doesn’t quite compare to the first instalment but once again pat barker covers an enormous and horrendous topic with compassionate eloquence. lines from ‘regeneration’ have haunted me since i read it for the first time in school and ‘the eye in the door’ did excellently as a sequel - considering the final instalment won a booker i imagine it’s probably also setting up for the finale

i was struck by this quote about being willing to sacrifice body and soul and suffer for a cause:
‘That's a very dangerous idea. It comes quite close to saying that the willingness to suffer proves the rightness of belief. But is doesn't. The most it can ever prove is the believer's sincerity. And not always that. some people just like suffering.’

Disappointing compared to the first in the trilogy (polite for boring as fuck)

n  "If you say, "I think it's morally wrong for young men to be sent out to slaughter each other," God help you."n

Very little has changed since I read, reviewed, and hung on to Regeneration for dear life. I still live at home, am mistaken for a fifteen-year-old more often than not, and pace myself through books at an obscene rate. The only difference is that I can lay claim to a few more labels: English graduate, bisexual, job holder. In the eyes of many, since I achieved this at twenty-five-years-old rather than twenty-one, I am a failure. In the eyes of myself, I know that there are many others besides these failure-labelers who would prefer to see me dead. I suppose this is why reading this is a 'comfort' of sorts, certainly more comfortable than the Black Lamb and Grey Falcon morass I'm slogging through with its tidbits of actually valuable insight drowned in every death-dealing hypocrisy known to white cis het able woman and then some. Here, insanity and non-heteronormativity is a given, and in this case is even more welcome, as the LGBTQIA+ acronym does not mean LG is not a stronghold where biphobia runs rampant. If sex with multiple genders of the dichotomy disgusts you, if those who do not ask how high when you tell them to jump on the sanity scale scare you, fuck off. Both are me, and I have enough shit to deal with offline without the likes of you.

n  One began by finding mental illness mystifying, and ended by being still more mystified by health.n

Much like my own life trajectory, you can't really say anything happens during the course of this novel. People come and go in the jails and the psyche wards. Some of them 'pass' in whatever way is demanded at the time, which can be all or nothing depending on whether women, insanity, non-heteronormativity, or a foreign power is perceived as the greatest threat. Various historical events happen, all of them very titillating until the boredom sets in, for the same things happen today under all the new names and the new faces and the new military industrial complexes. The only difference is that there is a greater propensity to set certain events in stone as with the grandiose title of It Could Not Have Happened Until Now. Reading Regeneration three years ago set yet another ball rolling to the point that I can no longer term its sequel a favorite, but I still deeply appreciate how utterly well crafted this is: raw when I need it to be, suppressed when I need it to be, as the chemicals of my brain have yet to be balanced out by a full time job with health insurance. Until that future guarantee arrives under a true oppression-blocking sky and I can turn my way to calmer shores, persecution and self-hatred and paranoia directed at outward forces only outweighed by paranoia directed at inward is my bread and butter. I can't speak for those who don't say the same. They are blessed by a biology that fits what was prescribed as the norm a few centuries ago, and when the world outgrows this skeleton, their reckoning is their own to deal with.

n  In the end moral and political truths have to be proved on the body, because this mass of nerve and muscle and blood is what we are.n

While I have a vague interest in putting off the finishing of the trilogy for another three years as a sort of masochistic time capsule, one of the lessons I've found necessary to learn is that my naturally self-starving type needs to indulge when they can. In any case, I know for certain that in three years, I'll either be in grad school or on my way to a masters in library science. Neither path is what is advised these days, but the birth of people like me is subtly worked against as well, so I may as well pursue what I love. If someone wants to cry over my spilled milk, exit stage left. The tears of the self-proclaimed normal are worse than useless.

n  'Your coming here is entirely is entirely voluntary.'
'With that degree of dependency? Of course it's not fucking voluntary.'n

THE EYE IN THE DOOR (1993) is the REGENERATION trilogy second part. This book shifts the action to London a few months after some of the characters have left Craiglockhart, the military hospital. We don't "see" the trenches in this book either, however, Barker continues to explore the fracturing of personalities under pressure, focusing on Billy Prior, a bisexual working-class officer who has begun to experience 'fugue states', following which he can remember nothing of his actions.

Barker shows us a divided country in which war propaganda has criminalized pacifists, socialists and homosexuals. Prior has affinities with all these groups, which he tries to conceal to remain competent at his job in Intelligence. The pressures and the guilt of betrayal break him down eventually.

