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Regeneration #2
The Eye in the Door
London, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in the Ministry of Munitions. But his private encounters with women and men - pacifists, objectors, homosexuals - conflict with his duties as a soldier, and it is not long before his sense of himself fragments and breaks down. Forced to consult the man who helped him before - army psychiatrist William Rivers - Prior must confront his inability to be the dutiful soldier his superiors wish him to be ...
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Pat Barker
35 books2,223 followersPat Barker, CBE, FRSL was born in Thornaby-on-Tees in 1943. She was educated at the London School of Economics and has been a teacher of history and politics.
Her books include the highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy Regeneration; The Eye in the Door, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize; and The Ghost Road, winner of the Booker Prize; as well as seven other novels. She's married and lives in Durham, England.
Her books include the highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy Regeneration; The Eye in the Door, winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize; and The Ghost Road, winner of the Booker Prize; as well as seven other novels. She's married and lives in Durham, England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 620 reviews
February 10, 2017
The second book in the trilogy; just as good and it helps a great deal to have read the first. As previously Barker does an excellent job of weaving fact and fiction together.
We have moved on to early 1918 and the war is still in the balance. One of the fictional characters from Regeneration, Billy Prior, is also central to this novel. Dr Rivers is now in London (as is Prior) and we are plunged into a society struggling with the consequences of war and some of the hysteria that goes with it. Barker focuses on the maelstrom of opinion, debate and misinformation that comes with a society at war. She uses Prior, unfit to return to France, working for military intelligence and having affairs with men and women to take us round what is happening. Barker describes the lives of those opposing the war, pacifists and those sheltering deserters and those contemplating more drastic measures.
There is also a window on one of the more bizarre incidents which took place in Britain, which would be entirely unbelievable, if it wasn’t true. The varied attitudes towards because of the strains of wartime have been well documented. However one particular sensational libel case stands out. Noel Pemberton Billing (aviator and would be MP) was convinced that homosexuality was infiltrating society and damaging the war effort. He was convinced the Germans had a list of 47 000 prominent homosexuals who they could blackmail. He teamed up with Harold Spencer who was working for the secret services. They were convinced the Germans were trying to “propagate evils which all decent men thought had perished in Sodom and Lesbia”. Even Margot Asquith was publicly attacked. However they particularly disliked Robbie Ross and old friend and supporter of Wilde. He had organised a production of Wilde’s Salome with Maud Allen in the lead role. Billing published an article called The Cult of the Clitoris which accused Allen of being a lesbian. She sued Billing and lost. The strain told on Ross and he died before the end of the war. Barker weaves all of this into the novel very effectively via Prior and a new character Manning and builds the feeling of paranoia very effectively.
Again the descriptions of the nightmares, the effects of “shell-shock” and its varying treatment are very effective and one remains in no doubt about the horrors of war. Sassoon features again, fighting his demons with the help of Rivers; but it is Prior who takes centre stage. He is a complex character and Barker analyses his bisexuality and the effects trauma has on his psyche. It’s excellent stuff and well worth the effort of seeking out.
We have moved on to early 1918 and the war is still in the balance. One of the fictional characters from Regeneration, Billy Prior, is also central to this novel. Dr Rivers is now in London (as is Prior) and we are plunged into a society struggling with the consequences of war and some of the hysteria that goes with it. Barker focuses on the maelstrom of opinion, debate and misinformation that comes with a society at war. She uses Prior, unfit to return to France, working for military intelligence and having affairs with men and women to take us round what is happening. Barker describes the lives of those opposing the war, pacifists and those sheltering deserters and those contemplating more drastic measures.
