“One began by finding mental illness mystifying, and ended by being still more mystified by health.”(147)Can an entire society develop PTSD? According to Pat Barker, Great Britain in April 1918 needs “regeneration.” War fatigue has set in, and the general public reads the casualty lists, shrugs,...
“The Ghost Road,” winner of the 1995 Booker Prize, concludes the Regeneration Trilogy, throughout which psychologically wounded soldiers of the Great War are encouraged to unearth their repressed trauma and to remember terrible things. “Stop the repression, please,” whispers the kindly Dr. Willia...
I seem to be on a quest for awkward books, as right after finishing Cunningham's "A Home at the End of the World" I have stumbled upon "Another World" by Pat Barker. I was feeling hungry for another book of Barker's, as almost two years have passed after I finished the "Regeneration" trilogy. It ...
Imagine you’re out for a walk one weekend and see a young man swallow handful of pills and jump into the river. Without thinking – or perhaps even as a distraction from the torment of your failing marriage – you strip off your heavy coat and plunge into the river to save him. Much later, after th...
Double Vision is a superbly crafted novel concentrating on the horrendous cost of war on the lives and psyches of those associated with it. The story commences with the random accident of Kate Frobisher, a war widow, who although atheist herself is engaged in a sculpture of the crucified Christ f...
Pat Barker's books set in World War One continue to blow me away. Her “Regeneration” trilogy (“Regeneration,” “The Eye in the Door” and “The Ghost Road”) - centred on lightly fictionalised versions of the famous British war poets - were gruelling and transfixing, set on the front lines and in a p...