilogy

Regeneration #1-3

by Pat Barker

A trilogy of novels set during World War I which mingle real and fictional characters. "The Ghost Road" won the 1995 Booker Prize.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, War, World War I, Historical, Literature, Novels

608 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Pat Barker is an English writer known for her fiction exploring themes of memory, trauma, and survival. She gained prominence with Union Street (1982), a stark portrayal of working-class women's lives, and later achieved critical acclaim with the Regeneration Trilogy (1991–1995), a series blending history and fiction to examine the psychological impact of World War I. The final book, The Ghost Road (1995), won the Booker Prize. In recent years, she has turned to retelling classical myths from a female perspective, beginning with The Silence of the Girls (2018). Barker's work is widely recognized for its direct and unflinching storytelling.

Reviews

[Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

The novelists who wrote immediately after the war (or even during it) – Barbusse, Remarque, Manning, even Hemingway – were concerned mostly with getting down the facts: recording the realities of modern warfare before they allowed themselves to forget, before the details became incredible. Writers of subsequent generations cannot write what they know, and they need to do something else – bring some higher assessment of how people, and society, reacted to this cataclysm overall.

Doing this badly, or not even bothering, is what has frustrated me about other modern novels set around 1914–18. It was interesting coming to this one after recently reading Thomas Keneally's The Daughters of Mars, a book in which the two central characters are female and yet where there was frustratingly little examination of how the First World War affected men and women and their social and sexual interactions. The main characters in the Regeneration trilogy are all men, but one of the things I loved most about it was its constant attention to sexual politics and the radical shifts that this period saw in wider society.

I had been expecting a constrained, clever-clever novel spun around the literary footnote that was the meeting between Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in hospital in 1917. You get that, but there's a lot more here than just lit-historical geekiness. What I wasn't expecting was the delicate infusion of what you might call feminist psycho-sociology: a fascinating exploration of the ways in which men's struggle to deal with trauma is so deeply linked to issues of gender.

Fear, tenderness – these emotions were so despised that they could be admitted into consciousness only at the cost of redefining what it meant to be a man.

Which is one of the things that 1914–18 indeed did. Barker draws out the irony that women were suddenly forced into much more active roles during the war, while men, shipped off to ‘active’ service, in fact found themselves squatting motionless in ditches for ninety percent of the time, before being routinely slaughtered, as Owen famously put it, like cattle.

The war that had promised so much in the way of ‘manly’ activity had actually delivered ‘feminine’ passivity […]. No wonder they broke down.

And again:

Any explanation of war neurosis must account for the fact that this apparently intensely masculine life of war and danger and hardship produced in men the same disorders that women suffered from in peace.

This sexual mercuriality is exemplified in the character of Billy Prior, who emerges as a conflicted, damaged antihero in the second book of the trilogy (where Barker just about manages to keep her inclination to melodrama under control). His violent swings between, on the one hand, domestic happiness, and on the other a sort of self-hating sadistic bisexuality (he describes himself memorably after one encounter as a ‘seminal spittoon’), are set against the backdrop of London's brief ‘cult of the clitoris’ scandal.

Prior's girlfriend is awesome. The last thing I expected when I picked this book up was to listen in on a group of Geordie munitionettes telling a joke about a prostitute.

‘He says, “How much is that?” I says, “7/6.” He says, “Hadaway and shite,” and when I come back he'd gone.’

God knows what non-Brit readers make of all this. I am not sure where Pat Barker's from, and I'm too lazy to do even the most rudimentary research, but she nails the dialect, the intonations, the chattiness of these conversations – and from this base she builds a whole social critique into the novel. Some reviewers (I notice) have found this stratum unconvincing, but for me the attempt to examine social change is what lifts this book above its peers. Prior reflects, for instance, that the reaction working-class men have to the trenches is very different from that of the upper class officers – for him and those he knows,

the Front, with its mechanization, its reduction of the individual to a cog in a machine, its blasted landscape, was not a contrast with the life they'd known at home, in Birmingham or Manchester or Glasgow or the Welsh pit villages, but a nightmarish culmination.

In the third book this bird's eye view of British society zooms out even further, by means of a sustained juxtaposition with the tribal society of a group of Melanesian islanders once studied by WHR Rivers, the (historically real) doctor that has been treating Prior. This narrative technique is so audacious, so weird, that at first I didn't really know what to make of it; mostly, I'm just impressed. And I think it's the right decision. I mean if you're a writer, and you know that one of your characters was an anthropologist who studied tribes in Oceania, then I think you have to pursue this and look for parallels – but to see this in action is quite amazing, it's just so very far, at least at first glance, from the world of trench warfare that you can hardly believe Barker attempted it.

