This historical fiction is the final book of the Regeneration trilogy set in Europe during WWI. It focuses on finishing the stories of Dr. William Rivers (a real person) and Billy Prior, whom we followed closely in the first two books. It is a character study of the two main characters as they deal with a traumatic past and the horrors of war. We learn about Rivers’ experiences in Melanesia and Prior’s return to the front.

Themes include the psychological effects of war, duty, class prejudice, and friendships on the front lines. It also addresses cultural changes in Melanesian tribal communities brought about by British colonial influences. Regeneration is my favorite of the trilogy, with this book as a close second, and The Eye in the Door third. After reading this trilogy and a few others, Pat Barker has become one of my favorite authors.

4.5

The final novel in a trilogy about the ending of a monstrous war, WWI, supposedly the War to End All Wars. My husband and I listened to it on our recent trip. Given some of the more graphic descriptions of human depravity I don’t recommend the audio version. You can more easily skim over sections you don’t care to read with a written text v. an audio book. Undoubtedly it would have helped if we’d read the first two books, but it has made me more curious to read The Guns of August/The Proud Tower and All Quiet on the Western Front by way of comparison.

I have just finished the book today and I have to say that it totally blew me away.

The third book of the trilogy centers mostly on two of all the characters who were present in the previous books, Rivers and Prior. Throughout the books the characters are developed into vivid, compelling, independent personalities. You can almost feel you knew them in real life after you finish the trilogy, they are so real, so well-developed.

Prior, as a character, shows all of his sides. He's witty, intelligent, brave, and at the same time neurotic, sadistic, unscrupulous, and you still can't avoid finding him really likable, probably because he's so close to what we all are, he's so humane. No perfect hero, but most of the times even painfully familiar, reminding us about our own flaws.

I could definitely continue, but I will round up just by saying that "The Ghost Road" accompanied by the previous two books in the trilogy has definitely won a place in the very top list of my favourite books.

Nah, this book was confusing and also super graphic at times.

This is the 10th anniversary of first reading this amazing trilogy all the way through during a Summer Vacation. I really want to read these again this year. I actually would love to read them every 10 years and see how my thoughts and opinions change. If you get a chance, read this trilogy. Would definitively be on my 1,000 Books to Read before you die list.

See, this is exactly why I decided to read the Bookers. I don't normally pick up a war book - in fact I usually run the other way. I would never have chosen to read this book by perusing the library or even on recommendation from a friend. And war novels are bad enough but WWI? seriously? Trenches, and new technology, and All Quiet on the Western Front and...? It happened before my grandparents were even born. We spent about a week on it in high school history and it didn't interest me then. I certainly didn't think it would captivate me now.

But it did. And as apparently historically sourced as this novel was, it wasn't actually about war, but about life, and the fact that so many things we take as Either/Or are really points on one long continuum. The novel first takes Sane/Insane. But who is crazy and who is sane? Is there even a clear line there? Or even more provocatively (and sadly, too many people can't see past this one) what does it mean to be Straight/Gay?

And how about Civilized/Uncivilized? By far the most fascinating bits of this story were Dr. Rivers' flashbacks to the time he spent as an anthropologist in Melanesia in about 1908 - the British Empire was about to Christianize and "civilize" the islands northeast of the Australian continent, and Dr. Rivers got a glimpse of the end of their traditional (un)civilization. And Pat Barker contrastes this traditional headhunting society with the total insanity of the European theatre of World War I just ten years later. Her portrayal of this clash was beautiful, terrible, and so very real.

Or how about the continuum of Alive/Dead? Njiru certainly sees it as a continuum, and at the end of the novel, Dr. Rivers sees it too. When does Billy Prior, our other narrator, cross that boundary -- is there a definite boundary there to cross? And the end of the book, just days before the end of the war, we are faced with the falsity of the dichotomy of War/Peace.

Excellent, excellent novel, and I'm even tempted to go back and read the entire trilogy, of which this is only the last book. Yes, of war novels.

Core reading.

“Ghosts everywhere. Even the living were only ghosts in the making. You learned to ration your commitment to them. This moment in this tent already had the quality of remembered experience. Or perhaps he was simply getting old. But then, after all, in trench time he was old. A generation lasted six months, less than that on the Somme, barely twelve weeks.”

This is the third book in Barker's Regeneration trilogy and for me the fastest paced. This book concentrates on war and struggle both internal and external but mainly how different view death. Although a few of the former residents of the mental hospital Craiglockhart are mentioned this book generally revolves around psychiatrist Charles Rivers and former patient, commoner turned officer,Billy Prior with each chapter alternating between them.

Billy a former resident of Craiglockhart and patient of Dr Rivers continues to see him as an outpatient in London as he struggles with his demons. He returns to France for his fourth tour of duty despite being at one time invalided out and offered a safe desk job in the UK. It is unclear quite why he returns to France other than fighting is all he knows and questions his place in society. He is someone who lives in the present grabbing sex wherever and whenever he can get it both with women and men. Dr Rivers in also haunted by his own demons but these are more rooted in his past and in particular his time on Melanesian island of Eddystone where he sees a very different outlook on death.

