I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
Description:
Sigfried Sassoon wrote the above words to his British commanding officer during World War II in 1917 while on convalescent leave. His entire letter, "Finished with the War: A Soldier's Declaration," was widely distributed, appearing in London newspapers and was read before Parliament.
The problem was that Sassoon was a war hero, decorated for bravery with the British Military Cross, the Star, the British War medal, and the Victory medals. To have such an anti-war statement issued from one of its leading soldiers was a delicate situation.
Rather than be given a court-martial for his "Declaration" and refusal to return to the Front, Sassoon was deemed to have suffered from neurasthenia (i.e., a mental breakdown or "shell shock"). He was sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, a convalescent facility for military personal damaged by the war, to be treated by the psychologist W.H.R. Rivers. The challenge Sassoon and others faced at Craiglockhart as well as their discussions about the reality of war, it effects on soldiers, doctors, and women, and their personal struggles to respond to these challenges is vividly, poignantly brought to life by Pat Barker in her book, Regeneration.
Focusing on Craiglockhart Hospital and Dr. Rivers, Barker uses the psychiatrist's thoughts, conversations, and treatment of Sassoon as well as other military patients to deftly reveal the fragile state of existence these men now experience as their recollections and actions from the Front haunt their lives.
It is Rivers who controls the fates of these men, since he must make recommendations about their mental fitness to return to the Front. Rivers gently questions and explores their memories, their family life, and their dreams through individual sessions, seeking the underlying causes for each mental breakdowns. These are men who, despite all their efforts, have been rendered mute, who refuse to believe they can walk, who suffer nightmares and screaming fits. Slowly, cautiously, they begin to reveal themselves to Rivers through calm, yet riveting doctor/patient conversations. And hopefully, they begin to heal.
Barker shows these men not as cowards seeking shelter from the fighting, but who, despite their physical and mental injuries, want desperately to return to the Front and continue the fight. Even Sassoon, once his treatment is completed, grapples with the question of whether to fulfill his promise to serve, or to refuse to return to the Front, abandon his honor and men, and receive a dishonorable court martial for his beliefs.
These beautifully, powerfully written personal moral dilemmas, these portraits of proud, broken men and their gentle treatment guided by Rivers, make Barker's historical fiction so compelling, so encompassing. What will happen to each man facing a new day, and what does the future hold for them? We readers live and breathe with Rivers and Sassoon particularly/ They are the representatives of duty and belief, of health and shock, of hope and despair. Their conversations parry and thrust at the reality of a world at war and the duty of men to fight or stay true to his convictions.
It is historical fiction at its best, skillfully recounting factual people, documents, and decisions with fictional conversations and relationships. Barker includes the factual interactions Sassoon and Rivers have with famous people of that era. Wilfred Owen, the war poet, met and worked on his poetry with Sassoon in Craiglockhart, poetry that became internationally famous after the War. Bertrand Russell gave encouragement to Sassoon for his pacifistic views. Rivers himself was a childhood friend of Lewis Carroll.
Barker is a master of the quietly disturbing atmosphere of Craiglockhart and its population, both doctors and patients. These are real people undergoing traumatic upheaval in their lives and trying to overcome their current weaknesses.
And Rivers himself is part of this damaged group, facing his own stuttering and insecurities, questioning his own beliefs and sense of responsibility when working with these young men he must judge fit enough to return to the Front to a War his conscience now questions. Even Rivers admits, after viewing yet another appalling, devastating situation caused by the hopelessness of the war, that "Nothing can justify this, Nothing nothing nothing."
Absolutely engrossing in its setting, dialogue, and historical account of this troubled era, Regeneration is the first book in a long time that I could not wait to read each day. Highly, highly recommended.
Note: I just learned that Regeneration is the first part of a three-book series by Barker. The other two books, The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road (which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1996) follow the lives of these same characters after the close of Regeneration. Guess my reading list has two new additions. Can't wait to hear more about these men.
Happy reading.
Fred
www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Hochschild, Adam. To End All Wars
Incredibly detailed, yet highly readable account of the events leading up to, during, and after World War I (previously reviewed here)
Rubin finds, in 2003, there are still living veterans of World War I and interviews them. Their 105+ year-old memories are rock solid for details and their narratives are both chilling and revealing of what war in 1917 was like. Fantastic!
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