There is also a window on one of the more bizarre incidents which took place in Britain, which would be entirely unbelievable, if it wasn’t true. The varied attitudes towards because of the strains of wartime have been well documented. However one particular sensational libel case stands out. Noel Pemberton Billing (aviator and would be MP) was convinced that homosexuality was infiltrating society and damaging the war effort. He was convinced the Germans had a list of 47 000 prominent homosexuals who they could blackmail. He teamed up with Harold Spencer who was working for the secret services. They were convinced the Germans were trying to “propagate evils which all decent men thought had perished in Sodom and Lesbia”. Even Margot Asquith was publicly attacked. However they particularly disliked Robbie Ross and old friend and supporter of Wilde. He had organised a production of Wilde’s Salome with Maud Allen in the lead role. Billing published an article called The Cult of the Clitoris which accused Allen of being a lesbian. She sued Billing and lost. The strain told on Ross and he died before the end of the war. Barker weaves all of this into the novel very effectively via Prior and a new character Manning and builds the feeling of paranoia very effectively.
Again the descriptions of the nightmares, the effects of “shell-shock” and its varying treatment are very effective and one remains in no doubt about the horrors of war. Sassoon features again, fighting his demons with the help of Rivers; but it is Prior who takes centre stage. He is a complex character and Barker analyses his bisexuality and the effects trauma has on his psyche. It’s excellent stuff and well worth the effort of seeking out.
Read
October 17, 2019Sometimes, mostly, I forget books that I give up on and don't finish, this is one of the few that I can remember with certainty that I got too annoyed with to complete.
The main character, Billy Prior, is an Everyman. For some bizarre personal reason of my own I did not expect that this would be interpreted literally. So Prior is an officer of working class origin, ship-worker father - domestic service mother, bisexual, in a relationship with a munitions worker, suffers shell-shock, was a boy prostitute, picks up brother officers for casual sex, lived on the same street as the woman who tried (not very well) to assassinate Lloyd-George...
Any one of those would have made for an interesting character in a WWI setting. When all of these are present in the same character I put the book aside. Any one of those elements might have been enough to show me that Prior is a liminal character, all of them though was too much for me.
The old woman, and former neighbour, in prison for an attempted assassination of Lloyd George and that Prior was sent into question her, apparently randomly rather than because it was known that he was conversant in the topolects of the North-east of England, was the straw which broke the camel's back of plausibility in this story to my mind.
I'm happy to admit that this is a failing on my side, a grim wish that the realistic should be realistic and the symbolic symbolic, but there you go, we all have our short comings. I enjoyed Regeneration though already there I preferred Barker's version of the historical characters to her fictional Billy Prior.
The main character, Billy Prior, is an Everyman. For some bizarre personal reason of my own I did not expect that this would be interpreted literally. So Prior is an officer of working class origin, ship-worker father - domestic service mother, bisexual, in a relationship with a munitions worker, suffers shell-shock, was a boy prostitute, picks up brother officers for casual sex, lived on the same street as the woman who tried (not very well) to assassinate Lloyd-George...
Any one of those would have made for an interesting character in a WWI setting. When all of these are present in the same character I put the book aside. Any one of those elements might have been enough to show me that Prior is a liminal character, all of them though was too much for me.
The old woman, and former neighbour, in prison for an attempted assassination of Lloyd George and that Prior was sent into question her, apparently randomly rather than because it was known that he was conversant in the topolects of the North-east of England, was the straw which broke the camel's back of plausibility in this story to my mind.
I'm happy to admit that this is a failing on my side, a grim wish that the realistic should be realistic and the symbolic symbolic, but there you go, we all have our short comings. I enjoyed Regeneration though already there I preferred Barker's version of the historical characters to her fictional Billy Prior.
July 10, 2012
To commit or not to commit that is the question?
Is it worth reading all of a trilogy when you've finished the first book (Regeneration) and feel that it works quite satisfactorily as a stand alone novel, thank you very much. Is it worth ploughing on with the other two books to get a sense of the ending, a feeling of completeness, a conclusion to it all?
If we're talking about this trilogy then I say yes. I am a commitmentaphobe but I took the plunge and with The Eye in the Door in one hand and The Ghost Road in the other I said, "I do" and took the plunge, spending a week with them.
