Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - Regeneration

Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Regeneration by Pat Barker

13 reviews

swansuponledas's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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kttylatte's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad

4.25

i was hesitant to read it because i couldn’t really tell what it was going to be about (plus reading it for college) but i really enjoyed it. it put me through the mill a bit, i found certain sections very emotional and reflective. i do just love and adore pat barker’s writing style, which i think made it even better!

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patriciapueyolopez's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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ed_moore's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Barker’s ‘Regeneration’ is a different sort of war story. It focuses on the physiatrist Rivers and his patients at Craiglockhart Memorial Hospital, helping those traumatised from their service in WW1. His job is to cure them so they become mentally stable enough to return to the front, and when this is impossible the patient is deemed a ‘failure’. This mindset evolves when Rivers is assigned the poet Siegfried Sassoon as a patient, who believes the war is only still ongoing due to warmongers, all the death is futile and it can be stopped, and hence begins Rivers evolution in mindset towards the First World War.

‘Regeneration’ followed the storylines of numerous patients, and inevitably I preferred the company of some than others. Unfortunately one of the primary characters was a man called Prior who Barker placed a lot of emphasis from and I just really didn’t like the chapters that focused on him. He was generally unlikeable and though his mental condition completely justifies such, it still didn’t mean I wasn’t yearning for Sassoon. That being said, I adored the scenes between Wilfred Owen and Sassoon and the budding relationship of the two poets. The mentorship was so wholesome and yet so painful knowing how history plays out. Owen also played a very small role in the book which I would have loved to see more of.

The book felt both very static and constantly changing somehow, especially with the shift of Rivers setting towards the end which left me desiring what I already knew. The speed in which departures of characters occurred I suppose contributed to such. All together ‘Regeneration’ was heart-wrenching and traumatising given its themes and context, yet also Barker wrote it so beautifully. I am surprised that it is a trilogy however as I feel there isn’t much more to be said and its harsh conclusion made the point that Barker had intended.

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davbat's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Well written and engaging. Remarkable that the author could take one of the saddest periods in British history and write it in a way that provokes almost no emotion or sympathy.

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svrye_docx's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

First encountered this book several years ago in a university writing class (Literature of the First World War) and got really into it. We sadly only read part of it and now, years later, found the book again and read it in full.
It's not a gripping page turner, nor is it your standard war novel full of battlefield exploits. It's a psychological exploration of men dealing with war trauma.
Though the book is fiction, Pat Barker has dived deep into historical records and research to feature historical figures as the main characters in this book and from what I was able to gather through my own parallel googling, most of what she's depicted is fairly accurate.

As the first in a trilogy, I think 'Regeneration' is a strong entry into the series' themes of war trauma, masculinity in turn-of-the-century Britain, mental illness and its treatment and homosexuality. It's full of conflicted characters and a sense of inevitability that neither the characters nor we, the readers, can quite look away from.

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