OK, so I already think Bat Barker is super-amazing, and I've read Regeneration about four times, but I have to admit, I never cared as much for Prior as I think I was supposed to. And then I read TEITD. Yeah. Sad lack of Sassoon and Owen, obviously, but so, so much background on Prior that I now absolutely love him. (He can be a complete jerk, but he's got enough self-perception all mixed up with self-disgust to really make that work.) What I noticed here is that in the first 20 pages, Prior gets pre-tty damn close to sex with a girl, and ends up actually having sex with an officer... and then nothing. Well, not nothing exactly - I think there's one more sex scene when Sarah visits - and there's quite a lot of talk about his sexuality without there actually being sex. And I think it works very well to establish Prior as a highly sexual person. Since this is a strong theme in his character, it's quite important to establish this early on. And the plot is interesting, and there are enough Sassoon-and-Owen references to keep my inner history-geek happy (though Rivers manages that quite well, along with Robbie Ross et al.) Also, fuck yeah for morally ambiguous protagonists. I haven't seen one as well done as Prior in forever.

In the second book, Billy Prior, a patient in Craiglockheart in the first volume, is working for Army intelligence as his asthma is deemed too bad to be sent back to France. Part of him resents this, and his guilty feelings of being safe, while another parts hates the civilians he meets on a day to day basis. When he starts working on a case of someone he used to know when he was a child, a woman accused of plotting to kill the prime minister, he finds the two sides of his personality come into conflict. Literally. With periods of black-out, he begins a Jekyll and Hyde existance that confounds those around him. Step in Dr Rivers to lend a helping hand.

Another study on the psycological issues of the day. As well as the shell-shock/neurosis explored in the first novel, there is more emphasis put on the attitudes towards homosexuality that were prevalent at the time. The case that Prior takes on, the taking down of Spragge while trying to save his old friends, is a sad testament to the treatment of the conscientious objecters of the day.

This isn't the sort of book that you can actually enjoy, but it is an interesting read.

I found this even more fascinating than the first in the trilogy- it addresses issues of mental health and non conformity in a way that is very effective. I am keen to read the third book now.

Borrowed this book from Brendan, after reading the first book in the trilogy, "Regeneration". Both books are about the effects of war on society, as well as on the soldiers at the front.

In this book, one of the main characters, Billy Prior, suffers from an actual dual personality - going to a safe place when he is in danger - did it as a child and then again at the front - whenever under stress. But all of the other characters as well have to lead dual lives in some way or other. Really only a few horrific scenes described from the front. The book is mainly about the craziness back in England. There is the very real possibility that England will be defeated by Germany, and the government and important figures are looking for scapegoats - pacifists and homosexuals. Found out only from reading the postscript that the events and some of the characters were real. And I did not know Siegfried Sassoon was a real person.

The Eye in the Door - literally an eye painted on the door in prison. But also, the scrutiny and suspicion everyone was under because of the war.

Excellent book - well-written. Pretty depressing though.

The second book of Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy is every bit as good as the first one, and probably better. While I'm not sure how I feel about the split personality thing, I loved the psychological drama and the period detail. Some fascinating stuff there. I'll post a proper review once I've finished the trilogy.

4.5
Fantastic historical fiction series about WW1 with the backdrop of psychiatric hospitals, therapist/patient relationships, the treatment of pacifists and conscientious objectors, socialists, and queer people. I.e all the bits that get glossed over and are coming to the surface more and more. Characters are memorable, dialogue is wry and witty, and the prose is at turns horrifying, funny, and endlessly revealing.

I liked this second book of Pat Barker's triology even better than Regeneration. Her insight into the England of WWI is fascinating.

“Half the world's work's done by hopeless neurotics.”

This is the second book in Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy and whilst it still features some of the former's characters (the historical figures of Siegfried Sassoon and neurologist Dr Rivers as well as fictional Billy Prior) and still uses mental flashbacks it gives another viewpoint on WWI. Whereas Regeneration is set in a mental institution at Craiglockhart, Scotland and dealt principally with the psychological impact of war on its combatants this book switches mainly to London and the paranoia of the home front.