Rivers is indeed the calm, still centre of this trilogy (despite some troubled waters of his own), and the way this figure has been recreated in these pages is for me the most impressive achievement of the books. Barker got the Booker Prize in '95 for The Ghost Road, the third novel; but this is a bit of a catch-up job, like giving Peter Jackson the Oscar for Return of the King when he should have won it for Fellowship. The whole trilogy is great though – psychologically astute, hugely wide-ranging, very readable, a perfect example of how writing about conflict from a century ago can still be a way of telling us things about how we think about each other, and about ourselves, today.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful reading experience, this is a book that one will be thinking about for a very long time. The writing is superb, the use of small, lovely details (sunlight reflecting on eyeglasses, rose petals, bubbles on the legs of a man resting in a fishpond, things seen only by starlight' etc., there are many more examples) against the backdrop of the vulgarity that was WWI, serve to make the book all the more moving. A sentence as simple as this is astounding within the context of the overall work: "Then they were moving forward, hundreds of men eerily quiet, starlit shadows barely darkening the grass. And no dogs barked." The fact that the author was born in 1943 and the first volume of the trilogy initially published in 1991 and yet captures the historical and, more importantly, human aspects of the time of WWI in such detail is astonishing. The reader would expect she had lived through the war herself. This is the kind of book, beautiful and terrifying, that one is thankful for.

[Francesco · Rating 5 out of 5]

BASTA CON LA GUERRA

Rendo pubbliche le mie opinioni, come consapevole atto di sfida alle autorità militari, perché penso che la guerra venga volontariamente prolungata da coloro che avrebbero il potere di porvi fine. Sono un soldato, e credo di parlare a nome dei soldati. Ritengo che questa guerra, cominciata come guerra di difesa e liberazione, si sia trasformata in guerra di aggressione e conquista. Credo che i propositi per i quali io e i miei commilitoni ci siamo arruolati avrebbero dovuto essere espressi con chiarezza, in modo che divenisse impossibile modificarli, e credo che, se ciò fosse stato fatto, gli obiettivi da noi perseguiti apparirebbero ora raggiungibili per via diplomatica. Ho visto e patito sulla mia pelle le sofferenze delle truppe, e non posso più rendermi complice di chi prolunga questi patimenti per fini che ritengo malvagi e ingiusti. Intendo protestare non contro la condotta della guerra, ma contro le ipocrisie e gli errori politici che stanno provocando il sacrificio di tanti uomini. In nome di chi sta soffrendo, protesto contro il raggiro perpetrato a suo danno, e spero di poter contribuire a infrangere il compiaciuto cinismo con cui quasi chiunque sia rimasto a casa assite al perdurare di tormenti che non tocca a lui patire; costoro del resto non hanno immaginazione sufficiente a comprenderli.

Siegfried Sassoon
luglio 1917

GUERRA MAI PIU'

[Aldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d had this on my to-read list for a while and finally picked it up the other week; after watching the new adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front and being largely unimpressed, I’d briefly considered rereading the book, then idly wandered my shelves until I found this, remembered it was set during WW1, and decided to try something new instead.

GOOD DECISION. This trilogy was excellent in every way and is entirely to blame for the massive book hangover I’m nursing at the moment, glaring balefully at all the other books in my to-read pile and grumbling, “Why aren’t you just more Regeneration, dammit?” I admit I know very little about the real-life WW1 era British events and characters frequently referred to, so I initially spent some time feeling like I was at a lively dinner conversation where I kept missing crucial bits of information. But once I found my feet (some very intrigued Googling on the side may have helped) – good god, does Barker ever know how to do characterisation and dialogue. It’s no exaggeration to say that I was glued to the page for the majority of these books and hardly wanted to surface. Apart from All Quiet on the Western Front (which is more narrow in scope and quite different in tone), it’s easily one of the best books I’ve read about the era. The writing is unsentimental but still guts you in a number of ways. The characters are complex and deeply, deeply human. It’s an excellent glimpse into the medical realities of the era, especially with respect to the treatment of shell shock and the fledgling emergence of talk therapy. It’s also casually, complicatedly queer, which always helps. It’s been a while since a book hit me just right at exactly the right moment and I’m clinging onto the feeling as long as I can. I’ll not quickly forget those final fifty pages, sitting in the peaceful late-autumn sun and reading fictional diary entries from September – November 1918 with my heart in my throat, willing the characters to hang on another 6 weeks, another 4, another 2. Bloody fantastic read. Thanks for the rec, Anna! <3

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some notes taken whilst reading all three parts of this trilogy consecutively. Overall, they give a very interesting perspective on the First World War and on groups of people that would normally not be given a voice.

Regeneration
Dr William Rivers is treating victims of shell-shock, including Siegfried Sassoon, who strikes up a friendship with Wilfred Owen. All this is factual. But there is also a character called Billy Prior, entirely fictional, who forms a relationship with the fictional Sarah Lumb. These are the main characters. The story gives an emotional perspective on war and the effects of war. We see many people trying to avoid the impact of war: generals who don’t visit the front line and are staggered when they discover how people are dying, people in Britain taking days out to the seaside and almost pretending that nothing is happening. And then soldiers whose brains can not cope with what they see and who hide away in the only way their minds can conceive of - shell shock, neurasthenia, with physical symptoms that vary.