The Eye in the Door slightly more wide ranging in its historical wanderings than Regeneration which was a bit bed bound, staying mainly within the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. Eye takes a closer look at the political and historical background to the period of World War I, specifically, what was happening on home turf. Adding colour to the political landscape are individuals such as Churchill, Bertrand Russell and also Noel Pemberton Billing, well known homophobe, media mogul and conspiracy theorist. You might think it would be easy to dismiss this man and his campaign against homosexual men in British public life as a right-wing crankery but rather unfortunately he was also an MP so people tended to listen to him and take him seriously.
It is fair to say that despite the single minded focus on the war, Britain was fighting a war on its own home front too. A confused war against its own working classes, against shop stewards, strikers, pacifists and those whose sexual orientation, it was alleged, would make them weak and likely targets in bribery and espionage by the Germans. It was said that loose lips sink ships during World War II. World War I was the war that feared it would be torpedoed by loose zips.
The majority of the story focuses on Billy Prior, now liberated from Craiglockhart and trying to resume a normal life in one of the many ministries which sprung up, Big Brother style, between 1914 and 1918. Prior character is simultaneously a manifold ensemble of things that the Brits are professing to admire and loath. He is a soldier, honourably relieved from service at the front and given home service duties, he has seen action and fought for his country but despite being an officer he is from a working class background, is friends with activists and socialists and is also bi-sexual, enjoying relationships with munitions worker girlfriend, Sarah Lund (no not the lady off of The killing), as well as fellow Craiglockhart survivor, Charles Manning. Billy is not the typical everyman and he has multiple issues however he is the conduit through which we are permitted a look at tumultuous World War I England. He is our Eye in the Door.
This was in all honesty my least favourite segment of the trilogy, but it's a useful bridge between Regeneration and The Ghost Road if you're going to read all three.
Is it worth reading all of a trilogy when you've finished the first book (Regeneration) and feel that it works quite satisfactorily as a stand alone novel, thank you very much. Is it worth ploughing on with the other two books to get a sense of the ending, a feeling of completeness, a conclusion to it all?
If we're talking about this trilogy then I say yes. I am a commitmentaphobe but I took the plunge and with The Eye in the Door in one hand and The Ghost Road in the other I said, "I do" and took the plunge, spending a week with them.
The Eye in the Door slightly more wide ranging in its historical wanderings than Regeneration which was a bit bed bound, staying mainly within the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh. Eye takes a closer look at the political and historical background to the period of World War I, specifically, what was happening on home turf. Adding colour to the political landscape are individuals such as Churchill, Bertrand Russell and also Noel Pemberton Billing, well known homophobe, media mogul and conspiracy theorist. You might think it would be easy to dismiss this man and his campaign against homosexual men in British public life as a right-wing crankery but rather unfortunately he was also an MP so people tended to listen to him and take him seriously.
It is fair to say that despite the single minded focus on the war, Britain was fighting a war on its own home front too. A confused war against its own working classes, against shop stewards, strikers, pacifists and those whose sexual orientation, it was alleged, would make them weak and likely targets in bribery and espionage by the Germans. It was said that loose lips sink ships during World War II. World War I was the war that feared it would be torpedoed by loose zips.
The majority of the story focuses on Billy Prior, now liberated from Craiglockhart and trying to resume a normal life in one of the many ministries which sprung up, Big Brother style, between 1914 and 1918. Prior character is simultaneously a manifold ensemble of things that the Brits are professing to admire and loath. He is a soldier, honourably relieved from service at the front and given home service duties, he has seen action and fought for his country but despite being an officer he is from a working class background, is friends with activists and socialists and is also bi-sexual, enjoying relationships with munitions worker girlfriend, Sarah Lund (no not the lady off of The killing), as well as fellow Craiglockhart survivor, Charles Manning. Billy is not the typical everyman and he has multiple issues however he is the conduit through which we are permitted a look at tumultuous World War I England. He is our Eye in the Door.