On release from Craiglockhart Sassoon returned to France in contrast Billy Prior is given a posting at the Ministry of Munitions in London. Whilst there he is forced to revisit his own childhood. He goes back to Salford to interview a woman Bettie Roper who has been imprisoned over an apparent plot to assassinate the British Prime Minister and to investigate the ring leader of a planned strike by munition factory workers. Billy lived with Bettie and her daughter for a year as a child. Whilst there is no doubt that Bettie is a pacifist and part of a cell who sheltered and help to smuggle other like minded young men to Ireland Billy soon realises that Bettie has had nothing to do with the plot (if one ever really existed at all)with uncorroborated evidence given by a paid informant called Scragge and is thus forced to question where his allegiances lie. As far as Bettie is concerned she is only protecting 'her boys' from the trenches of France in the same way that she protected Billy as a child. Billy suspects that she has been made a scapegoat as a warning to others who may have similar views.

This book also introduces the character of Charles Manning, another veteran of France who has been invalided out due to a serious knee injury. Manning is married with two children but also has homosexual dalliances and suffers from panic attacks because of them. This is all told against the background of a notorious real-life trial Pemberton Billing where a few notable,bigoted and paranoid characters believed that there was a plot amongst highly placed Government figures to undermine the war effort by homosexuality because it made them corruptible. Homosexuality may be tolerated in peace time but in war must be purged.

At the end of the book Billy refuses a cushy home front posting instead taking his chances that he may be posted back to France as he feels more at home there than he does with civilians who have never fought whom he generally comes to detest introducing yet another split in the country's population. In contrast Sassoon seems ready to accept a home posting.

Once again this is a well written and in many ways thought provoking book and a good follow up to the first in the trilogy. However, because it is more wide ranging in scope it lacks the gut wrenching punch of the first. That said it is still well worth the read.

In this, the second volume of Barker's Great War trilogy, she continues the stories of Dr. Rivers, Siegfried Sassoon, and Billy Prior, introduced in Regeneration. In the current volume, themes hinted at in the first novel are made explicit, including the homosexuality and bisexuality of some characters, class divisions, and the antagonism of many in the war-stressed British population toward "conchies," pacifists, and other opponents of British war policy. The story of Billy Prior's schitzophrenia takes center stage, as he attempts to save an old pacifist friend from an unjust imprisonment. The "eye in the door" refers explicitly to the peephole in the door of a prison cell, but Barker explores the symbolism of "eyes" and "seeing" at great length and with good effect. On the whole, the book is weaker as a stand-alone novel than Regeneration, but it functions well as the bridge in the trilogy, having, as is usual in such constructions, the burden of narrative development to carry from the introduction toward the climax and denouement. The dehumanizing effect of war on the British civilian population is as much a theme here as is the barbarity of trench warfare for the soldiers. In neither case does what happens in France stay in France. Insanity is a relative term in wartime, and, as Barker shows, much depends on who gets to write the labels.

While I appreciate the great lengths Barker has gone to to explore the heavy themes of war, this sequel just didn't grab me. I find the characters to surface level which is weird to say when you're getting an intimate look into their psychological states during the war. As a mass, what they endured was horrific, but the way the overall story is told kind of renders their individual experiences impersonal.

The exploration of the duality which can exist in human nature was interesting, coming to a culmination with the personality split of Prior. Unfortunately, I wasn't that invested in him as a character for this to have as big an impact of me as I felt it could have done.

The story about Scudder becoming mired in a sinkhole with Manning shooting him out of compassion will stay with me for a long time. This to me was the most emotional part of the book. It was this emotional element that felt lacking in the rest of the pages although I can appreciate why. A more emotive telling of this book actually may have missed the point of it all together and provided a kind of sentimentality to the brutality which wouldn't have conveyed the sheer magnitude of the war that was to be endured.

