n  Bettie's Booksn

This book, and the others in the trilogy, are written so simply that they don't feel written. But they capture the nuance of language and thought of the period. Though there is nothing distinctly alien in the language, the place they describe is another world.

Dit verhaal schijnt z'n oorsprong te hebben in de ervaringen van Pat Barkers grootvader, die in WOI gevochten had. In 'Niemandsland' beschrijft ze het leven in Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh (wat tegenwoordig de Napier University is). In Craiglockhart werden Britse psychisch gewonde militairen verpleegd. We volgen de gang van zaken door de ogen van dr. Rivers en enkele patiënten, waaronder de War Poet Siegfried Sassoon (die daar collegadichter Wilfred Owen ontmoette).
Sassoon publiceerde in 1917 een manifest gericht tegen de Britse opperofficieren die met hun beslissingen de oorlog maar rekken.
1917 was voor het moreel een cruciaal jaar, na maanden met tienduizenden doden voor enkele meters terreinwinst. Er kwam meer protest, maar ongewenste meningen moesten het liefst omgevormd worden. Aan dr. Rivers de taak Sassoon te laten terugkeren naar de Franse loopgraven (gelukkig doet deze arts niet aan elektroshocks). De arts vindt dat hij humaner is dan zijn collega's in Londen, maar later vraagt hij zich af: hoeveel humaner is hij eigenlijk in een situatie dat van alle artsen verwacht wordt mensen op te lappen en terug te sturen naar een suïcidale plaats?

De schrijfstijl van Barker verraste me: soepel, terwijl je ongemerkt veel meekrijgt over behandelmethodes en veldslagen, zonder dat het je overspoelt of tranentrekkend wordt. Ondertussen enkele verderleestips opgeschreven, waaronder natuurlijk Robert Graves, die Sassoon blijkbaar behoed heeft voor de krijgsraad. Graves was zelf zo kwaad op de Britse regering dat hij in 1929 het land verliet en 'Dat hebben we gehad' publiceerde (verschenen in de Oorlogsdomeinreeks).

“You know you're walking around with a mask on, and you desperately want to take it off and you can't because everybody else thinks it's your face.”

Really enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to reading the next two in the trilogy.

Read this for the second time - a beautiful book about the psychological fall out of being at war, though it all takes place away from the front. There are names famous to poetry-lovers as characters (Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves) but to me the most interesting character was the progressive psychiatrist trying to treat shell-shocked soldiers. Strongly recommend.

Managed to get to page 95 before I realised there are better books to read. I found the style turgid and it didn't build up a compelling story for me.

I tried reading this "masterpiece" but I just couldn't trudge my way through it. A "modern classic" probably written by an old person who has been hip off and on throughout his/her life. As I age I might try it again, since there has been uber-hype about it and someday someone might ask me if I've read it and what I thought about it. It's one of those books at least for me that you dread the idea of having to read again or having to read its sequels, like I experienced with the “Painted Bird” by Jerzy Kosinski . Dreaded that guy so much..

this is probably one of my favourite books I've read for uni but also one of the best books I've read in a long time! I was not expecting liking this so much, and I think one of the reasons why I enjoyed this read was because I've never read anything like this before. I had this fixed, preconceived idea of what war iterature was supposed to be (all battles, blood and death) that I prevented myself for reading any type of novels that dealt with war. huge mistake. This is more than just war this is problematising ideas and showing a hidden reality and I cannot recommend it more. I was debating giving it a 4 or a 5 but I think that is because I've had to read it under the pressure of other 2 more lit classes so I was a bit frustrated, but I think it deserves my five stars soooo there you go <3

Stunning, stark, unsettling.

We meet in this book a number of people whose lives are fundamentally changed by the events of WWI. These tales are full of despair and hopelessness, and on occasion happiness and possibility. There are people hollowed out and stunted by their experience. So too there are many characters whose lives have gone further and whose rank in society increased in ways that were impossible in England before the war. Sometimes these were the same people. Barker helps us to understand so much about that time, but she also tells us a great deal about the impact of war on our soldiers today and she guides us to empathize with people just trying to live right and often failing.

This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.
Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War... All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful .

In 1917 poet Sigfrid Sassoon terrified by the scale of war massacre made a statement called A Soldier's Declaration in which announced that could no longer be a soldier and wouldn’t come back on the front. Because of that he landed in Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland for observation. This is a starting point for Pat Barker’s novel Regeneration. Except Sassoon we meet there other historical figures like doctor Rivers and other poets Robert Graves and Wilfred Owen. Poets in trenches. Indeed .

You could say that idealism is a natural feature of youth. Obviously. Look at them. Graduates from elite schools and non-educated boys as well. They set off on the war as for a trip, as for a great Adventure, joined the army as a volunteers convinced that dulce et decorum is pro Patria mori, overflowed with enthusiasm, with their hearts filled pictures of brotherhood, sacrifice, honour

If I should die, think only this of me
That there's some corner of a foreign field
that is for ever England

Meanwhile had experienced inequality, snobbery, idiotic rules and punishment for its breaking and finally ended in Flanders trenches and dugouts, in waist-deep water, being gassed, waiting for death. So, where is the honour, where’s the glory in that?

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons .

These who survived, physically and mentally crippled, with eating disorders, with speech defects, haunted by nightmares and hallucinations landed in hospitals for regeneration. That title has an ironic overtone as well, because doctors helped their patients to regenerate, to recover their fragile mental equilibrium in purpose to send them back on the front.

In one of the scenes doctor Rivers is watching fresco depicturing Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac to God. There is something symbolical in that. Yes, what a nation, what a government could send own sons for death ? Does such society deserve of our fidelity and trust ?

Many people have been killed in that war. And many poets too. We could risk a statement that XX century English literature has began with death of poetry. And experiences of the Great War has symbolically ended the Golden Age. As if, after Flanders fields, after Ypres and Somme, writing sweet poems have been something indecent, as if a literature itself has lost its innocence.

But the past is just the same, and War's a bloody game. . . .
Have you forgotten yet ? . . .
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget




In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row ...

Really liked this book. Well written and interesting subject material.