I am torn between giving this trilogy 3 and 4 stars. I loved the first book, it's just what I was hoping it would be. Pat Barker writes so evocatively and heart-breakingly about the war and the people caught up in it. I didn't know much at all about the methods they used to treat shell-shock, so that side of it was super interesting. And I loved that it followed real life people like Rivers and Sassoon (which I'd initially thought I wouldn't really enjoy as I get irritated when authors attribute personalities to people that they didn't know.)

The second and third books left me feeling mixed. I preferred the third, because it was back on familiar ground, e.g. the war. Book 2 felt, for want of a better word, random, really. I enjoyed aspects of book 3, but again, felt a bit displaced by Rivers' memories of the head-hunters. I know it's quite narrow-minded of me, but I picked up this trilogy because I wanted stories from WW1, so I resented the parts with the head-hunters and felt like I was rushing through them to get back to the war. I also disliked the last half where it's written from Prior's perspective, in diary form. I don't tend to get on with diary style prose, I think because it feels so over-characterized, like the author is really trying to mimic how the character would speak and I felt that way about Prior's diary. It felt almost too try-hard and became a bit caricature-ish. I don't really know why it was necessary to write it that way.

All in all though, I'd recommend the trilogy, mostly for the first book, but it is satisfying to follow Prior right through to the end so I think you may as well read all 3!

This book is beautifully written, it's funny and sad, it's insightful and because it's about life during the Great War, really, really interesting (to me at least). With a diverse structure and some great characters (beautifully handled) and a meandering story line that adds to ones view of the world at the turn of the century along with some oh, so recognizably human relationships.

I gave it 3 stars overall and would have given it five (I enjoyed (most of) it that much) except for the absolute seedy, gross descriptions of the sex Billy Prior was getting himself into (heterosexual and homosexual)...I'm not exaggerating, they are all repulsive and given to us in far too much detail...they take the "filthy knob" and crank it all the way up to eleven. The final one mentioned in The Ghost Road is just beyond gross...Why Mrs. Barker? There was ABSOLUTELY no need for that to be a descriptive as you wrote it. The seediness and charm of Prior made him such an excellent and worthy character and did wonders for the book in general but the in-depth descriptions of the acts were wholly unnecessary and didn't add a single thing to the story, in fact, they just detracted from an otherwise great and layered character. Grossing the audience out is not high art...it's just crass.

Three stars.

Insightful, illuminating, well-written account of the impact of WW1 on the lives and minds of those who lived and fought in it.

The understanding of psychology and the use of historical figures throughout the book, combined with fine descriptive writing brings the era and characters to life.

I learnt a great deal about the period, complementing the knowledge acquired in my previous non-fiction reading.

My volume had 900 pages, which I read in 8 days, a testament to the quality of the book, compelling the reader to turn page after page with no regard to time. Highly recommended.

This trilogy is one of the most compelling reads I've ever encountered. The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Parker consists of' Regeneration', 'The Eye in the Door' and 'The Ghost Road'. The plight of soldiers returning from WW1 diagnosed with 'neurasthenia' or 'shell shock' draws the reader into the world of their treatment, their horrific experiences, and their struggle to readjust to the home front. 'Regeneration' depicts war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. The dilemma of conscientious objection against the duty to one's country and fellow soldiers is also explored. Definitely books to keep you reading into the night, and thinking about them throughout the day. Little wonder the 3rd book, 'The Ghost Road', won the Booker Prize.

Deeply moving, disturbing and tragic read, very thought provoking

Perhaps I made the wrong choice by "reading" this trilogy as travel books on Audible. One or two long car trips got me through the first two; and then I struggled to finish the last one ("Ghost Road", the Booker Prize winner), partly because of no long trips so the listening was chopped up into small segments. This trilogy is basically more atmospheric than action-packed, and maybe that's why I couldn't finish it, but I haven't had that problem before with audiobooks. I feel strongly that it's my fault, though, and not the book's. At some point I may go back and make my peace with a physical copy of that final instalment.

The trilogy explores WWI from within the agony of patients at Cragilockhart, a hospital for soldiers suffering from shellshock. There's a mix of actual historical figures (Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and W. H. Rivers) and fictional inventions; throughout, details like the Munitionettes, girls whose skin and hair were turned yellow by their work with dangerous chemicals in the munitions factory, really opened that time period up for me.

I've read of others who also felt that the "Ghost Road" was not the best of the three books, and a few who, like me, didn't finish it, so I can feel a little vindicated? Still, the first two books have stayed with me, vivid reminders of the horrors we visit on each other in the name of just trying to help; sensitive storytelling that, while it can't keep the horrors at bay, makes the knowledge somehow bearable -- the unfair luxury that fiction allows us. (less)

“Regeneration” is the first in a trilogy of historical fiction novels set around World War 1 that involves real personalities along with a few fictional characters sprinkled in to complete the story. This review covers the first book, and it is a different kind of war novel than I’ve ever read before because it didn’t focus much at all on major battles or the ebb and flow of the war. Instead, it focused on the psychological impact of the war and treatment of officers and soldiers exposed to brutal scenes over a prolonged period. This included medical procedures such as shock therapy as well as psychological procedures for dealing with the stresses of war. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for the way the author chose to tell the story because I found I didn’t really care about any of the characters and I felt sexuality was a bit overused.