There are many interesting comments on the role of women in the war, including a section that explains Rivers fascination with understanding how it is that war induces in men the same kind of mental illnesses that peacetime induces in women. In many ways, it is a commentary on the society of the time that made women feel trapped and threatened.

An absorbing study of the First World War from the perspective of the officers. It is very easy to read and the pages fly by. Wikipedia has a good summary:

The novel is thematically complex, exploring the effect of the War on identity, masculinity, and social structure. Moreover, the novel draws extensively on period psychological practices, emphasising River's research as well as Freudian psychology. Through the novel Barker enters a particular tradition of representing the experience of World War I in literature: many critics compare the novel to other World War I novels, especially those written by women writers interested in the domestic repercussions of the war, including Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier (1918) and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Barker both drew on those texts of the period that initially inspired her and makes references to a number of other literary and cultural works and events. These give an impression of historical realism, even though Barker tends to refute the claim that the novel is "historical fiction".

It is an excellent novel. One weakness, for me, is its portrayal of working class people (who talk funny and it feels odd reading it) who seem rather two-dimensional and stereotyped. Well worth reading, though.

The Eye in the Door

Where Regeneration concentrated on real events (Siegfried Sassoon’s time with Dr Rivers, including his meeting with Wilfred Owen) but introduced us to fictional characters (most significantly Billy Prior), here Barker concentrates on the fictional characters, fictionalises other historical events and brings in actual historical events with much less focus. The Eye in the Door is much more of a fictional story where Barker gets to play with her main themes (the way people deal with the horror of war being one of those).

The idea of disassociation is important to this second part of the trilogy. Primarily this is explored in Prior’s story which expands on the quote from The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde that opens the book. But both Sassoon and Rivers experience a form of disassociation as the war takes it toll on them.

For quite some time as I read this, I struggled with Prior’s story as the Jekyll and Hyde part of it seemed over the top. It all comes together by the end, but I spent a large part of the book thinking it was too much. Prior is clearly damaged by the war (or perhaps the damage was done before the war?) and his mental state is the main story here.

Food for thought from this book includes discussion of the way those left at home while young men go off to fight (and die) try to avoid thinking about the war (this was a theme through Regeneration, too):

Soldiers home on leave had to be given a good time; they mustn’t be allowed to remember what they were going back to, and this gave everybody else a magnificent excuse for never thinking about it at all.

It also includes an interesting section on Rivers’ work with Head on physical nerve regeneration. It refers to the first two phases of recovery: protopathic and epicritic. It is hard not to try to map the first two parts of this trilogy onto those phases. The protopathic is characterised by extreme reactions but an inability to locate the specific source of the discomfort. The epicritic, the second phases, allows location of the source of the discomfort. And it is true that this second volume of the trilogy feels like it is more focussed, more specific about the pain and damage that war is causing to a generation of young men.

Overall, I found this second part of the trilogy slightly less successful than the first part. This was at least partly due to the time it took me to be comfortable with Prior’s story. But it is still true that Barker is shining a light into a dark place with her stories of the sexual and political dissenters in the war, and she is giving a voice to those who often do not have one (as she went on to do in The Silence of the Girls in 2018).

The Ghost Road

The final part of the Regeneration trilogy is by far the most ambitious structurally. It mixes narratives of Rivers (present in all three parts) in both the book’s present, caring for his patients as he has been doing through the whole trilogy, and reflecting on his experiences in Melanesia with Billy Prior’s experiences going back to and then enduring the final phases of the war. This juxtaposition of Rivers’ memories and Prior’s experiences in the final weeks of the war builds into a powerful combination, but it asks the reader to do a lot more of the work than the first two parts (which is probably why this part won the Booker prize).

I found this final part of the trilogy more powerful emotionally and, because of the way it lays different story lines against one another, more thought provoking. It was my favourite of the three books.

Although it is clear that these three books form a trilogy, with the repeating characters and themes and the continuity of the story, they are actually all very different in terms of structure and style. Reading them one after the other, the changes in approach are very noticeable. This isn’t a criticism, more an observation, because I was sort of expecting to read three books that were more similar to one another.

Interestingly, and, for me, helpfully, I was working on this photograph while I was reading this book. Although it might not look like it, this is a single (multiple exposure) image taken off my camera and manipulated in Lightroom. I think that some of my work on this picture was influenced by my reading of this trilogy of novels. It is essentially a picture of the recently erected war memorial in my home town, but with a new background applied by merging exposures in the camera (the actual memorial is a hollow shape stood in front of a whitewashed wall).