This was in all honesty my least favourite segment of the trilogy, but it's a useful bridge between Regeneration and The Ghost Road if you're going to read all three.
Read
February 11, 2017Mac is in Wandsworth. A radical pacifist who worked to sabotage the production of munitions, he has been betrayed and caught.
'I didn't believe it. The sergeant in Liverpool told me it was you, I mean, he mentioned your name. He was standing on my scrotum at the time, so, as you can imagine, it had a certain ring to it. I still didn't believe it, but the more I thought about it the more I thought, yes.' Mac was speaking intently, and yet almost indifferently, as if he didn't care whether Prior listened or not. Perhaps speaking at all was merely a way of salving his pride, of distracting Prior's attention while the all-important business of devouring the chocolate went on. 'And then I thought, he told you. Do you remember in the cattle shed I asked you what you'd have done if you'd found a deserter in Hettie's scullery and you said, "I'd turn him in. What else could I do?" And then I remembered a story I heard, about a man who found a snake half dead and nursed it back to life. He fed it, took care of it. And then he let it go. And the next time they met it bit him. And this was a very poisonous snake, he ... knew he was going to die. And with his last gasp, he said, "But why? I saved you, I fed you, I nursed you. Why did you bite me?" And the snake said, "But you knew I was a snake."
In war time nurturing men are expected to turn into snakes. It is a violence against their nature, that can only be managed by disassociation.
And here's another of those quirky ironies that expose the absurdity: while there is carnage in Picardy, people in London are more interested in who is sleeping with whom and who is being blackmailed.
I see from other reviews that some folks have trouble relating to the characters here, find them too artificial, too obviously fictional. It may have to do with Barker's multi-perspective approach, perhaps. We move from Prior to Manning to Rivers and back, never snuggling in close to any of them. That's fine by me. Their nightmares are disturbing enough, no desire to coorie up.
Barker has a wonderful ear for dialogue.
I shall have to leave the final book in the trilogy until the next time I visit the Ancient Parents, as they are collected in a large fat hardback that I will not carry away. Oops. I mean the three parts of the trilogy of course, not the APs. The pitfalls of sentence structure.
'I didn't believe it. The sergeant in Liverpool told me it was you, I mean, he mentioned your name. He was standing on my scrotum at the time, so, as you can imagine, it had a certain ring to it. I still didn't believe it, but the more I thought about it the more I thought, yes.' Mac was speaking intently, and yet almost indifferently, as if he didn't care whether Prior listened or not. Perhaps speaking at all was merely a way of salving his pride, of distracting Prior's attention while the all-important business of devouring the chocolate went on. 'And then I thought, he told you. Do you remember in the cattle shed I asked you what you'd have done if you'd found a deserter in Hettie's scullery and you said, "I'd turn him in. What else could I do?" And then I remembered a story I heard, about a man who found a snake half dead and nursed it back to life. He fed it, took care of it. And then he let it go. And the next time they met it bit him. And this was a very poisonous snake, he ... knew he was going to die. And with his last gasp, he said, "But why? I saved you, I fed you, I nursed you. Why did you bite me?" And the snake said, "But you knew I was a snake."
In war time nurturing men are expected to turn into snakes. It is a violence against their nature, that can only be managed by disassociation.
And here's another of those quirky ironies that expose the absurdity: while there is carnage in Picardy, people in London are more interested in who is sleeping with whom and who is being blackmailed.
I see from other reviews that some folks have trouble relating to the characters here, find them too artificial, too obviously fictional. It may have to do with Barker's multi-perspective approach, perhaps. We move from Prior to Manning to Rivers and back, never snuggling in close to any of them. That's fine by me. Their nightmares are disturbing enough, no desire to coorie up.
Barker has a wonderful ear for dialogue.
