Regeneration

Since I have been a fan of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon (both of whom figure in the trilogy) since I was a teenager, and because I have read quite a bit WWI history, I read The Ghost Road eagerly, and hated for it to end. Ten years later I came to the realization (duh) that this was a trilogy, and I binge read The Eye in the Door and Regeneration. If this interests you, you owe it to yourself to read Sassoon's and Owens' poetry. The anger of both mens' work leaps off the page at you, but more about them later. But Pat Barker has done that doomed generation justice in her work, and her skill as a novelist almost makes you forget this is history, and this insanity really happened. After that war, I do not think we could ever again find a generation willing to go to its death like Spartans, the way that one did. Anyway, I just loved these books. So a sample of Sassoon's work: The General BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON “Good-morning, good-morning!” the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead, And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine. “He's a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. But he did for them both by his plan of attack. And from Wilfred Owen, whom I love. His quote about writing poetry at the front, constantly in combat, is engraved in stone on the floor of Westminster Cathedral: "My subject is War, and the pity of war, and the poetry is in the pity". His possibly best known, and most bitter poem is Dulce et Decorum Est, but I like a more hopeful poem, The Next War, which is more poignant because his hope has not been, or at least not fully, fulfilled. The preamble is from Sassoon: War's a joke for me and you, Wile we know such dreams are true. - Siegfried Sassoon Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death,- Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,- Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand. We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,- Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe. He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed Shrapnel. We chorussed when he sang aloft, We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe. Oh, Death was never enemy of ours! We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum. No soldier's paid to kick against His powers. We laughed, -knowing that better men would come, And greater wars: when each proud fighter brags He wars on Death, for lives; not men, for flags.

Just incredible. So vivid. Really human perspective on the First World War. I absolutely loved it, and can't recommend it enough.

"A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance." This book has been high on my list for a long time but this read-through in particular really spoke to me in a new way; so much of what's here is still relevant.