Once again this is a well written book and a worthy finale to this enthralling trilogy and perhaps one of the best things that I can say about it is that despite virtually all the characters are male at no time is it obvious that they were written by a woman. These books deserve all the praise that they've received.

"The Ghost Road" is set in the closing months of WW1 and alternates between a traumatised soldier, Billy Prior, and his physician WHR Rivers. Rivers' treatment of Prior's physical and mental wounds leaves him more or less sane but determined to return to the Front while Rivers continues his work, helping physically and mentally damaged men overcome their problems.

The book's focus on trauma and it's effects has never been done so well as in this book. Barker's presentation of soldiers who have seen hell on earth never once diminishes what they've gone through or who they are afterwards, they each retain honour in their fragile states. One line towards the end sums up the mindset of a traumatised soldier: "Loos, she said. I remember standing by the bar and thinking that words didn't mean anything anymore. Patriotism honour courage vomit vomit vomit. Only the names meant anything. Mons, Loos, the Somme, Arras, Verdun, Ypres." (p.257).

Barker's characterisation of Prior and Rivers is brilliant. Each man is flawed and heroic in their own ways. Prior's bedroom antics, especially the last encounter he has at the end, might make him seem almost sociopathic but this is juxtaposed with the way he looks after the men he's in charge of, as well as his decision to return to the Front despite being given the chance to avoid it. Rivers is the kind and understanding doctor who, through flashbacks to an earlier life in the Solomon Islands, is also shown as flawed in his own ways via the journey he took to become the great man he was.

Lewis Carroll, Wilfred Owen, and Siegfried Sassoon all play minor parts and are brought to life fantastically well. I've studied Carroll's life and felt Barker's depiction of him, while perhaps not as flattering as some fans of his would like, was compelling and showed him as a human being like the rest of us.

This is one of the few Booker Prize winning books I think really deserved it. Pat Barker's written an incredible story of bravery and heroism at home and abroad during WW1 with fascinating and memorable characters. The writing is top notch throughout with so many evocative lines that never becomes cloyingly sentimental. This is one of the most powerful: "Then they were moving forward, hundreds of men eerily quiet, starlit shadows barely darkening the grass. And no dogs barked." (p.261).

A must read.

The Ghost Road is the final book in Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy which focuses on British soldiers in WWI from the perspective of how they are treated for mental illness caused by the war. I found The Ghost Road to be the best of the 3 books, which were all very well-done. The trilogy's greatest strength was its unique focus on the mental health side of warfare. The author also explored other neglected topics for the WWI era such as conscientious objectors and homosexuality. What made The Ghost Road slightly better than the two previous novels was its brilliant portrayal of the frenzied last months of the war. Eventually the soldiers on the front line knew the war was almost over, yet they had to fight on, hoping desperately they could survive to the end that was tantalizingly close. I would definitely recommend the Regeneration trilogy for anyone who wants a unique perspective on WWI.

The Winner of The Booker Prize in 1995, The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
10 out of 10


This Winner of The Booker Prize – perhaps the most important literary award for books written in English – has been named one of the 10 best historical novels – as part of the Regeneration Trilogy and for this reader it offers the almost perfect balance between modern and classic story telling…the under signed is overwhelmed and unable to cope with writing that is too novel as in polyphonic texts, where you have multiple voices – Lincoln in the Bardo seems to be that way, but maybe I will brace myself and try another attack, there is also the towering Ulysses of James Joyce that looks also like A Bridge Too Far

The Ghost Road navigates between episodes, interludes in which we follow officer Billy Prior, others in which we concentrate on psychoanalyst William Rivers and then we are also travelling across the world, to the Solomon Islands in Melanesia, where we observe the traditions that have been part of the culture of the people there…we are aghast to learn that they have ‘had hunting heads raids’ at the core of their life, but when placed in contrast with what the civilized West has been doing in the two World Wars – when they gassed, bombed, bayonetted, and anyway killed many millions – we can think of the famous Gandhi answer to the question regarding Western Civilization…’I think it would be a good idea’
Nevertheless, it is quite gruesome to read about various habits of the natives of the islands in Melanesia, where the fact that they can no longer hunt for heads seems to lead to the disappearance of the locals, who are now listless, have lost their zest, the ‘Joie de Vivre’ and we can think of the classic of psychology Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi http://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/f... where we learn about Being in the Zone, moments of maximum intensity, ‘vivre a fond’, which are not reached by sitting on a couch and watching television, or relaxing, but on the contrary, when our skills are challenged, we are in control of a very demanding activity…which in the case of these islanders seems to be hunting for heads and then using them for good purpose…

When one chief dies, his widow is departing with him, in the manner of the ancient pharaohs or Chinese emperors – maybe, actually I am not sure about the latter, I do not even know where it came from – or the custom which had been observed in India, where widows would immolate themselves…it is said in The Ghost road that the widow has a choice…one tried to commit suicide with tobacco, then chose hanging, but she needed help to succeed in what Rivers thinks was garroting herself…
There are other savage, primitive, abhorrent customs, such as the one referring to the orphans – albeit we need to look at the perspective they can have when they see the West mass murdering many millions in World Wars (that have little effect on the islands, albeit they are now controlled by the British and latter imposed their rules as much as possible, hence the demise of the ‘head hunting raids’)…