Pat Barker's novel, The Eye in the Door (#2 in her Regeneration trilogy), is superb work of fiction that plumbs the horrors of WWI as experienced by soldiers returned to London from the trenches in France, and in interesting contrast, offers an intersection between some of these soldiers and the demimonde community of conscientious objectors, war machine saboteurs, and deserters. The writing is precise, vivid, and well-paced. The characters are convincing examples of people in the throes of PTSD, physical pain, and crises of conscience.

This is a conventional novel that draws on historical figures and incidents from the neurologist and social scientist William Rivers to the poet Sigfried Sassoon to the powerfully imagined Billy Prior, a man with a history of abuse as a child and a malady of disassociation at critical points in his post-trench return home. Prior is bisexual, intelligent, haunted, and guilt-ridden, an expert manipulator (including of his doctor, Rivers) who draws on his doubleness for purposes that are both moral and sadistic. His tale is one of graphic misery, desperation, and ultimately, a measure of self-understanding.

Lesser figures in the novel, low-life, upperclass, military, share a kind of directness that, in the context of the horrors of WWI, illuminates them quickly, adding to the narrative momentum.

The psychological propositions regnant at the time drew heavily on what might be called a literary understanding of humanity, i.e., personal narratives matter and have lasting consequences. Treatment didn't come in the form corrective drugs although painkillers and sleep inducers were quite prevalent in Rivers' "time and talk" therapy...and so was whiskey.

The dreams and living images of horror in this novel are chilling, which gives the story a grave potency. As the pages dwindled toward the end, I found myself wondering how Barker would resolve the many subplots and unique psychological disabilities. She finds a way without anything being sugared.

God doesn't find much of a role here as Barker illustrates literature's and history's evolution from preoccupations with the metaphysical to the humanistic and scientific.

So…… I’m trying to work out what to say about this book, mostly because I’m still trying to figure out what the heck this book was about. I will say that I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t really like it. It didn’t bore me, but it wasn’t really interesting enough to keep me turning pages. I guess the most accurate thing to say about this book was that it was kind of meh. Also, weird. Super weird.

The book seems to be a meditation on mental illness induced by being in war, particularly World War I. The issue is explored through the eyes of some conflicted character. One Billy Prior is the focus of most of the story. Prior comes from humble beginnings, but has risen to be an officer who works in the Office of Munitions. Prior’s conflict comes from the case of a older woman who essentially raised him when he sought shelter in her store from the fights of his parents. The woman, Beattie, has been imprisoned for allegedly plotting to kill some important dignitaries with poison laced darts. She is also known to harbor those who are dodging the war. Prior finds it difficult to reconcile his desire to help her and other friends with his repulsion for those who shirk their military duty. He also finds the fact that he has both heterosexual and homosexual tendencies difficult to reconcile. In order to try to meld the two parts of his personality, he resorts to a trick that he used to avoid his parents fights when he was a small child. He calls it “going into the shine.” He stares into a light and basically splits his personality, so that he can escape the situation, and a stronger personality emerges. When he comes back to himself, he has huge gaps of time in which he cannot remember what happened.

Prior meets another man one summer afternoon in a park. His name is Charles Manning. He invites Prior back to his house, and the two engage in a homosexual one night stand. Manning’s manner is clearly shows his confliction between the upper class family man and officer, and the secret homosexual proclivities he feels.

Siegfried Sassoon is another conflicted individual. On the one hand, he is a celebrated war hero who has literally written the book on military tactics, as well as fearlessly leading his men into battle. On the other, he is an equally celebrated pacifist poet who has marched against the battle.

All of these conflicted individuals are being treated by a Dr. Rivers. Kind and compassionate, Dr. Rivers himself also harbors some demons. Due to some repressed trauma in his childhood, Rivers has repressed his visual memory. However, he is brilliant and persistent in helping his patients deal with their unseen war wounds.

So, in conclusion, as far as I can tell, this book is plotless. It follows the lives of one conflicted individual and another with no real pattern to the events. I go back to what I said at the beginning of this post. It’s interesting, but not compelling. I like the in depth exploration of psyches, but I really need the book to have some plot. It’s just kind of a meh to me.