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This trilogy is a fascinating approach to WW I, using a handful of historical figures and one or two fictional characters to get into the psychology of the young Englishman who fought in the trenches of France. Book 1, Regeneration, is the story of Siegfried Sassoon's time at Craiglockhart Castle, Scotland, where he was being treated for "shell shock" (in Sassoon's case it was speaking out publicly against the war that made him unfit for service) by preeminent psychologist Dr. Jonathan Rivers. Here he meets Wilfred Owen and develops his own antiwar philosophy in spite of Rivers and his own misgivings. Book 2, The Eye in the Door, looks at the suspicion cast upon, and ultimately the witchhunting of, pacifists and homosexuals during the most difficult years of the war. The final book, The Ghost Road, follows the characters back to France after their psychological "rehabilitation" and RnR leave. Again, not so much a series war stories (there is actully very little combat recounted at all) as a phychological exploration of the effects of war on the individual, and on an entire generation of young men who have only this moment of great trauma in common with one another.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read these books in the late '90s, after Ghost Road was first published. I was in love with the British war poets of WWI at the time and this fit right in. I don't remember many details, but these books were great reads. Very athmospheric, accessible and captivating main characters, I suffered with them every step of the way.

[Abbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

While it's technically three novels, The Regeneration Trilogy is one story, and for convenience comes in a one-volume omnibus. Any of the parts could be read on its own—there's enough brief recap that one could be aware of the events of the other volumes without having read them, and as the trilogy is character-based rather than plot-based it won't befuddle anyone who jumps in at the middle. However, to do so would do the story an immense disservice. Read in its proper order, Regeneration forms one of the great war stories of our or anyone's time, an epic that takes place almost entirely on the home front as it depicts the final years of perhaps the largest blunder in military or geopolitical history.


W. H. R. Rivers doesn't carry a gun, but he sees just as much of the effects of World War I as any soldier. That's his job, in fact. He's a psychologist, and his job is to restore the traumatized, shell-shocked men under his care to some semblance of normal life. Among these patients are Siegfried Sassoon, a poet who refuses to fight not because of pacifism but because of the sheer stupidity of the conflict; Wilfred Owen, a sensitive young man attempting to come to terms with his feelings on the conflict through writing; and Billy Prior, an involuntary sadist who's disconcerted by his sexual proclivities and serves as a counter-analyst to Rivers himself. As the war drags on, and more and more of his patients are returned to the front only to be torn to rags, Rivers struggles to restrain Prior from returning to active duty. However, Prior himself finds his self-disgust increasing the longer he stays away from physical harm, and despite Rivers' protestations begins to believe it's his duty to die in France.


A lesser author than Barker would have become bogged down in the "celebrity cameos" of her story, pointing the reader to the historical characters with many a nudge and a wink, and the novels would quickly have become cloying for it. Barker is smarter than this, and treats Rivers, Sassoon and Owen as no more or less than fellow players along with their purely fictional counterparts. A reader who is not at all familiar with the historicity of the characters would never know that they were anything but Barker's inventions (I myself had no idea that Rivers was a real man until I did some research into the novels' background), and this is a good thing. The story within which the characters find themselves would at any rate be compelling even if it were completely fictional. The sheer horror of the experiences that have landed Rivers' men under his care is far better seen in their symptoms and neuroses than it could ever be if simply depicted in the present tense. The significant amount of time spent with "shell-shocked" soldiers is incredibly effective at turning the Great War from a historical abstraction into a concrete reality; they are, of course, suffering from the same post-traumatic stress disorder that is now known and diagnosed today, and the similarities between veterans of the two eras is heart-wrenching. Equally as compelling is the interaction between characters; Rivers and Billy Prior spend the entire trilogy in a game of cat-and-mouse that is never entirely hostile but never entirely friendly, probing each other for weaknesses and explanations and daring the other man to slip first—the fact that this is intended on Rivers' part as a cure makes the game no less a battle. Nearly as interesting is the paradox of Sassoon, a man who considers it his duty to be with his men but refuses to fight in what he considers to be a pointless conflict. Barker uses her men as microcosms of much vaster societal and psychological issues of their day, but never loses sight of them as individuals.


One thing that Regeneration most definitely isn't is a slog—its 900 pages fly by. However, the weight of its material is near-tangible. Many other novels have been written about World War I, by authors whose talent is undeniable. Barker's, I think, is the one that will go down as the definitive one. It strikes a perfect balance between the factual and the fictional, the human and the abstract, the individual and the era. Truly an incredible achievement.

[Rob Twinem · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was with great anticipation that I turned my inquisitive reading mind towards Pat Barker’s 1st WW extravaganza The Regeneration Trilogy. The paperwork version, of this former booker prize winner, boasts just under a 900 page word count and demands some serious attention and dedicated reading time. Having recently reread and loved Sebastian Faulks monumental Birdsong, I was hopeful that Regeneration would provide equal if not better stimulus.
In reality The Regeneration Trilogy (as the name implies) is not one but 3 books namely; Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road. It follows the fortunes and life of army psychologist William Rivers, and patients under his professional care damaged by the fallout of WW1. It is hoped that Rivers can repair not only their damaged bodies but more importantly their disturbed minds, broken by the sights and sounds of the bloody battlefield they have so recently been exposed to. One such eminent patient was the poet Siegfried Sassoon who was sent for immediate medical attention to River’s war hospital, when in reality he was a conscientious objector. Other worthy notables were poet and author Robert Graves, and the tragic wartime poet Wilfred Owen.