The primary characters in the story are Seigfried Sassoon and Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, both of which are historical figures from WW1. Billy Prior is a fictional character along with a handful of others that appear at Craiglockhart War Hospital, which was a place to rehabilitate soldiers that had nervous breakdowns on the field of battle. The challenge I found with the novel is who I was supposed to really care about and want to see grow and develop. It didn’t feel like the author spent enough time with any one character to really form a bond and really see that character evolve. Instead, the author jumped perspectives between Sassoon, Rivers, Prior, and their involvement with other minor characters throughout the story.

The story does include some battle scenes, but they are told secondhand as some distressed soldier recounted horrific events that led to his nervous breakdown. The way the author recounted these scenes made them seem rather cold and removed like I was eavesdropping on a private conversation. What was missing was the firsthand accounts of camaraderie, closeness between soldiers, and shared hardships that would have really helped the reader understand why some of the events would have been so tragic to endure.

Another reason the story didn’t really work for me was because the author seemed to have a fixation with sexuality. There were a couple mild sex scenes featuring a man and women, there were allusions to homosexual behavior between the soldiers, and some strange sexual diagnoses/analysis at various times when Sassoon and Rivers were looking at dreams and/or events. At times, I was really perplexed why some of these scenes were in the book.

Overall, I thought this first book was OK, and it was somewhat interesting to see how doctors dealt with soldiers that were suffering from the stresses of war. There just wasn’t enough of interest in this first novel for me to continue the series, which is a bit disappointing because I was looking for a good WW1 read.

While most of the reviews on this website are of books the reader has just finished, I think there is also a longer term impact that leads one to another kind of consideration - the ways in which novels can echo in your mind over time. This trilogy (which I read seven years ago) stands deep in my emotional memory - it brought home the horrors of WWI in a way that no other reading had for me. They bring forth an internal sadness and visceral revulsion that seem fresh whenever Barker's books or thoughts of that war come to mind. I had previously read the Olivia Manning series but recall them as great historical narratives with wonderful characters - almost like an expert piece of travel writing - but it left little impact on my psyche. All Quiet on the Western Front provided an internal insight into the over all experience of being a soldier and a somewhat distant view of the war.

But the Regeneration Trilogy brings forth the horrors experienced in very personal ways - and the recollections of the characters, the destruction of their psyches in that experience, and the great uncertainty that they'd ever recover (emotionally and physically) - provide a deep understanding - and, for me, thankfulness, that I did not have to experience what they did. The horrors of trench warfare, of being caught up in a relentless soldier-consuming machine run by incompetent and uncaring generals - who were equally unprepared for what the army was experiencing. Even today, historians struggle to understand and debate why or how that war could have happened - who was to blame, why no one seemed to foresee it or understand how to stop it once it began. It destroyed huge populations of soldiers and civilians on both fronts, brought down several empires, avowals it could never happen again and yet it did twenty years later and in numerous smaller conflicts since.

Over the decades that I have traveled throughout England a visual post-travels image always comes to mind - the monuments in every central town square containing lists of soldiers killed in WWI - and the frequency with which the same family names appeared. Death meant annihilation of whole families of men, and no doubt of whole towns' male populations or friendship networks. The efforts by those left behind to treat the returning casualties seem small and more than inadequate to the size of the tasks confronting them - and often the futility of treatment as "recovering" soldiers were sent back to the trenches.

Pat Barkers' writing, occurring many decades after a war she did not physically experience, seems to have come only after the nation had experienced another world war, dissolution of the empire, and probably only after another distance in time would allow writers to really come to grips with the hell the soldiers had experienced. I've looked for other novels about the war but the experience seems to have been so horrific and shocking to the routine daily view of life, that the nation could only confront it long after. I've seen no similar literature coming from the US and it's only been in recent decades that the US could produce even museums (e.g., in Kansas City, MO.) to commemorate what our soldiers went through.

So these books echo in my emotions and produce a feeling of hopelessness about how we humans and our societies confront the unspeakable. Barkers' trilogy, and her more recent trilogy about the war leading into World War II, are heroic and powerful efforts to try to confront the unspeakable in a way that the rest of us can understand and think about. She and her characters offer no solutions other than to say we must remember and try to think about what has happened rather than to pretend it didn't.

This book leaves its mark.

Much has been written of Pat Barker's stunning trilogy, and for good reason. It's a brilliant take on the Great War, and not one overwhelmed with images of blood and barbed wire. For me, it's right up there with 'All Quiet on the Western Front' and 'Birdsong'. Lyrical, poignant and touching. In short, a striking achievement.

Superieur boek dat ik de afgelopen dagen in een ruk heb herlezen. Naast me ligt Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (las het vorig jaar, nu even bladeren) en Wilfried Owens poëzie.

Great "historical" fiction that draws on some real figures from the WWI period in England like the poet Wilfred Owen. I wasn't sure if I would be engaged by this book as I am neither British nor well-versed in WWI history, but the story is engaging and surprising. It wrestles with themes of war-related trauma, the expectation and burdens placed on young people conscripted as soldiers and war-time workers, while still being an easy and entertaining read.

I will definitely read the rest of this trilogy. I really enjoyed Pat Barker's more recent book "The Silence of the Girls."