I shall have to leave the final book in the trilogy until the next time I visit the Ancient Parents, as they are collected in a large fat hardback that I will not carry away. Oops. I mean the three parts of the trilogy of course, not the APs. The pitfalls of sentence structure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 16, 2018
There were times when Prior was made physically sick by the sight and sound and smell of civilians. He remembered the stench that comes off a battalion of men marching back from the line, the thick yellow stench, and he thought how preferable it was to this. He knew he had to get off the streets, away from the chattering crowds and the whiffs of perfume that assaulted his nostrils whenever a woman walked past.
This is a revised review of the book.
the first edition (1993) cover, Penguin Books Ltd.
The following is an edited version of material from Wikipedia on the first two novels. (I remember very little of the story.)
This second novel of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, set in London in the spring of 1918.
The first volume, whose two main characters were fictional portrayals of the real people Siegfried Sassoon and Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, included a third important character, the fictional Billy Prior.
Prior was introduced as another of Rivers' patients at Craiglockhart who suffers from mutism and asthma. (A critic has suggested that his inability to speak highlights the novel's treatment of Western culture's inability to verbalise the mutilation of bodies caused by war.) Prior is a working-class officer risen to the rank of lieutenant, despite his background. Straddling the class divide, he sees the British army mirroring the class system, even in the trenches. As this character is developed by Barker, he's revealed to be bisexual.
The Eye in the Door continues the interwoven stories of Rivers, Sassoon, and Billy Prior. It ends some time before the conclusion of the First World War later the same year.
"Whereas Regeneration is an anomalous, but not unique, mixture of fact and fiction, The Eye in the Door acknowledges real events, including the campaign against homosexuals being waged that year by right-wing MP Noel Pemberton Billing, but remains consistently within the realm of fiction. This grants Barker more freedom to explore her characters and their actions, the descriptions of which might be considered libellous if attributed to real people. A major theme of the book, Prior's intense and indiscriminate bisexuality, is effectively contrasted with Rivers' tepid asexuality and Sassoon's pure homosexuality."
Barker presents a nuanced at detailed treatment of the psychological, political and professional life of Billy Prior, who seems to have become the central character.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Erasmus of Rotterdam Stefan Zweig
Next review: The Face of Battle Keegan
More recent review: Ender's Game
Previous library review: Regeneration
Next library review: The Ghost Road
This is a revised review of the book.
the first edition (1993) cover, Penguin Books Ltd.
The following is an edited version of material from Wikipedia on the first two novels. (I remember very little of the story.)
This second novel of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, set in London in the spring of 1918.
The first volume, whose two main characters were fictional portrayals of the real people Siegfried Sassoon and Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, included a third important character, the fictional Billy Prior.
Prior was introduced as another of Rivers' patients at Craiglockhart who suffers from mutism and asthma. (A critic has suggested that his inability to speak highlights the novel's treatment of Western culture's inability to verbalise the mutilation of bodies caused by war.) Prior is a working-class officer risen to the rank of lieutenant, despite his background. Straddling the class divide, he sees the British army mirroring the class system, even in the trenches. As this character is developed by Barker, he's revealed to be bisexual.
The Eye in the Door continues the interwoven stories of Rivers, Sassoon, and Billy Prior. It ends some time before the conclusion of the First World War later the same year.
"Whereas Regeneration is an anomalous, but not unique, mixture of fact and fiction, The Eye in the Door acknowledges real events, including the campaign against homosexuals being waged that year by right-wing MP Noel Pemberton Billing, but remains consistently within the realm of fiction. This grants Barker more freedom to explore her characters and their actions, the descriptions of which might be considered libellous if attributed to real people. A major theme of the book, Prior's intense and indiscriminate bisexuality, is effectively contrasted with Rivers' tepid asexuality and Sassoon's pure homosexuality."