Quite simply Regeneration is much too wordy, and it is a constant battle not to get lost in the endless discussions and debates that make up the majority of the 900 pages. The exception however is in the persona of damaged soldier Billy Prior. By his actions, and his live for the moment nihilistic approach, we come a little way to understanding the crude approach adopted by physicians, in their treatment of soldiers, many years before the emergence and world recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder.

[Patty Zuiderwijk · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Regeneration Trilogy ;

story 3/5
characters 3/5
writing 4/5
audio/paper Audio.
reread? I might.
Recommend it? Not to everyone, just the ones who are interested in war and rebuilding stories.


Verhaal: 3/5
Karakters: 3/5
Schrijfstijl: 4/5
Papier/audio? Audio.
Herlezen: Misschien.
Aanrader? Niet aan iedereen, wel aan degene die van (na)oorlogsverhalen houden.

[مروان البلوشي · Rating 5 out of 5]

تاريخ القراءة الأصلي : ٢٠٠٥
اختلاط عظيم للتاريخ بدراما الناس وعبورنا نحو الأبدية

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bello, avvincente? Si. Personaggi ben caratterizzati? Si. Scritto benissimo? Si. Tra l'altro di Pat Barker ho amato Il canto delle troiane.
Però. Non ho capito bene il discorso della trilogia, che presumerebbe che i tre libri siano anche distinti. In realtà è un giga libro da 900 pagine, perché sarebbe impossibile capire il secondo e il terzo senza aver letto i precedenti. Detto ciò mi è piaciuto anche se la lunghezza è stata un elemento di fatica nella lettura. Inoltre alcune cose che l'autrice dà per scontate in realtà ho dovuto guardarle su google (tipo il processo che ha coinvolto Maud Allan); forse per un'inglese sono ovvie ma sicuramente non per un'italiana. Rimanendo sul discorso "trilogia", mi è piaciuto molto di più il primo libro rispetto agli altri due e forse sarebbe stato già completo/sufficiente in sé.
Per questi motivi do solo 3 stelle.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard to imagine a more beautiful, more sublime or complex series of books than these by Pat Barker. I said in a recent conversation that they don't even feel as if they were written by a particular person, but that they just appeared, fully formed, to show us all that we need to know about how humans attempt to deal with tragedy; to live with the unlivable. War and its aftermath come to occupy the same place and time in these three books, inextricably linked in a society that does not yet understand how this can be.

These are wonderful books that took my breath away and left me with something deep and human to think about for a long, long time.

[Ruth Zaryski Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant must-read especially for anyone interested in World War One and shell shock. An unsentimental, raw and intimate trilogy featuring historically accurate figures such as war poets, Sigfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and anthropologist/doctor W.H.R.Rivers. Read it!

[Peter Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful, illuminating, well-written account of the impact of WW1 on the lives and minds of those who lived and fought in it.

The understanding of psychology and the use of historical figures throughout the book, combined with fine descriptive writing brings the era and characters to life.

I learnt a great deal about the period, complementing the knowledge acquired in my previous non-fiction reading.

My volume had 900 pages, which I read in 8 days, a testament to the quality of the book, compelling the reader to turn page after page with no regard to time. Highly recommended.

[Sookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third part, The Ghost Road comes through after a long introduction and slow middle part. The end however is where Pat Barker brings all points of view to a full circle. Barker stands aside and narrates a story like an observer - its harsh, brutal and engaging.

[i-Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jaren geleden al gelezen en heeft veel indruk gemaakt. Door de herdenking van WO1 komt de herinnering aan dit boek terug. Helaas heb ik het boek (nog) niet digitaal. De papieren versie blijf ik bewaren.

[Alessandra Giovanile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dopo aver letto In Memoriam di Alice Winn ho sentito il bisogno di approfondire il tema della guerra di trincea e della Generazione Perduta. Questa è stata una lettura impegnativa, dura, dolorosa, che ha approfondito ed esacerbato tutti i temi accennati in In Memoriam, ma profondamente pacifista. Pat Barker è una narratrice eccezionale, anche quando porta il lettore per sentieri più impervi che sembrano discostarsi dal tema principale.
Qui ho trovato drammaticità estrema, sempre coniugata con l'ironia che contraddistingue l'autrice. Vita e morte che procedono a braccetto. La mole è scoraggiante, ma è una lettura che consiglio caldamente.

