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A review by mchapmansydney
Regeneration by Pat Barker
5.0
Too often we forget that the bedrock of the last hundred years, and as a result, every one alive, is trauma. An entire generation in each world war was altered forever, not just the soldiers of course, but especially those ones, whose families bore the brunt of that. Children are not supposed to go to war, no one is built to see death, not in that way.
Regeneration is a perfect book, not grotesque or excessive in its depiction of the horrors of war, but still harrowing, not because of content alone, but because the writing is absolutely drenched in empathy. Every feeling and thought is portrayed in the messy and complicated way that feelings and thoughts often are. It’s a book with no resolution or any solution, which no book like this should try and have, it is left in the same state as at the start, at least with attempts of understanding, which is as good as you can hope for.
Regeneration is a perfect book, not grotesque or excessive in its depiction of the horrors of war, but still harrowing, not because of content alone, but because the writing is absolutely drenched in empathy. Every feeling and thought is portrayed in the messy and complicated way that feelings and thoughts often are. It’s a book with no resolution or any solution, which no book like this should try and have, it is left in the same state as at the start, at least with attempts of understanding, which is as good as you can hope for.