834. Regeneration

Regeneration
Pat Barker
1991
Around 290 pages

Of course, war novels aren't fun to read, unless you are a middle-aged dad, but there's no denying the importance of these stories, so I won't complain about it. Too much.

The novel explores the experience of British army officers being treated for shell shock during World War I at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. The characters are based on historical individuals present at the hospital including poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and psychiatrist W. H. R. Rivers, who pioneered treatments of post-traumatic stress disorder during and after World War I.

So heavy stuff, and I'm glad we got characters beyond the cookie cutter soldier types that usually populate wartime accounts like this. Naturally, the novel depicts graphic violence and upsetting scenes of death and destruction. Pat Barker was a little too much of a sentimental writer for me, but it's hard not to be sentimental when you are talking about wartime poets.

Moving, and encouraged me to do some background research on the real life characters here, who are certainly worthy of being memorialized in fiction. But not that much of a stand out writing wise.

RATING: ***--

Interesting Facts:

Adapted into a film in 1997.

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