[Rich Yoast · Rating 5 out of 5]

While most of the reviews on this website are of books the reader has just finished, I think there is also a longer term impact that leads one to another kind of consideration - the ways in which novels can echo in your mind over time. This trilogy (which I read seven years ago) stands deep in my emotional memory - it brought home the horrors of WWI in a way that no other reading had for me. They bring forth an internal sadness and visceral revulsion that seem fresh whenever Barker's books or thoughts of that war come to mind. I had previously read the Olivia Manning series but recall them as great historical narratives with wonderful characters - almost like an expert piece of travel writing - but it left little impact on my psyche. All Quiet on the Western Front provided an internal insight into the over all experience of being a soldier and a somewhat distant view of the war.

But the Regeneration Trilogy brings forth the horrors experienced in very personal ways - and the recollections of the characters, the destruction of their psyches in that experience, and the great uncertainty that they'd ever recover (emotionally and physically) - provide a deep understanding - and, for me, thankfulness, that I did not have to experience what they did. The horrors of trench warfare, of being caught up in a relentless soldier-consuming machine run by incompetent and uncaring generals - who were equally unprepared for what the army was experiencing. Even today, historians struggle to understand and debate why or how that war could have happened - who was to blame, why no one seemed to foresee it or understand how to stop it once it began. It destroyed huge populations of soldiers and civilians on both fronts, brought down several empires, avowals it could never happen again and yet it did twenty years later and in numerous smaller conflicts since.

Over the decades that I have traveled throughout England a visual post-travels image always comes to mind - the monuments in every central town square containing lists of soldiers killed in WWI - and the frequency with which the same family names appeared. Death meant annihilation of whole families of men, and no doubt of whole towns' male populations or friendship networks. The efforts by those left behind to treat the returning casualties seem small and more than inadequate to the size of the tasks confronting them - and often the futility of treatment as "recovering" soldiers were sent back to the trenches.

Pat Barkers' writing, occurring many decades after a war she did not physically experience, seems to have come only after the nation had experienced another world war, dissolution of the empire, and probably only after another distance in time would allow writers to really come to grips with the hell the soldiers had experienced. I've looked for other novels about the war but the experience seems to have been so horrific and shocking to the routine daily view of life, that the nation could only confront it long after. I've seen no similar literature coming from the US and it's only been in recent decades that the US could produce even museums (e.g., in Kansas City, MO.) to commemorate what our soldiers went through.

So these books echo in my emotions and produce a feeling of hopelessness about how we humans and our societies confront the unspeakable. Barkers' trilogy, and her more recent trilogy about the war leading into World War II, are heroic and powerful efforts to try to confront the unspeakable in a way that the rest of us can understand and think about. She and her characters offer no solutions other than to say we must remember and try to think about what has happened rather than to pretend it didn't.

[Colin Davison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review applies to The Ghost Road only.
Any review of Barker’s mesmerising, harrowing yet tender novel will seem inadequate without putting it into the context of the two volumes that preceded it in her Regeneration trilogy.
Yet this was the one that won the 1995 Booker Prize, its predecessors having failed to make the short-lists of ’91 and ’93. Perhaps the judges were inclined to make theirs a cumulative accolade, but even in its own terms, this stands out as one of the most rewarding of all the winners.
In it, Barker achieves the terrible apotheosis of all that has gone before. It matters not that we know the outcome.
But the context hardly brings relief. Wilfred Owen et al. die on almost the last day of the First World War in what is virtually a suicide mission to cross a canal, a pointless exercise given the peace negotiations then in place.
Men, as Lt. Billy Prior wryly notes, are being ‘sacrificed to the subclauses and the small print.’ The working-class officer has earlier put his upper-class colleagues in their place with their clashing ideas of capitalist exploitation or national heroism. The war continues, he says, because no-one knows how to stop it. And as for the latter, it’s ‘Patriotism, honour, courage, vomit, vomit, vomit.’
Running parallel to the war, to which Billy and his fellow mental hospital inmates are being prepared to return, are images of other lives, far removed. The first in the novel’s opening pages are from a Scarborough fairground, with its coconut-shies, rifle range and haunted house ‘where cardboard skeletons leapt out of the cupboards with green electric light bulbs flashing in the sockets of their skulls.’
We know, because we have seen it and will see it again, the almost comical gulf in perception between those innocents sharing its frights and the observation of any returning soldier.
The more common reference however is to the head-hunters of the Solomon Islands where the psychiatrist Rivers did his anthropological research, among the skull houses, and the ever-present ghosts, spirits that are given voice to ask the questions the living have been unable to ask.
Compassionate and intelligent, taking readers into the darkest regions of experience in mind and body, this as-it-were behind-the-scenes look at what was then the greatest conflict mankind had seen, will remain one of the greatest accounts of what it felt like for some of those who were there.