THE EYE IN THE DOOR is an angry novel which draws the reader into an exploration of war and its effects. Barker poignantly shows us that the instruments of war are not only bombs and bullets but include the psychological consequences under which the doomed young men lived in the trenches and war hospitals.

Regeneration, the first volume in ths trilogy, was unique, affecting and memorable. I'll combine the reviews of The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road as I read them in one glob. And sadly, I didn't care much for either one. "Eye" was rather confusing to me, I kept losing track of the story and having to go back and reread to see what I missed, ultimately I realized that I had lost sympathy or whatever for the characters and was just finding the whole storyline plodding and dreary, fact based or no. I hoped Ghost Road would pick up the pace a bit. But no. In both books there are a few riveting moments, but not enough. And when every few pages in GR we have to flashback to Dr. Rivers' experiences with headhunters in the jungle I would sigh and run the risk of skipping something profound by skimming. I just read many five star raves of both books and feel like I must have missed something, so maybe I should be ignored here, I don't know. (Oh, and quite a few reviews warn of some rather raw sex scenes that pop up out of the blue. I actually appreciated them because they woke me up when I was leaning towards dozing off. Although they ARE pretty yucky.)

Confirmed: Billy Prior is a Disaster Bi

I really appreciate what Barker is doing with this trilogy. I'm on book 2 and we haven't been to the Front at all apart from in memories. This book's focus on the impact of the war on people who couldn't or wouldn't conform is really interesting and enlightening.

I enjoyed any scene with Rivers, particularly his interactions with Prior, which were prickly and funny, but I had a harder time with the Jekyll and Hyde/fugue state plot which was a bit on the nose and didn't really go anywhere.

Favourite line: "He heard the note of self-righteousness, and saw himself, fumbling with the fly buttons of middle-class morality."

‘The Eye in the Door’ is a fascinating sequel to Regeneration. The focus is largely on Billy Prior, rather than Rivers, as a result of which I liked the book slightly less than its prequel. Prior is a very interesting character, but quite hard to identify with. Observing him only feels safe from a distance, which is not the case with Rivers. Nonetheless, the theme of split identity is explored brilliantly in this novel. The image of ‘The Eye in the Door’ is a very memorable and disturbing one. Issues of class, gender roles, and sexuality in the First World War are also treated in a compelling and effective way. Barker’s writing has an unusual sensitivity. I can’t wait to read The Ghost Road.

An excellent second book in trilogy following on from Regeneration. Really enjoyed development of Roper character and the book explored the complexities of his different personalities. As previously, excellent psychological insight into shell shock, post trauma, etc Really interesting from historical perspective and real events. Views regarding pacifism and sexuality were fascinating. I felt really sorry for Roper and it will be interesting to see what happens in The Ghost Road. Sarah seems to really care about him and hope that this relationship continues. Considerable suspense with regard to which side Roper is on. Am not sure that he knows the answer to that either. Highly recommend.

The sequel of Regeneration, I didn't quite engage as much with this one as I did its predecessor, but 4 stars nonetheless. There is no doubting the power of Barker's writing.

Continues the story about the three central characters of Doctor Rivers, and the PTSD soldiers Sassoon and Prior. One soldier returns to the front, the other is given a home job in military intelligence, but neither of them have recovered from their war trauma as told in the first book.
As the plot unfolds, their struggles to find a balance in their lives are seen through the common theme of the duality (or multiplicity) of human nature, and the cause and effect of the mental adjustments people find necessary in order to adapt and survive, to alter their personality in either a very subtle or a very abrupt manner.
This happens, not just in the theatre of war, but in the sometimes cruel and intolerable actions of the normal world, espcially through the compairson of the the working class to the gentry, or with the populists to minority groups, which although not the trenches of the front, are another type of struggle, shown to be no less traumatic.

The second book in Pat Barker's World War I trilogy highlights the pacifist movement and gives great insight into those involved. I learnt so much from this book, not only from the book itself, but also from a good deal of searching on the net. Pat Barker makes this awful period of history really live, and i constantly was reaching for resources to dig a bit deeper to her text.

This book, like her first, is deeply sad, as we follow the chilling impact of the war on different men who have a common bond, they have all been treated for mental illness by Dr Rivers.

Pat Barker's world is perfectly cohesive, brilliantly-detailed and heart-breaking.