Regeneration is a tough novel to sum up. It's historical fiction: an imagining of the relationship of some real people, Dr. Williams Rivers, and his shell-shock patients at the Craiglockhart Hospital, renowned war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.
Author Pat Barker wrote this novel after she realized that her work had been pigeon-holed as women's fiction.
I find the inclusion of real people among the characters engaging. Barker did a lot of research, and I find myself imagining that this gave her the freedom to imagine her characters while grounding them reality, giving her work authenticity.
Underneath it all, Barker conveys something tough-minded and honest, and I think that is part of the appeal of the novel to me. Another aspect that I think interests me is the sense that this moment in time is a turning-point, a switch, or a change, from one culture to another, although in reality, contradictory cultural currents exist side by side.
A review I found somewhere emphasized the character of Billy Prior. Prior is not a historical person, and he is perhaps the least sympathetic of Rivers' patients in the book. As this essay asserted, Prior is an officer who is working-class, and has earned his rank through merit, and his attitude is one of fairly obvious scorn and disdain for the upper-class young men with whom he shares his rank.
Prior starts dating a girl in town during the course of the novel. At times, he feels anger toward her, and this may be simply a reflection of a soldier's contempt for civilians, or something darker. I felt I could never quite get a fix on his feelings for her. My difficulty understanding Prior, or fixing his identity, was the thing that troubled me the most about this novel. I wonder if the difficulty I had "fixing him," or pinpointing his identity, reflects his crossing class lines and his discomfort in the place where he has arrived.
I'd read this novel years ago, perhaps 15 or 20 - I can't remember exactly. As I read it again, I found myself feeling as if I were reading it for the first time. I loved the novel when I read it before, and I struggled to try to recapture the feeling that I had then. After turning over the elements of the novel in my mind, I suspect now that what moved me so greatly was Rivers' character, his kindness and his openness.
It was interesting to read Regeneration right after Longbourn, because the appearance of class in the former novel somehow made me feel more keenly the element of class in Longbourn.
7/29/17 Today I read an interesting personal essay about how reading Regeneration influenced one student's feeling about her own disability. I found it interesting. Here's a link: http://bit.ly/2vGrrTL
Author Pat Barker wrote this novel after she realized that her work had been pigeon-holed as women's fiction.
I find the inclusion of real people among the characters engaging. Barker did a lot of research, and I find myself imagining that this gave her the freedom to imagine her characters while grounding them reality, giving her work authenticity.
Underneath it all, Barker conveys something tough-minded and honest, and I think that is part of the appeal of the novel to me. Another aspect that I think interests me is the sense that this moment in time is a turning-point, a switch, or a change, from one culture to another, although in reality, contradictory cultural currents exist side by side.
A review I found somewhere emphasized the character of Billy Prior. Prior is not a historical person, and he is perhaps the least sympathetic of Rivers' patients in the book. As this essay asserted, Prior is an officer who is working-class, and has earned his rank through merit, and his attitude is one of fairly obvious scorn and disdain for the upper-class young men with whom he shares his rank.
Prior starts dating a girl in town during the course of the novel. At times, he feels anger toward her, and this may be simply a reflection of a soldier's contempt for civilians, or something darker. I felt I could never quite get a fix on his feelings for her. My difficulty understanding Prior, or fixing his identity, was the thing that troubled me the most about this novel. I wonder if the difficulty I had "fixing him," or pinpointing his identity, reflects his crossing class lines and his discomfort in the place where he has arrived.
I'd read this novel years ago, perhaps 15 or 20 - I can't remember exactly. As I read it again, I found myself feeling as if I were reading it for the first time. I loved the novel when I read it before, and I struggled to try to recapture the feeling that I had then. After turning over the elements of the novel in my mind, I suspect now that what moved me so greatly was Rivers' character, his kindness and his openness.
It was interesting to read Regeneration right after Longbourn, because the appearance of class in the former novel somehow made me feel more keenly the element of class in Longbourn.
7/29/17 Today I read an interesting personal essay about how reading Regeneration influenced one student's feeling about her own disability. I found it interesting. Here's a link: http://bit.ly/2vGrrTL
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