Barker presents a nuanced at detailed treatment of the psychological, political and professional life of Billy Prior, who seems to have become the central character.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: Erasmus of Rotterdam Stefan Zweig
Next review: The Face of Battle Keegan
More recent review: Ender's Game
Previous library review: Regeneration
Next library review: The Ghost Road
November 7, 2021
Set in London, this second novel in the Regeneration Trilogy, continues the examination of the psychological effects of the Great War We continue to learn more about the lives of the main characters – Dr. William Rivers, Billy Prior, and, eventually, Siegfried Sassoon. It is early 1918 and the war is not going well. The hunt for scapegoats is on, and likely candidates are conscientious objectors and homosexuals. Billy Prior is working for the government. He finds out about a situation in which one of his friends was framed. He begins to experience blackouts. He reconnects with Dr. Rivers.
The writing is outstanding. The plot is intricate and compelling. The characters are deeply developed. Barker is skilled at developing a feeling of completeness to the story, even in the middle book of a trilogy, which is a rare talent that I appreciate. I am looking forward to reading the third and final book, The Ghost Road.
4.5
The writing is outstanding. The plot is intricate and compelling. The characters are deeply developed. Barker is skilled at developing a feeling of completeness to the story, even in the middle book of a trilogy, which is a rare talent that I appreciate. I am looking forward to reading the third and final book, The Ghost Road.
4.5
August 27, 2008
Five stars for brilliance, one for enjoyment (we're working with a flawed rating system). The second installment of the Regeneration trilogy presents one the most complex psychological portraits I’ve ever read, made more complex by the fact I had to read it through one half-closed eye because of the occasional graphic depictions of gay sex. However, there’s more to the book than insight into new territory (which normally I appreciate, but not so much here). The story goes outside Craglockhart Hospital to follow one of the more problematic patients, Billy Prior, in his wartime duties and continued treatment with Dr. Rivers. But really the novel is an exploration of duality, both between people and roles, and within one’s own self — soldier/pacifist, working class/officer, doctor/patient, heterosexual/homosexual, sane/insane. The conflicts resulting from these dualities are set against the backdrop of — and in some cases result from — the deep and unsettling changes the Great War was causing in English society. While I admit the novel is in many ways a triumph, I didn’t like it at all and even had a hard time following it in places (which is sort of unusual). There’d be no point reading it out of context of the trilogy.
September 27, 2016
"If you say, "I think it's morally wrong for young men to be sent out to slaughter each other," God help you."Very little has changed since I read, reviewed, and hung on to Regeneration for dear life. I still live at home, am mistaken for a fifteen-year-old more often than not, and pace myself through books at an obscene rate. The only difference is that I can lay claim to a few more labels: English graduate, bisexual, job holder. In the eyes of many, since I achieved this at twenty-five-years-old rather than twenty-one, I am a failure. In the eyes of myself, I know that there are many others besides these failure-labelers who would prefer to see me dead. I suppose this is why reading this is a 'comfort' of sorts, certainly more comfortable than the Black Lamb and Grey Falcon morass I'm slogging through with its tidbits of actually valuable insight drowned in every death-dealing hypocrisy known to white cis het able woman and then some. Here, insanity and non-heteronormativity is a given, and in this case is even more welcome, as the LGBTQIA+ acronym does not mean LG is not a stronghold where biphobia runs rampant. If sex with multiple genders of the dichotomy disgusts you, if those who do not ask how high when you tell them to jump on the sanity scale scare you, fuck off. Both are me, and I have enough shit to deal with offline without the likes of you.