When a bastard is born, a leading man on the island takes him and more or less adopts the baby, who grows much like any other, benefiting from care and attention, up to the age of…I forgot which was it, but anyway, ostensibly when he is of age, perhaps fourteen in those climates, and he is assigned the task of bringing the sacrificial pig – the ones with the biggest tasks were considered to be worthy of the honor of the chiefs, and this is also written in Tales of the South Pacific if I am not mistaken – and when the boy comes with the animal, his adoptive father waits with the raised club and…he crushes his son’s skull…
What can we make of that and other such horrifying rituals, except think of that other quote…’the loss of a human life is a tragedy, whereas the death of millions is statistics’ according to cruel Stalin – was he the one stating this – there are the monstrous white people that come to kidnap natives to send them on plantations in Queensland – ‘where girls get their arses fucked anyway’ – and you can ‘buy a white woman in Sydney for forty quid…buy, not rent’…Mali was a girl of thirteen, with her first period, retired to the ‘menstrual hut’ and five days later an eighteen year old, Rumi, pays the tow arm rings needed to spend something like twenty consecutive nights with the virgin and he decides to share the privilege with two of his friends…the girl has no say on the matter and there used to be a rampage in the days when they could go head hunting and this worked as an aphrodisiac and warriors would take all the women...

The Ghost Road is not all tragedy, killing and abuse, though the First World War is at the center and the picturesque Solomon Islands have had a history of bloodshed that we discover here…I have noted while reading the personage of Ada Lumb, who smells of piss, because when she feels like it outside, she just does it like a mare, and attends sessions where some communicate with the spirits of the dead…we are told that they have a ‘whale of a time’ and then William Billy Prior thinks of the question…’and how is the fucking’.
Thinking about the merits of The Ghost Road is in itself what we should do – Be a Merit finder, not a fault finder’ is one of the leit motifs of Harvard Professor Tal Ben-Shahar and we must remember that the positive people are more efficient, have better professional and private lives, live longer than the negative ones – and there is one thing which comes to mind and that is that the Booker Prize Winner seems so complete…it takes the readers to Melanesia and the habits of people we saw as savages, with their head hunting, killing of orphans, buying a virgin with two hand rings and then forcing her into a sort of orgy or foursome, but in the end they do not kill millions, though we could argue that if given the chance, they would feast on it…but we also have plenty of ‘action’ in the other chapters of the book…

On the sidelines of the vicious war, where many of the personages will be killed – probably including some of the main ones – there are some quite extraordinary episodes that show us how far literature has traveled, since the days when Lady Chatterley’s Lover would create a scandal and get banned, for Billy Prior, who is bisexual apparently, engages in some quite audacious sex with a sixteen year old, whom he pays with cigarette packs and then takes against a tree, kissing his behind – there is more than just a passing mention of that – and taking description to an extreme – I guess – that shows also the pressure of war, repressed desires and how much we can get from a modern, acclaimed novel, winner of the Booker Prize…we need to emphasize this

I gobbled this up. It was a fine ending to a marvelous trilogy that brilliantly shows the side effects of the Allied forces having won. These are novels. One of the main characters, Billy Prior, is fictitious. But the doctors and some of the other patients were real people. In this last installment, Billy Prior returns to France and he serves with Wilfred Owen. Dr. Rivers continues to treat the battlefield mentally maimed. Interestingly, Rivers spends a lot of time in his memories of having explored Melanesia. I think this might at first be disconcerting to those who have not read the earlier novels in the series.

Despite all of that and the fact that this won the Booker Prize, I did not feel this was as powerful as either of the earlier books in the series. Perhaps like Prior and Owens became less sensitive to the horrors of the battlefield, I became somewhat less sensitive to those who continued to suffer. The books of the series are all stand alone, but I think I would have appreciated this one even less had I not read the earlier ones. It is important to note also that the action in them takes place chronologically.

I did feel a connection to this one in a way that I did not the others, and in a way which surprised me. Part of the chapters narrated by Billy Prior are in the form of a diary, beginning in August 1918. As the days tumbled on, I looked forward to September 26, to learn whether he was anywhere near where my grandfather's unit fought, and the day my grandfather ceased to be. Prior was nowhere near and the war continued.

It seems she understood Billy Prior and other working class soldiers, better than Rivers and his class. There is a thread of the discomfort of the the British classes mixing. I looked at Barker's wikipedia entry and it's no wonder this comes through. She was born and raised in a working-class family. Her first three novels were never published and, she told The Guardian in 2003, "didn't deserve to be: I was being a sensitive lady novelist, which is not what I am. There's an earthiness and bawdiness in my voice.” Indeed there is. Four stars for The Ghost Road and I look forward to reading other books by Pat Barker.