[Val Asker · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a totally absorbing read it was. I was extremely impressed with Pat Barker's skilful weaving of fact and fiction and liked the author's notes at the end of each book that explained which events were historical fact. I learnt a lot. I didn't realise that there was an organised anti-war movement - I knew about pacifists and 'conchies' but had always thought of them as isolated individuals. I found the character of Beattie Roper, wrongly imprisoned for plotting to kill Lloyd George particularly interesting - this was loosely based on a genuine 'poison plot' which I think I remember from the Jeremy Paxman series. Rivers came over as a very compassionate man who cared deeply for his patients - but having to treat them in the knowledge that 'success' meant a return to the front, something he was opposed to. I also liked the inclusion of the war poets Sassoon and Owen. However I didn't warm to Billy Prior - all those seedy sexual encounters with men and women - yuk! - but I still wanted to know what happened to him and was pleased that in the end he came to respect Rivers, with whom he developed a father/son type relationship (as did Sassoon). The parts of the books I enjoyed best concerned Rivers' treatment methods and the psychology behind them - all those different manifestations of shell shock. There were some shocking and harrowing scenes - Yealland's inhumane electric shock treatment and Hallet's horrific injuries. But to me the most shocking event was Billy's betrayal of his childhood friend the pacifist 'Mac' while inhabiting his alternative personality - a betrayal he had no recollection of making. That was my 'oh no' moment! I found the Eddystone section quite strange and couldn't really see the relevance of it at first - but on reflection I think it was used by Pat Barker as a contrast to Western civilisation - one which was dying out because it could no longer go to war (by headhunting on adjoining islands). I thought it was extremely well written with the author able to convey much with a few well chosen words. It did remind me of Birdsong at the end where Billy comments that he and Owen are Craiglockhart's successes because they don't remember, think or feel.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am torn between giving this trilogy 3 and 4 stars. I loved the first book, it's just what I was hoping it would be. Pat Barker writes so evocatively and heart-breakingly about the war and the people caught up in it. I didn't know much at all about the methods they used to treat shell-shock, so that side of it was super interesting. And I loved that it followed real life people like Rivers and Sassoon (which I'd initially thought I wouldn't really enjoy as I get irritated when authors attribute personalities to people that they didn't know.)

The second and third books left me feeling mixed. I preferred the third, because it was back on familiar ground, e.g. the war. Book 2 felt, for want of a better word, random, really. I enjoyed aspects of book 3, but again, felt a bit displaced by Rivers' memories of the head-hunters. I know it's quite narrow-minded of me, but I picked up this trilogy because I wanted stories from WW1, so I resented the parts with the head-hunters and felt like I was rushing through them to get back to the war. I also disliked the last half where it's written from Prior's perspective, in diary form. I don't tend to get on with diary style prose, I think because it feels so over-characterized, like the author is really trying to mimic how the character would speak and I felt that way about Prior's diary. It felt almost too try-hard and became a bit caricature-ish. I don't really know why it was necessary to write it that way.

All in all though, I'd recommend the trilogy, mostly for the first book, but it is satisfying to follow Prior right through to the end so I think you may as well read all 3!

[Kaye McSpadden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished the first book of the trilogy, entitled "Regeneration." I have mixed feelings about it. The story focuses on the treatment of World War I soldiers who have experienced psychiatric breakdowns and disorders as a result of the horrors of war. There is also an underlying discussion of the morality and ethics of war itself.

On the one hand, I enjoyed learning a little bit about the emerging views of post-combat psychiatric trauma, and I appreciated the fact that several of the characters were based on actual, historical people (especially, the two central characters -- the doctor and the soldier who protested the war).

However, I found the writing to be somewhat dry and too intellectual. A story that was relating the emotional response to the horrors of war was itself, not emotional enough. Perhaps this was a reflection of the doctor's view that most of the mental problems were due to soldiers' repressions of their war memories. Or perhaps it's a reflection of the stiff, uptight British culture. Or perhaps it's just my perspective as a result of having just read the beautifully written and emotionally gut-wrenching "Gods Go Begging," which covered some of the same ground in such an amazing way (of course, that was the Vietnam War, not WWI).

Whatever the case may be, I didn't find "Regeneration" itself to be as engaging as it should have been. I'm not sure if I will read the second and third volumes in the trilogy or not.

