Every time i thought things couldn’t get worse for Billy Prior, they did

Sometimes, mostly, I forget books that I give up on and don't finish, this is one of the few that I can remember with certainty that I got too annoyed with to complete.

The main character, Billy Prior, is an Everyman. For some bizarre personal reason of my own I did not expect that this would be interpreted literally. So Prior is an officer of working class origin, ship-worker father - domestic service mother, bisexual, in a relationship with a munitions worker, suffers shell-shock, was a boy prostitute, picks up brother officers for casual sex, lived on the same street as the woman who tried (not very well) to assassinate Lloyd-George...

Any one of those would have made for an interesting character in a WWI setting. When all of these are present in the same character I put the book aside. Any one of those elements might have been enough to show me that Prior is a liminal character, all of them though was too much for me.

The old woman, and former neighbour, in prison for an attempted assassination of Lloyd George and that Prior was sent into question her, apparently randomly rather than because it was known that he was conversant in the topolects of the North-east of England, was the straw which broke the camel's back of plausibility in this story to my mind.

I'm happy to admit that this is a failing on my side, a grim wish that the realistic should be realistic and the symbolic symbolic, but there you go, we all have our short comings. I enjoyed Regeneration though already there I preferred Barker's version of the historical characters to her fictional Billy Prior.

Five stars for brilliance, one for enjoyment (we're working with a flawed rating system). The second installment of the Regeneration trilogy presents one the most complex psychological portraits I’ve ever read, made more complex by the fact I had to read it through one half-closed eye because of the occasional graphic depictions of gay sex. However, there’s more to the book than insight into new territory (which normally I appreciate, but not so much here). The story goes outside Craglockhart Hospital to follow one of the more problematic patients, Billy Prior, in his wartime duties and continued treatment with Dr. Rivers. But really the novel is an exploration of duality, both between people and roles, and within one’s own self — soldier/pacifist, working class/officer, doctor/patient, heterosexual/homosexual, sane/insane. The conflicts resulting from these dualities are set against the backdrop of — and in some cases result from — the deep and unsettling changes the Great War was causing in English society. While I admit the novel is in many ways a triumph, I didn’t like it at all and even had a hard time following it in places (which is sort of unusual). There’d be no point reading it out of context of the trilogy.

Psychological tale of the contradictions conscientious soldiers had to navigate in WWI whilst home on sick leave. Second in a trilogy, this book focuses on Prior, an officer working for home intelligence who has his allegiances tested as he treads the fine line between duty and friendship. Love Barker’s style of historical fiction and the narrating of how society in Britain was changing though the war. Contained in the plot line is a female anti-war protester jailed for housing pacifists who battles on with hunger strikes - homage to suffragettes?
The end of the book was a fascinating psychological unravelling of duality and the fugue state. Definitely recommend but with a rating warning of 18 as there are a few intense sexual encounters described(!) but these were part of character development so not gratuitous, but maybe too much for some.

The main character in this sequel is Billy Prior, he is now a domestic intelligence officer who is bisexual. The book tells of how pacifists (friends of Billy's) and homosexuals are scape goated in the spring of 1918. The term homosexual conjures up the illegality, repression and fear that men experienced in Britain at that time. The metaphor of the eye in the door explains the paranoia felt at the time when Germany appeared to be winning the war and England was holding on by persecuting minority groups for the over all glory of the empire. A fascinating story of the social history of the time, how the working class were attempting to survive and the continuous north /South divide in England.

good but dragged ON! got quite bored of it, the first one was better

I felt the first third or so was a little disjointed, it felt as though all this interesting stuff that was happening then needed to be included somehow, but it didn't flow.
Very well researched and I now want to delve into some of that material too.

Harrowing look into the home front, particularly the story of Alice Wheeldon (fictionalised to Beattie Roper’s narrative).

The Eye in the Door is the second book in Pat Barker's award-winning Regeneration trilogy, which focuses on the psychological impact of WWI on British soldiers and how these damaged men were treated. The series also deals with the treatment of homosexuals and conscientious objectors in wartime Britain. Like the first book, this one is very well done. I was actually surprised how harshly anti-war activists and conscientious objectors were treated. In addition, the exploration of the psychological impact of the war on individual soldiers was exceptional and quite unique; no other book that I have read has dealt with this issue in such an enlightening way. I strongly recommend this novel.

I really enjoyed Regeneration back in 2008 and picked up the second in the trilogy a while back. It's quite different in style and approach than the first but equally well written (winning the 1993 Guardian Fiction Prize). The focus has shifted to Billy Prior who makes for an interesting character promoting sympathy, intrigue and slight disgust all at the same time. He's conflicted and not a well man, split in his responsibilities and possibly his personalities as well.

Barker wonderfully constructs a vivid mid-war Britain; a nation thrown into conflict psychologically, unsure where to place emotions and who to trust. The conchies and homosexuals in particular are suffering in the public eye and Billy is stuck somewhere in-between as we revisit the 47000 and the Cult of the Clitoris amongst other historical events (Barker provides some relevant historical background as an afterword, making for some interesting reading).

I have to say it took a while to get into, mainly due to the difference in style and my different expectations but gradually I got sucked into the world portrayed. The latter parts move towards more of the psychiatric exploration present in Regeneration which I enjoyed. I'm not sure how well it works on its own, feeling like the middle segment it is, particularly with the ending. Still, I'm keen to pick up The Ghost Road to see how things play out.

Core reading for human condition, war and trauma.

Billy Prior is a character you can’t quite bring yourself to like, yet he lingers in your mind long after the end of the book. At times, you pity him; at others, you’re enraged by him, and on many occasions, he even repulses you. Big time. But it’s this complexity that makes him unforgettable. In "The Eye in the Door", the second installment of Pat Barker’s "Regeneration" Trilogy, the author captivates with a vivid portrayal of the psychology of war and its profound effects on both soldiers and pacifists during World War I. While the historical backdrop is well-known, what truly stands out is how Barker delves into the light and shadow of each character, capturing their subtleties with astonishing precision.
Prior, the novel’s central character is as insensitive, perverse, and fragile as the war-ravaged London and its traumatized soldiers. The war has left deep scars, but Prior’s nature was already fractured from the heart of the home. His lengthy and often theatrical exchanges with Dr. Rivers, the psychologist at the recovery clinic, are at once tragic and darkly compelling.
Through the interactions among the characters, Barker explores the idea that the true search for the enemy extends beyond the trenches and battlefields—it lies within one’s own ranks, among those who fail to conform to the war’s supposed "needs."
And what are those "needs" of war, exactly? Why do the leaders of the war pursue those who seek peace? Isn’t war fought to achieve it—or at least to restore it?
The war has touched them all in different ways, and Barker’s exploration of this is both deep and unsettling. Though I began with the second volume of the trilogy by chance, I’m now eager to go back and read the first and third volumes in the future.