War Novel Review - Pat Barker - Regeneration

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1997 – Penguin Books – spoiler alerts The first volume of Barker’s powerful Regeneration Trilogy, set in 1917, dealing with themes relating to shell-shocked soldiers recovering in British hospitals. Many of the characters are real historic figures. It centres on psychologist William Rivers, who is assigned to get the men in his charge ready and recovered enough to return them to active service though he secretely wishes he could secure many of them a discharge on health grounds as he knows he will be sending many back to die. His conscience is really tested when poet Robert Graves engineers getting fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon assigned to Rivers’s clinic. Sassoon has been writing literature casting doubt on the validity of the war which he believed could be ended by peaceful negotiation that the British are avoiding despite German requests for it. Despite his contempt for the war, Sassoon feels a need to return to the fighting to aid the men who fought alongside him. Another poet Rivers treats is Wilfred Owen. There are strong women’s roles in the story too, put the central focus is Rivers who finds himself having hallucinatory dreams from seeing so many damaged men sent to him for assistance. He is also under pressure to speed up his processes and the first book in the series concludes as Sassoon goes back to the war which he survived) and Rivers obliged to assist a psychiatrist willing to use electro-shock therapy techniques on men he regards dispassionately as malingerers and cannon-fodder. His torture and contempt for the men he treats is a total contrast to the gentle approach taken by Rivers. Unforgettable writing that deservedly earned Pat Barker many awards. Arthur Chappell