[Bevan Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Regeneration
The forthcoming anniversary of the Great War should provide some motivation for readers to revisit, or discover this trilogy from the nineties. Acclaimed at the time (topped off by a Booker Prize for the last in the series The Ghost Road) it has been on my 'to read' list for many years. The story centres around an institution for mentally ill soldiers near Edinburgh, and psychologist W H Rivers. A particular focus is his relationship with patient Siegfried Sassoon and the moral conflict between his support for the war and the damage he sees in his patients.
The book sometimes feels a bit lacking in incident and plot mobility, but beautifully draws its characters. Pat Barker's research must have been detailed as her insight into the psychological treatment of the time as well as the maladies feels quite authentic. The setting is a really interesting way of exploring the consequences of the war rather than through a traditional battlefield context.
Not always an easy read the book is rewarding and insightful, and cleverly intertwines the main theme of wartime trauma and suffering with explorations of masculinity and the role of women in wartime.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard hitting, thought provoking and moving, this is an excellent trilogy set during the First World War. It deals largely with the psychological effects/trauma that the war had on the men who fought as well as various social issues of the time. These are books that do not shy away from the life-changing impact that the war had on the people involved and they make for some very emotive reading. The amount of research that Pat Barker has done into the subject is astonishing and the whole thing proved to be a real eye opener. I would say that each book is self contained enough to work as a stand alone novel but I think that it's best to read the whole trilogy if possible as certain characters are followed all the way through. I would highly recommend checking these books out if you are interested in the First World War and I look forward to reading some more of Barker's works in the future.

The three books that make up this trilogy are 'Regeneration', 'The Eye in the Door' and 'The Ghost Road'.

[B.P. Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is in my top ten, possibly my top 5, best novels.

It's a trilogy, but don't hesitate - buy all three as a single volume; they're all brilliant, jaw-droppingly insightful, and written with exquisite skill that appears effortless.

Barker writes men better than any male author I've ever read. If I wrote half as well as Barker, I'd die happy. Though the characters are almost all male, they're informed and contextualised within a dual society of men and women.

It's about war, it's about how and why we go to war, and how war damages all of us, yet it's mostly set far from the mud and blood of the Front. Only in the third part of this trilogy do we go there, and, despite there being a lot of one-on-one dialogue, sans action, the narrative is riveting.

If you love good writing, you'll be impressed. If you're a writer; this is how it's done. If you're about to start this particular journey, you're a lucky person indeed. Enjoy.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first novel in this trilogy presents us with victims of "shell shock" and other "war neuroses" being treated Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh during WWI. Barker bases some of her characters on historical figures such as poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen and the man who led their treatment. Some of the details are brutal, but the writing is excellent, the characters Barker creates compelling. The inclusion of female munitions workers adds a perspective not usually found in either histories or novels on this subject. Highly recommended.

[John Dolan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much has been written of Pat Barker's stunning trilogy, and for good reason. It's a brilliant take on the Great War, and not one overwhelmed with images of blood and barbed wire. For me, it's right up there with 'All Quiet on the Western Front' and 'Birdsong'. Lyrical, poignant and touching. In short, a striking achievement.

[Whiskey Tango · Rating 4 out of 5]

hese three novels—­Regeneration (1991), The Eye in the Door (1993), and The Ghost Road (1995)—offer an unflinching look at World War I. Starting with the real-life psychiatric treatment of poet and British officer Sigfried Sassoon for shellshock, Barker shows how the war ruined but failed to replace nineteenth-century norms of gender, class, sexuality, and honor.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read all three novels in this Regeneration series in one reading event, as though they were one book. And this may be the reason that (a) Books 2 and 3 made such sense and the characters in particular were recognisable, following on immediately from the previous book, and (b) I was ready for the series to be over by the time I got to the end of Book 3.

I ordered this trilogy online following reviews that said Pat Barker knows WWI better than any other living writer. A previous novel I'd read which referenced WWI intrigued me, and I was keen to read more. And indeed Pat Barker is an insightful and intelligent writer, even if her creations aren't always likeable or easy to relate to.

In this "uber novel" (as I thought of the trilogy, reading one book after another as I did), we follow two main characters, Captain Billy Pryor and Dr Will Rivers, as they journey through WWI from their respective positions as active soldier and army psychiatrist. These vantage points give them intersecting but differing points of view, and intersecting but different courses of action. Billy Pryor isn't the most likeable man on the planet, he'd probably be described as "complex" in a modern novel. Dr Rivers is a likeable character, even if he gets a bit fuzzy around the edges at times, and difficult to define. Perhaps both those elements of character are deliberate.

We do get some scenes from the front, some war action, but it isn't as direct or confrontational as I might have imagined it was going to be. It's ghastly, and paints a picture so vivid you can see it in your minds' eye very clearly (at least I could). But this isn't what I'd call a "war novel". It's a novel set in war time, involving people engaged in various activities to do with war, but it's about so many other things than the war.

I'd call this a character-driven (set of) stories. There is action, things do happen, and the pace was good... but it was all about the characters. Not being English, I found many of the references to those quintessential English qualities - the class system being the biggest - quite challenging (to understand, to relate to). I think if you're English, you would relate to this book very differently to if you aren't.

Quite a beautiful series of books in their own way, although I couldn't recommend them to my father, say, because of all the homosexual sex, quite directly described, and alluded to (or at least I think it was being alluded to - that's how oblique the references were!) when it wasn't being graphically brought to life before our very eyes, as it were.

Not a set of stories to rip through in an afternoon, I found it took quite some time to get through all 3 novels, which says something to me about the quality of the writing. I appreciated this series of stories more than I liked it.