I think this novel stands quite well alone in addition to serving as an important second part in the series of three starting with Booker Prize winner "Regeneration". I read it out of sequence (as the last one), and that doesn't seem to matter for comprehension. Each focuses on a different set of characters in the circle of patients of psychiatrist William Rivers, a real man who treated soldiers damaged by their combat experiences in World War 1. The other volumes focus on the recovery of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, prominent gay poets who fought valiantly but wrote verse which stands among the great anti-war literature. This one concentrates on a complex fictional character Billy Prior, treated for what we would today call post-traumatic stress.

Billy's tendency toward manipulation and violence, scary memory gaps, and bisexuality makes him hard to identify with, yet Rivers' compassion and flexible approach to treatment helped move me toward empathy. The theme of Rivers' moral struggles of treating people so they can return to being cannon fodder is less a theme for this tale than the pathologies in society brought out by the war. Billy's work in domestic intelligence puts him in a moral quagmire through alliance with forces that scapegoated pacifists and homosexuals and imputed their collusion with socialist union workers in munitions factories.

The transformations of class discrimination during the social upheavals wrought by the war is another fascinating theme brought out well in the novel. This was brought out by having Billy try to save a childhood friend, a shopkeeper woman falsely convicted of plotting to kill the Prime Minister. The "eye in the door" of the title refers both to horror of being watched in one's cell or room in an asylum, as well as to being spied upon in daily life due to being perceived as a threat to the war effort.

Excellent. A moving study of how societal pressure to conform damages individuals. The First World War obviously looms large over the novel, but it’s only one of the factors at play.

This review was written in the late nineties (just for myself), and it was buried in amongst my things until today, when I uncovered the journal it was written in. I have transcribed it verbatim from all those years ago (although square brackets indicate some additional information for the sake of readability). It is one of my lost reviews.

It's a feeling I can't quite place, a feeling I can't pinpoint, but I feel The Eye in the Door is a more enjoyable book, although less literary, than Regeneration. Still, I will try here to point out a few elements that stand out in my mind.

First, I love Prior's struggle with the dissociative state. His slipping into fugue states, and the resulting loss of memmory, adds a tinge of fear and menace to the story that makes me more emotionally involved. Second, I enjoy Barker's handling of betrayal in a torn society. Third is the wonderful way in which Barker deals with homosexuality in WWI-era Britain. Fourth, and maybe the most important, is the imagery of WWI warfare. When we hear Manning's story of the soldier slipping into the mud of a foxhole, it makes me feel weak and privileged in my relatively safe late 20th Century society.

This book challenges me, and I love being challenged.

Didn’t enjoy this second instalment as much as the first, tho it’s very well written. Story and concept was a bit stranger this time and the ending didn’t land, tho I’m VERY intrigued about part three now.

This was a brilliant sequel to Regeneration and continues the story of Billy Prior, a fascinating character from the first novel. Taking place at the end of WW1, The Eye in the Door follows Prior as he deals with the psychological effects of the war including instances of memory loss.

As in Regeneration, Pat Barker takes real events from history and weaves them into the narrative to create a detailed context for Billy's struggles e.g. as a bisexual man in a country where he has hide his attraction to men, and attitudes towards mental health issues.

There were occasional moments where these real events felt a bit forced into narrative but for the most part they were a crucial part of the fictional story. The interactions between Billy and Dr Rivers, and with his intimate partners, were where the real strength of the book was for me as it gave a real insight into Billy's mind and touched on so many important and interesting themes.

Mac is in Wandsworth. A radical pacifist who worked to sabotage the production of munitions, he has been betrayed and caught.

'I didn't believe it. The sergeant in Liverpool told me it was you, I mean, he mentioned your name. He was standing on my scrotum at the time, so, as you can imagine, it had a certain ring to it. I still didn't believe it, but the more I thought about it the more I thought, yes.' Mac was speaking intently, and yet almost indifferently, as if he didn't care whether Prior listened or not. Perhaps speaking at all was merely a way of salving his pride, of distracting Prior's attention while the all-important business of devouring the chocolate went on. 'And then I thought, he told you. Do you remember in the cattle shed I asked you what you'd have done if you'd found a deserter in Hettie's scullery and you said, "I'd turn him in. What else could I do?" And then I remembered a story I heard, about a man who found a snake half dead and nursed it back to life. He fed it, took care of it. And then he let it go. And the next time they met it bit him. And this was a very poisonous snake, he ... knew he was going to die. And with his last gasp, he said, "But why? I saved you, I fed you, I nursed you. Why did you bite me?" And the snake said, "But you knew I was a snake."

