Regeneration

Pat Barker

This is a fictional work built around historical characters. It begins with a declaration of protest from an officer in the British army, Siegfried Sassoon, against the continuation of WW1 by the British government. The problem for the army is that Sassoon is a well-respected officer and decorated war hero. Their solution: declare the protest a symptom of mental breakdown and send him off to a hospital in Craiglockhart to be cured. His doctor was also a real person, Dr Rivers (I've forgotten the first name). Besides Sassoon, there are also a number of other patients in the hospital, all military men and suffering from mental anguish caused by the war. Many books on war tend to describe its horrors through visceral images of fighting in the trenches, stepping over bodies of fellow soldiers etc. But in this story, the suffering is described in a quiet manner, with little melodrama. And the impact is no less effective because of it. This book goes on to detail Rivers's interaction with his patients, how his thoughts and their thoughts shape each other. It's a quiet and beautiful exploration of relationships between men and I liked it very much. The dialogue was wonderful and conveyed the carmaderie between the men beautifully. There was also an exploration of the psychological makeup of the characters, leading to some interesting reading. All in all, a very satisfying book.