Good in Evil

Pat Barker's Regeneration is the first volume of a trilogy (the others are The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road, the Booker prize winner in 1995).  I would probably never had read it had it not been sent to me by The Times, but I am glad I did.  It is a work of fiction, but with a strong basis in fact, and focuses on the psychiatric treatment of young men who have cracked in some way under the stress of fighting in the trenches of the First World War.  But it is not a grim book at all - although it does occasionally describe horrors, much of it focuses on the warmth and humanity of the army psychiatrist Rivers, working at the Craiglockhart hospital just outside Edinburgh.

One of his patients is Siegfried Sassoon, who has - after some notably brave army service - decided that the war is being waged too long and could be stopped, and says so publicly, inviting court-martial.  His friends manage to get him boarded for a nervous breakdown instead, which is just not true.  His conversations with Rivers are very fine, and are a central part of the book, although there is much else - among the other patients is Wilfred Owen, for example, and they work together on his (Owen's) poetry.  It is not the horrors of the war that are so compelling, though, but the relationships between the broken men and Rivers; he deals with their difficulties and their aggression and defiance with real sensitivity and the diffidence that comes from realising both that he is only at the very doors of knowledge, and also that he too could suffer these ills.

There are also some very fine considerations about the causes of stress and breakdown, and some engaging portraits of those suffering and their relationships with each other, as well as more down to earth portraits of female munitions workers in the town, and the staff of the hospital itself.  There is also a particularly good description of Aldeburgh, where Rivers goes while on holiday to visit an ex-patient.  I won't tell you about that, but the portrait of the East Anglian town with barbed wire along the beach, the great open skies followed by storm - the lifeboat putting out, and not coming back til dawn - that is worth reading in itself.

The title of this post obviously refers to the work that Rivers is doing in a hellish situation, but I was reminded of a book about the later war, Primo Levi's Moments of Reprieve, which every human being should read.  It's about all the good things that people did when Levi was in Auschwitz - moments of selfless behaviour, of generosity, of decency and virtue - among both prisoners and on one remarkable occasion, the guards too; and its written in a prose so careful, so light, that it's almost poetry.

Comments

[sadie]

Thank you for this review of one of my favorite all time novels (well, actually I love the whole trilogy...but Regenerations is what makes you want to read the others). I agree that, while she doesn't shy away from the particularly nasty horrors of WWI combat, Barker doesn't dwell there. And you are right in describing the centrality of Rivers' relationship to these broken soldiers. Have you read any of Barker's more recent work? I haven't...simply because I'm so afraid it won't measure up. But I have Life Class on my September list...and I've heard good things. ~ Thanks, too, for the recommendation of Levi's book, and thanks to glo for hers on Gadda's. I wonder if the latter has been translated? Finally, just wanting to say that you have a very fine blog here. I'll definitely be back. Thanks! ~sadie

[sadie]

Thank you for this review of one of my favorite all time novels (well, actually I love the whole trilogy...but Regenerations is what makes you want to read the others). I agree that, while she doesn't shy away from the particularly nasty horrors of WWI combat, Barker doesn't dwell there. And you are right in describing the centrality of Rivers' relationship to these broken soldiers. Have you read any of Barker's more recent work? I haven't...simply because I'm so afraid it won't measure up. But I have Life Class on my September list...and I've heard good things. ~ Thanks, too, for the recommendation of Levi's book, and thanks to glo for hers on Gadda's. I wonder if the latter has been translated? Finally, just wanting to say that you have a very fine blog here. I'll definitely be back. Thanks! ~sadie

[Sarah]

I've got Regeneration in the TBR pile, I enjoyed your review so must get to it soon.

I've read and admire If this be man/The Truce by Primo Levi. I will look out for Moments of Reprieve.

[glo]

What you wrote here reminds me of an Italian book called "Il castello di Udine" (the castle of Udine) by Carlo Emilio Gadda. It is one of the most poignant books I read about WW1. Gadda tells about his hard daily life as a war prisoner in North Italy; some of his companions are badly wounded, some try to survive, others are quite passive, unaware or indifferent. He doesn't give us dreadful and down-to-earth details about what he esperienced but the reader can just imagine how hard it could have been mentally and physically.
He tells in particular about a brilliant young mathematician who is part of the group and they discuss difficult equations to kill time. This young man won't survive and Gadda feels so desperate about this wasted talent that you can yourself just feel equally compassionate.
Of course, they are young and they also make fun of each other; for some reason that I don't remember Gadda refuses to shave his beard and this lead to endless jokes and discussions.
On a less dark note, in this book Gadda invented a fake editor who allowed him to comment himself his own work and write notes on his text, which is also enjoyable to read. This is the only time I saw such a thing happen but Gadda was a real erudite and his notes are rather helpful for his readers.

[Cornflower]

You can visit Craiglockhart Hospital (which is now part of Napier University ) and see the War Poets Exhibition there: http://www2.napier.ac.uk/warpoets/
and
http://sites2.scran.ac.uk/Warp/index.htm