What a triumph of a book. After reading the first two books in the trilogy, I was expecting a mediocre read but this last book made up for a lot. Half of me wants to recommend jumping in and reading this book standalone but I wonder how much of the impact it had was only possible due to the foundation laid by the first two books.

This book was distinctly different to its two predecessors. Firstly, because it alternated between Rivers and Prior's view points throughout basically the entirety of the book which allowed for deeper stories to develop. Secondly, the majority of this book does not take place at Craiglockhart War Hospital but instead is split between River's memory of his trip to Melanesia studying a tribe of headhunters and Prior having returned to the war in France to fight = more action overall. Thirdly, towards the end, Prior's story is told largely through first person diary entries. All of these changes lead to much deeper character development which allowed me to connect effortlessly and earnestly to each of these main characters.

Rivers' recollections of his time in Melanesia explore the domination and subjection of the Other which was characteristic of colonialism. It is this Othering which provides parallels to the war and has us questioning whether we have in fact evolved at all.

Barker continued to paint an unadulterated view of the harshness and futility of the war but this time through Prior, the human element came to life in a way in hadn't for me in the first two books. This book was a heart-felt and sensitive, I highly recommend it.

Why did I wait so long to finish reading this fantastic WW1 trilogy? This volume won the Booker Prize, and deservedly so. Different from the previous 2 titles, Siegfried Sassoon is not really present in this story, which focuses instead on Dr. Rivers and Billy Prior. The former has succumbed to Spanish influenza and is in a haze where he recalls his days as a missionary on a South Pacific island that venerates death. In his moments of lucidity he wonders about Prior's decision to return to France in the waning days of the war along with fellow Craiglockheart alum Wilfred Owen.

This novel is a treatise on death and asks the question what does a society that promulgates death on a broad scale (ie WW1) hold in its future? The book ends before readers can ever know how Prior and Rivers will readjust during peace time, but it is the overarching thesis. Prior even supposes that in 50 years a new language for death and dying will need to be created as the old vocabulary just does not cut it any longer.

I loved the play with descriptions of gas drills and Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est---brilliant!

Just a super literary and fascinating trilogy! Covers every aspect of WW1 society even role of women!) in a really cool and modern way--very accessible.

I may have given it more stars had I read the preceding volumes - we will never know. Anyway, having read about the trilogy in the section "rereading books", the title rang a bell, I went to my bookcase and there it was - "The Ghost Road", the last book of the trilogy, unread by me all these years ago when it was our book-club choice.
I am very pleased to have read it because it focuses on yet another aspect of war: psychological damage that is often hard to spot and define. Hence a large part of the book takes place away from the front, in London.
I did not like the ending. Having myself tried to write real-life persons into fiction, I know that it hampers the writer. Or may do. As a reader, I expected some conclusion that would draw Dr Rivers's earlier experience in Melanesia into focus relating to WWI.
But it is a thought-provoking book regardless.

Well, I cried. We get Prior's writing here, in the form of diary entries - first person narrators never die, he tells us - if only.

I like Barker's writing style so very much.

The Ghost Road is the third book in the Regeneration trilogy, and I have to say, I was disappointed. Rivers has moved to war torn London, still dealing with the young fall out from the devastating World War. Prior, a character from the periphery of Regeneration, who moved to the fore in The Eye In The Door, returns to France against Rivers's advice, and the story takes them both to the end of the War. In this respect, the novel was just as captivating and equally sobering as the first. What I couldn't grasp was the need for the bizarre back story of Rivers, his experiences in colonial Africa, and acceptance into a tribe of headhunters. I expected a large denouement, for all of that to fall in with the modern day story, to learn something from his experience there. But it falls flat against the horrifying final moments of the war in France. So mixed feelings about this one, but an excellent trilogy all told.

Barker’s trilogy is without doubt a profoundly good work of literature. War told through deeply personal and beautifully judged characterisation. Prior and Rivers live and breathe and suffer. Vivid and real. The prose is gorgeous and the period brought to true life.

The final instalment in the Regeneration Trilogy struck me as a bit unfocused and heavy-handed in its use of symbolism and parallel storylines. However, certain scenes were very powerful, and the ending packed a punch.

I'm not sure why The Ghost Road rather than Regeneration or The Eye in the Door won the Booker Prize. I can only assume the Booker judges wanted to honour the trilogy somehow and so picked the last book to show their appreciation, much like the Academy showered The Return of the King with Oscars even though The Fellowship of the Ring was a vastly superior film. Personally, I thought The Ghost Road was the weakest of the three books (rated a mere 3.5 stars, as opposed to the 4 and 4.5 stars I gave the other two books), but it didn't mar my overall impression of the trilogy, which is good.

A review of the entire trilogy is forthcoming.

Shattering. Just shattering. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise as I reached the last pages of this book.

I don't have time to write a proper review right now--for that, I point you to Sckenda's extremely excellent review, the one that inspired me to read the Regeneration trilogy.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Seems fitting to read it this summer, which marks 100 years since the beginning of this awesomely destructive, breathtakingly stupid and poorly-prosecuted war.

