Name: The Ghost Road
Rating: 3.882352941176471 (17 reviews)
ISBN: 9780452276727

Pat Barker

The final novel in a World War I trilogy focuses on compassionate psychiatrist Dr. William Rivers and Lieutenant Billy Prior as they both try to heal and cope with the trauma the war has inflicted upon them and the soldiers around them. Reprint. Winner of the Booker Prize.

The Ghost Road

Winner of the 1995 Booker Prize Set in the closing months of World War I, this towering novel combines poetic intensity with gritty realism as it brings Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy to its stunning conclusion. In France, millions of men engaged in brutal trench warfare are all “ghosts in the making.” In England, psychologist William Rivers, with severe pangs of conscience, treats the mental casualties of the war to make them whole enough to fight again. One of these, Billy Prior, risen to the officer class from the working class, both courageous and sardonic, decides to return to France with his fellow officer, poet Wilfred Owen, to fight a war he no longer believes in. Meanwhile, Rivers, enfevered by influenza returns in memory to his experience studying a South Pacific tribe whose ethos amounted to a culture of death. Across the gulf between his society and theirs, Rivers begins to form connections that cast new light on his—and our—understanding of war.

Pavonini

This entire trilogy was perfect. I can't recommend them enough. Such a sense of time and place. Touching. Devastating. Just incredible.

Trevor Berrett

I can't give this book a good review, but I can say some good things about it: it was interesting, it was well written, it was compelling, it was quick.

The book takes place towards the end of World War I, a fascinating time period both historically and culturally. Barker puts a lot of this together in this book: war, empire, sexuality--particularly homosexuality. I found it interesting. I also enjoyed the bits about real historical figures like Dr. Rivers, the poet Wilfred Owens, and Lewis Carrol. 

Still, the book didn't do it for me. Tying death and sex together is an interesting concept, but it remains in the abstract for me. Barker's attempts to bring that abstract concept into gritty realism didn't make sense to me. Rather, her explicit depictions (nothing meant to titilate, merely to describe in a physical sort of way) offensive. I'm not easily offended either, having studied literature and sexuality in some detail. Then again, maybe it is just me.

The violence did not offend me however. In fact, the passages about the war were poignant in their grit. Still, when I was done, I kind of felt like I'd heard most of it before, in some other war book or movie. That does not make me dislike this book. In that way, its insights were important, but it didn't redeem the book for me to be retold something.

The seemingly original part of the book was Dr. Rivers's memories of his early days as a missionary doctor in the south seas being overlayed on his experiences as a doctor/psychiatrist during World War I. But even there, I felt like nothing new was being said. Still, that nothing new was being said very well. Barker is a gifted writer. 

Unfortunately, I didn't do my research on the book before reading it and therefore didn't realize it was the last book of a trilogy. While I haven't gone back to read the first two books, they look better than The Ghost Road. I recommend reading them first and then going for The Ghost Road to complete the Booker challenge or to give an informed vote in the Best of the Booker ballot. I think I might have enjoyed this book more had I done that. As is, my rating is probably unfair, but here it is.

Pierke Bosschieter

Andrew John Kinney

jess

Sara Holman

Madeleine Twine

Moray Lyle McIntosh

The final book in the Regeneration Trilogy and winner of the 1995 Booker Prize. The Ghost Road is the culminating masterpiece of Pat Barker's towering World War I fiction trilogy. The time of the novel is the closing months of the most senselessly savage of modern conflicts. In France, millions of men engaged in brutal trench warfare are all "ghosts in the making." In England, psychologist William Rivers, with severe pangs of conscience, treats the mental casualties of the war to make them whole enough to fight again. One of these, Billy Prior, risen to the officer class from the working class, both courageous and sardonic, decides to return to France with his fellow officer, poet Wilfred Owen, to fight a war he no longer believes in. Meanwhile, Rivers, enfevered by influenza returns in memory to his experience studying a South Pacific tribe whose ethos amounted to a culture of death. Across the gulf between his society and theirs, Rivers begins to form connections that cast new light on his--and our--understanding of war. Combining poetic intensity with gritty realism, blending biting humor with tragic drama, moving toward a denouement as inevitable as it is devastating, The Ghost Road both encapsulates history and transcends it. It is a modern masterpiece

The Ghost Road

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