skygiants | (no subject)

So as you guys may have guessed, grad school and finals have set me WAY BEHIND on booklogging. But I am so close to being done for the year! And therefore it's time to start catching up.

However I can't make finals my excuse for not having written up Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy, which I started reading last year and finished in like January or something.

The real problem here is that these books were just so good and hit me so hard that they left me kind of speechless, a condition that has apparently lasted for six months. I am going to attempt to fight through it to you to convey how fantastic they are, because -- man. Okay.

Regeneration is the first book in the trilogy and I think also the best one. It's a World War I book that's not set at the front; the central characters are a psychiatrist, John Rivers, and two of his patients, Siegried Sassoon (the poet) and Billy Prior (the irritant.)

Rivers' job is to a.) cure his patients, to the best of his ability, and b.) to convince them that returning to the front, that supporting the war, is a sane and rational thing to do.

As you can imagine, there are some challenges.

Regeneration does two things better, I think, than any other book I have ever read: first, convey the sheer horror and senseless damage of World War I; second, convey the kinds of things that the mind can do to itself when dealing with that kind of strain, and convey them with understanding and compassion and respect. Very few books deal with invisible illnesses well. This does.

The sequels -- The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road -- are both very good also. Both contain secondary plots that might on paper have been more exciting than the rest of the book, and they were interesting enough, but each time I found myself just waiting until I could return to the quiet, introspective psychological discourse that forms the real heart of the story. Which is not a way I usually expect to feel!

I suspect that Regeneration will continue to top my list of WWI books, but if anyone else has recommendations for books about that era (fiction or nonfiction), I'm in the market.

Crossposts: http://bookelfe.livejournal.com/290508.html

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

newredshoes

Those sound fascinating! Yet another for the ol' to-read pile.

The one that's coming to mind is A Long, Long Way, which is about being a Dubliner and serving in the English army. It's pretty short, and I remember feeling like bits of it were kind of self-consciously "This is Irish Literature with Irish Lyricism," but there were also incredibly moving bits: I particularly remember one line, and his scalded heart to guide him.

If you haven't read The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman, the first chapter is all about the conflict of personalities between Queen Victoria's grandchildren, and it's fascinating. I had to return the book before I could finish it, and quite a lot of it is straight-up military history, but when she gets into characters and individuals, it's an astounding book.

Oh! And another one that's been on my to-read list for a while, though it seems it's been hard to find: Somme Mud, a memoir by an Australian infantryman.

Edited Date: 2012-05-11 04:30 pm (UTC)

From:

gramarye1971

The classic works of WWI fiction that I know are Erich-Marie Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front and Dalton Trumbo's horrifying Johnny Got His Gun. But another one that fits the bill is Somerset Maugham's Ashenden, or the British Agent, one of the earliest classic British espionage novels about an Englishman working as a spy in neutral Switzerland (which was based on Maugham's own experiences in British intelligence during the war). I've also been meaning to read the black comedy Czech novel The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, which actually predates Remarque's book and is said to have inspired Joseph Heller to write Catch-22.

Those are the fictional works I can think of off the top of my head. I think I have some nonfiction recs, but right now I need to go make lunch. ^^;;

Edited (Because I sometimes fail to proofread my own replies...) Date: 2012-05-11 04:35 pm (UTC)

From:

ceitfianna

I know that Robert Graves has a book about his WWI experience that I keep meaning to read called Goodbye to all that. Otherwise everyone else has recommended many more including a few I really want to read as well.

These books look fascinating and I'll have to add them to my list.

From:

newredshoes

You know what's terrible? I cannot seem to keep All Quiet on the Western Front separate in my head from The Red Badge of Courage. Never mind they're... different wars on different continents in different centuries. /o\

From:

skygiants

AHHH I was going to comment to say I have that exact same problem! It's terrible! AND YET.

From:

skygiants

You would LOVE them, I am pretty sure. I mean I am one hundred percent biased because I love them, but they also read to me very much as Esther books.