One began by finding mental illness mystifying, and ended by being still more mystified by health.Much like my own life trajectory, you can't really say anything happens during the course of this novel. People come and go in the jails and the psyche wards. Some of them 'pass' in whatever way is demanded at the time, which can be all or nothing depending on whether women, insanity, non-heteronormativity, or a foreign power is perceived as the greatest threat. Various historical events happen, all of them very titillating until the boredom sets in, for the same things happen today under all the new names and the new faces and the new military industrial complexes. The only difference is that there is a greater propensity to set certain events in stone as with the grandiose title of It Could Not Have Happened Until Now. Reading Regeneration three years ago set yet another ball rolling to the point that I can no longer term its sequel a favorite, but I still deeply appreciate how utterly well crafted this is: raw when I need it to be, suppressed when I need it to be, as the chemicals of my brain have yet to be balanced out by a full time job with health insurance. Until that future guarantee arrives under a true oppression-blocking sky and I can turn my way to calmer shores, persecution and self-hatred and paranoia directed at outward forces only outweighed by paranoia directed at inward is my bread and butter. I can't speak for those who don't say the same. They are blessed by a biology that fits what was prescribed as the norm a few centuries ago, and when the world outgrows this skeleton, their reckoning is their own to deal with.
In the end moral and political truths have to be proved on the body, because this mass of nerve and muscle and blood is what we are.While I have a vague interest in putting off the finishing of the trilogy for another three years as a sort of masochistic time capsule, one of the lessons I've found necessary to learn is that my naturally self-starving type needs to indulge when they can. In any case, I know for certain that in three years, I'll either be in grad school or on my way to a masters in library science. Neither path is what is advised these days, but the birth of people like me is subtly worked against as well, so I may as well pursue what I love. If someone wants to cry over my spilled milk, exit stage left. The tears of the self-proclaimed normal are worse than useless.
'Your coming here is entirely is entirely voluntary.'
'With that degree of dependency? Of course it's not fucking voluntary.'
February 8, 2019
Billy Prior, who was a major character in the first book of the trilogy, Regeneration, now takes the reigns of the protagonist in the second book, The Eye in the Door. It is 1918 and Billy now works for the Ministry of Munitions. Billy is having some major slips in time and they seem to be getting longer in duration. He visits Rivers, who was the protagonist in Regeneration and Billy’s second personality makes an appearance. This is my favourite part in the novel. Much the same as the first novel Barker weaves fact and fiction to bind together an extremely interesting narrative. The facts with this novel revolve around a fabricated conspiracy to assassinate Lloyd George by Poison. We are taken into the world of the pacifists and the horrific torture and conditions they were subjected to if caught by the Ministry of Munitions spies. This is where the character of Billy Prior becomes so interesting, he has a foot in both camps. He has friends who are pacifists and deep down he is sympathetic to their cause, but he is also committed to his job and cannot shirk his responsibility. He is torn, and maybe this has something to do with the schizophrenia, although it seems to have been formed in the trenches. Barker also relies on history to touch on subjects such as class and homosexuality. The reference to a Black book containing 47000 names of homosexuals is purported to be in the hands of a German Prince and a British spy claims it will be used to create anarchy and unrest in England. We must remember this is 1917 and homosexuality was a crime. So just the rumour of such a book, especially considering there were some very high-level names said to be in it, could cause all sorts of damage. Barker shows us an England, that in hindsight you would expect from a country that is locked in an unpopular interminable war in a foreign land in this era, that is in chaos. You have the conscientious objectors, you have the pacifists, regular and militant, you have the spies and police tracking them down. You have enemy spies sowing discontent. Major resources are channelled into the war effort, food rationed, manpower, vital in the early twentieth century, severely depleted. I like the fact that Barker has stayed with the same format with this novel, using historical events and characters again, and it has the same feel of the first book. In my opinion Regeneration is the better of the two novels but this book is still a great read. 4 Stars.
November 28, 2014
In the 2nd book of the Regeneration trilogy, one re-encounters Prior, whom Barker describes as being "neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red herring." It struck me that this is the tone of the trilogy so far -- there is nothing that I can really feel -- nothing that really moves me -- because there is nothing to grasp solidly. It's not badly written; it's not that the story isn't worth knowing -- but, but ... I feel as fractured as the soldiers Barker writes about: I can't hold onto anything with any sense of satisfaction.