This is the end of the Regeneration trilogy, and after three books I still don’t know what I think of them. Looking back, there’s really not a whole lot of plot. I could describe the entirety of them in one or two sentences. Yet there’s also a lot of psychological complexity and big issues to confront. Which should be a good thing, but sometimes there’s a surprisingly thin line between complex and empty. Maybe because this is intended as Capital-L Literature and that’s something I tend to avoid.

This book picks off where the last one left off, and Billy Prior is heading back to France. So this time we actually see the war that has caused so much trauma. Prior is paired up with Wilfred Owen, and if you know anything about him you can see where this is going. Something that I did really like is that we get few of the normal WW1 elements. It’s October 1918 – the German big push has failed, and they’re being pushed back on all fronts. The army is moving, and people don’t feel quite the same sense of helplessness they did before. They’re still in mortal peril and suffering unimaginable injuries, psychological and physical, but they’re not trapped in some trench somewhere with a frontline that never moves more than a few inches. They’re moving further and further into German-held France and the momentum of the war is clearly nearing its conclusion. There’s no reason for the Germans to continue the war, which makes any deaths that much more tragic.

The second half of the book is mainly written as Prior’s diary entries (a favor for Rivers). It’s an unusual choice and I can’t entirely understand why the decision was made. More oddly, the POV switches between Rivers, Prior’s diary, and Prior himself with no real consistency. We see little of battle itself and more of the bits between battle: rescuing people from No Man’s Land, showering with the boys, a certain amount of sex… Then we switch to Rivers’ POV and it’s all a flashback to his time with a headhunter tribe in the Pacific Islands. As with the last book’s exploration of River’s relationship with Lewis Carol, I can’t really understand why this is here. Even though the big final reveal seems thematically appropriate and slots into the story in Rivers’ hospital.

As with the last book, I don’t entirely know what to make of it. So much of the book seems drifting and unfocused. I did find the advance through occupied territory interesting, although it was very impressionistic. I thought the ending was depressing but strong, and came away with an overall feeling of satisfaction, but looking back I found very little outside that ending stuck. Things happen and everybody dies. Hardly a compelling storyline. So what holds it all together? The psychological complexity? The exploration of characters’ inner lives? The understanding of cultural limitations? I don’t know, and I suspect whether you enjoy the book or not will depend entirely on what you expect to get out of it.

THE GHOST ROAD (1995), the last part of the REGENERATION trilogy, takes place towards the end of World War I. While the two previous novels presented a picture of the general environment in England during the war, with special attention given to attitudes toward mental illness, pacifism and homosexuality, THE GHOST ROAD is a more introspective book. Most of the narration comes from Prior’s thoughts and his personal journal at the front as well as from Rivers’ recollections of his childhood and of his research trip to an island in Melanesia as a young anthropologist.

Within Barker's description of Rivers's stint in Melanesia there is a biting critique of colonialism. But, more important are the implications of Rivers's musings about what is "primitive" or "pagan" against what is "civilized", because all this is juxtaposed with Prior's own nightmarish experiences in the front.

Barker's trilogy ends with a harrowing, apocalyptic climax. Prior's men are murdered as they charge toward a farmhouse, while Rivers, in London, witnesses the death of a horribly mutilated man saved by Prior in a previous battle. THE GHOST ROAD is a brilliant page- turner, an anti-war, anti-empire novel well deserving the 1995 Booker prize.

I listened to this third book of the trilogy in the Audible format. It is a continuation both as a look at the world war one battlefield but also a look at soldiers who were sent back to great Britain from the battlefield to recover from injuries especially psychological injuries in preparation for sending them back to the war. There continues to be some focus on conscientious objectors and pacifiers and homosexuals who are commonly rejected by English society during the war.

I think the ending of the book is very well done. Since this is the final book in the trilogy you expect the war to end at the end of the trilogy. But it doesn’t really. November dates in 1918 are ticking down with the conclusion of various story events. One soldier dies an agonizing death surrounded by his family gasping out a barely intelligible “It isn’t worth it!” The book ends before reaching November 11.

I found the first book to be the strongest of the trilogy but that may just be because it was the first book. I wonder if it would seem that way if you began reading with the second or third book. The battlefield scenes and the methods of combat were most horrifying with bodies unrecovered for extended periods of time and deteriorating to mere bones in the battlefield muck. The process of psychologically rehabilitating people so they could go back into battle did not receive as strong a presentation as I thought it might have warranted. One of the main characters had a leading position in that effort and clearly accepted his role Although he may have wavered at the end.

I find this book so powerful. Delivered in matter-of-fact narration across remembrances of colonialism in Melanesia, WW1 Battlefields and WW1 England, each of the triptychs give power and relevance to the others. I was immediately drawn to the characterisation of army boys (and one in particular) and an older doctor, and was shocked by some of the depictions. War, insanity, the futility of death, sexual acts, colonialism. While only a short book, the author has presented a searing depiction of life in the early 20th Century. Highly recommended.