Thank you for the recs! I haven't actually read any Tuchman, I've had A Distant Mirror on my shelf for years out of a vague intent to read it for writing research someday. But Guns of August is actually way more relevant to my writing research now than medievalism is, so it should get bumped up the list!

From:

skygiants

I read Johnny Got Gun ages and ages ago, as a kid, and remember very little except that it traumatized me. >.> I am super interested in all your more little-known recs -- I figured you would have awesome stuff for me. :D Thank you!

From:

skygiants

Ah, yes! I was talking about that with someone recently and I forget who, but it's definitely on my list. Thanks for reminding me!

From:

ceitfianna

Yes, its one of those books that keeps kind of niggling at me. I always see a copy for sale at one of the used bookstores and keep meaning to read it.

From:

gramarye1971

Considering that I always confuse The Red Badge of Courage with Where the Red Fern Grows? I have no moral position from which to judge you on that account. ^^;;

From:

likeadeuce

Wasn't Richard Thomas/John Boy Walton in film versions of all three? Could that be the connection?

From:

remindmeofthe

Oh, yes, that was what I wanted to reread this summer. :D

You might be interested in this paper William Rivers published in 1914. Several of the cases he mentions will sound familiar; Pat Barker definitely did her homework. It's a fascinating read, very accessibly written.

From:

skygiants

YOU'RE WELCOME. :D

And thanks! I was wondering if any of his papers were easily accessible -- I know some have been published.

From:

gramarye1971

And now that I've had a chance to dig a bit through my personal library and files:

- The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, which also links to the Great War Archive. Put together by Oxford University and the Imperial War Museum, so it's going to be very UK-and-bits-of-Empire-and-Dominions-centric.

- I've also been reading Dunant's Dream: War, Switzerland and the History of the Red Cross by Caroline Moorehead, which is a doorstopper of a book that has a lot of information on the International Committee of the Red Cross and its role in various wars, including World War I. Some interesting discussion of how the war experience shaped the Red Cross response in different countries, and how different countries placed their own national stamp on the structure and methods of their Red Cross societies.

- In other nonfiction, I personally have not read but have heard very good things about The Undermining of Austria-Hungary: The Battle for Hearts and Minds by Mark Cornwall (a massive archival work about how internal and external propaganda helped bring down the Austro-Hungarian Empire), Brian Bonds' Survivors of a Kind: Memoirs of the Western Front (a comparative study of several different war memoirs), Jay Winter's Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (assessment of national grief and Great War memorials in various European nations, as well as Australia), and Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War by Peter Barham (reflecting on the impact of civilian society's response to military PTSD before, during, and after the war).

- I also have a few documentaries and history programmes that I can try to upload. Unfortunately, I think I may have deleted one very interesting show on the Wipers Times, a trench magazine full of gallows humour and satire published by British infantrymen stationed near Ypres, Belgium (hence the name).

And now that I have probably overwhelmed you with READ ALL THE HISTORY, I will stop here.

From:

the_croupier

Regeneration was such a great book! I've always meant to go back and read the other two. I'm glad to hear they hold up just as well.

From:

skygiants

I still don't love them quite as all-consumingly as the first one, but they are one hundred percent worth reading! I definitely recommend them. :D

From:

skygiants

EXCELLENT THANK YOU. I knew I could count on you! :D :D

From:

shark_hat

Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth is her memoirs- she lost most of the young men she loved in the war, and also volunteered as a nurse in 1914. She became an influential pacifist. The book's pretty moving.

From:

skygiants

That sounds really interesting - thank you!

From:

dorothean

I loved Goodbye to All That, which I see someone else has recommended, but my favorite WWI book is Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory.

Fussell was (still alive, but retired) an English professor in the United States, who fought in WWII. This book is sort of a literary analysis of WWI.

(Don't remember how I found your journal, but I enjoy your booklogging very much, and am subscribing!)