In war time nurturing men are expected to turn into snakes. It is a violence against their nature, that can only be managed by disassociation.

And here's another of those quirky ironies that expose the absurdity: while there is carnage in Picardy, people in London are more interested in who is sleeping with whom and who is being blackmailed.

I see from other reviews that some folks have trouble relating to the characters here, find them too artificial, too obviously fictional. It may have to do with Barker's multi-perspective approach, perhaps. We move from Prior to Manning to Rivers and back, never snuggling in close to any of them. That's fine by me. Their nightmares are disturbing enough, no desire to coorie up.

Barker has a wonderful ear for dialogue.

I shall have to leave the final book in the trilogy until the next time I visit the Ancient Parents, as they are collected in a large fat hardback that I will not carry away. Oops. I mean the three parts of the trilogy of course, not the APs. The pitfalls of sentence structure.

The problem with buying the trilogy version of books (rather than the three individually) is that you feel compelled to read them all.

If you are interested in man-love (some of it fairly explicit) and stories revolving around sexual repression and the first world war, this is for you.

The only good thing about this piece of tosh is that it took me 2 days to read, likely helping me achieve my 2016 Goodreads book target.

AVOID THIS CRAP.

Beautifully written and thoroughly researched as always with Pat Barker. She immerses the reader completely in the book's world. One of my favourite authors.

Second in the series, I like the growth of the Billy Prior character.

Set in London, this second novel in the Regeneration Trilogy, continues the examination of the psychological effects of the Great War We continue to learn more about the lives of the main characters – Dr. William Rivers, Billy Prior, and, eventually, Siegfried Sassoon. It is early 1918 and the war is not going well. The hunt for scapegoats is on, and likely candidates are conscientious objectors and homosexuals. Billy Prior is working for the government. He finds out about a situation in which one of his friends was framed. He begins to experience blackouts. He reconnects with Dr. Rivers.

The writing is outstanding. The plot is intricate and compelling. The characters are deeply developed. Barker is skilled at developing a feeling of completeness to the story, even in the middle book of a trilogy, which is a rare talent that I appreciate. I am looking forward to reading the third and final book, The Ghost Road.

4.5

Dr. Rivers doesn't think Prior should imagine a monster where he has gaps in his memory. But, should he?
This story is so gripping.

It had me so tense about Prior's blackouts! I thought there was going to be more to the process of integrating his dissociative personality. But then the book ended! Prior has to know but seems so reluctant to believe that he betrayed Mac. I expect these things will be important in the sequel.

And Dr. Rivers! Things are up in the air with him. On to The Ghost Road, and if it doesn't tie up these character arcs, I might cry!

I looked at my review of her Regeneration and was surprised to find myself having said the characters weren't quite real. I didn't feel that way at all in this one. Either Barker came to know her characters better, or I came to read her characters better. Or both, perhaps?

I found my appreciation of this enhanced by my having recently read To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918. That book focused on the war protesters and how the British government imprisoned "conchies" and others, including homosexuals. One glimpse here was that the conscientious objectors were used as orderlies at the hospital, and that they were ill-treated by fellow employees. This was a side-issue entirely - barely mentioned, but I had understanding. It's interesting how one's body of reading enhances the next book.

The title comes from the inside of a prison door. There is a peep hole for the guards to check on inmates. On many of the doors (all of them?) the peep hole has become the pupil of an eye painted on the door, complete with iris, veining in the white, eyelashes. Inmates know they are constantly being watched, and this is a particularly apt analogy for the political prisoners. The government was watching them, spying on them to catch them at anything amiss and locking them up.

The body of the story is the return of Dr. Rivers and his treatment of soldiers from the front. The primary character in this is a returning patient, Billy Prior. How much killing can a man handle before he breaks? Also making more than just a cameo appearance is poet Siegfried Sassoon. I liked this better than Regeneration, but I'm not at all sure that is because it is actually better, but perhaps because I am a more informed reader.