Regeneration by Pat Barker

Regeneration by Pat Barker, 1991 (#9 on my list)

I added Pat Barker's Regeneration to my reading list because it's the first book anyone suggests when the WWI-era poets Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves--or even Robert Ross, Oscar Wilde's devoted friend and literary executor--are mentioned. A quick look at Wikipedia for any of these names will see their characterizations in the Regeneration series featured prominently in the entry. At least that was my experience a few years back, when I read Robert Graves' memoir Goodbye to All That for a class. Many of the figures from that book feature here, with Sassoon and W.H.R. Rivers, a psychiatrist best known for providing treatment to soldiers dealing with what we would now call PTSD, in starring roles. The growth of their friendship and respect for each other, despite their differences in handling their pacifist beliefs and their homosexuality in a time of war, forms a major story line. To avoid being pure slash fan fiction, there is also Billy Prior, a completely fictional character who is a working-class up-and-comer, an officer and a heterosexual. The difficult relationship between he and Rivers is a complete contrast to the buddy relationship Rivers shares with the Sassoon. Prior's struggles and burgeoning romance with a young woman comprise much of the focus of the novel.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't have gotten around to this book for a long while, if ever, had I not added it to my Classics Club list. I just couldn't summon the enthusiasm for a book I worried would treat the complex queer identities of real people unfairly. The series has a pretty devoted following, which bolstered me, and I did give the book a good faith effort. For instance, I took lots of well intended notes while I was reading Regeneration. But the things I noticed were not exactly positive. I couldn't help but count how many words were italicized for emphasis--no less than 22, in the six page-long first chapter. If I hadn't committed to finishing the book, I likely would have abandoned it. It has been a little over a month now since I finished the novel, and time hasn't given my experience any more enjoyment. 

That said, I may end up reading the other books in the series anyway. I hear Robert Ross has a larger presence later on, and there are too few books, fiction or non-fiction, about him.

Read August 2-12, 2018

In later life, Robert Graves became quite conservative. For him, even Robert Frost was too radical.

Additional Reading

• Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
• The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon
• The Poems of Wilfred Owen
• Dismembering the Male: Men's Bodies, Britain, and the Great War by Joanna Bourke
• Robbie Ross: Oscar Wilde's True Love by Jonathan Fryer
• Citizen, Invert, Queer: Lesbianism and War in Early Twentieth-Century Britain by Deborah Cohler