The process of regeneration continues: we re-encounter the same characters from the previous novel who are in various stages of recovery from their wounds, both physical and psychological. A few new characters emerge to complicate the lives of the already-wounded. Torn, and war-torn, the soldiers walk through a somnambulist's nightmare, repeated in various stages of intensity and atrocity. Some heal, some get worse. Some completely forget why they're there in the first place; others, like Prior, self-induce a fugue state to absolve himself of his sins, both past and future. (He eventually betrays his best friend from childhood, which is telegraphed to the reader very early on. Go figure!) There is not much to like about Prior, in fact, and this last action puts paid to that fact.
The characters are somewhat stagnant. To be fair, I wouldn't expect a vaudeville act from the walking wounded, but since they are purportedly in a state of "regeneration" I would expect more fluidity of psychological awareness and growth. Instead, Prior lives the same life, over and over again; as does Sassoon, as does Rivers, as they all do in fact. Lives are revealed in dribs and drabs, and episodes from the past, as far back as childhood, are repeated to the reader's distraction. The characters continue to make the same stupid mistakes; they continue to make the same ridiculous choices. Wherein lies the regeneration begins to escape me at this point.
I am not convinced that soldiers led lives like these: the story dances a very close verisimilitude to the real dance of war, but is passionless and abstruse to my eyes.
Where Barker surprises me, and thrills me, in the end, is the almost-extraneous history of Beattie Roper. I was riveted and I wanted 1000 pages more of Beattie's life. (Given that this novel was to have featured Beattie/Alice Wheeldon, I was disappointed to get so little of her story. Like Owen in Regeneration, Beattie makes an almost-cameo-appearance, yet she is the one who carries the novel.) It struck me in reading these lines, that Barker knew far more about women's psyches than she did about men's: it would have been Barker's crowning glory if she had written about war time women, rather than the soldiers she paints so nebulously.
The process of regeneration continues: we re-encounter the same characters from the previous novel who are in various stages of recovery from their wounds, both physical and psychological. A few new characters emerge to complicate the lives of the already-wounded. Torn, and war-torn, the soldiers walk through a somnambulist's nightmare, repeated in various stages of intensity and atrocity. Some heal, some get worse. Some completely forget why they're there in the first place; others, like Prior, self-induce a fugue state to absolve himself of his sins, both past and future. (He eventually betrays his best friend from childhood, which is telegraphed to the reader very early on. Go figure!) There is not much to like about Prior, in fact, and this last action puts paid to that fact.
The characters are somewhat stagnant. To be fair, I wouldn't expect a vaudeville act from the walking wounded, but since they are purportedly in a state of "regeneration" I would expect more fluidity of psychological awareness and growth. Instead, Prior lives the same life, over and over again; as does Sassoon, as does Rivers, as they all do in fact. Lives are revealed in dribs and drabs, and episodes from the past, as far back as childhood, are repeated to the reader's distraction. The characters continue to make the same stupid mistakes; they continue to make the same ridiculous choices. Wherein lies the regeneration begins to escape me at this point.
I am not convinced that soldiers led lives like these: the story dances a very close verisimilitude to the real dance of war, but is passionless and abstruse to my eyes.
Where Barker surprises me, and thrills me, in the end, is the almost-extraneous history of Beattie Roper. I was riveted and I wanted 1000 pages more of Beattie's life. (Given that this novel was to have featured Beattie/Alice Wheeldon, I was disappointed to get so little of her story. Like Owen in Regeneration, Beattie makes an almost-cameo-appearance, yet she is the one who carries the novel.) It struck me in reading these lines, that Barker knew far more about women's psyches than she did about men's: it would have been Barker's crowning glory if she had written about war time women, rather than the soldiers she paints so nebulously.
November 12, 2017
The Regeneration Trilogy: I read these books in the late '90s, after Ghost Road was first published. I was in love with the British war poets of WWI at the time and this fit right in. I don't remember many details, but these books were great reads. Very athmospheric, accessible and captivating main characters, I suffered with them every step of the way.
P.S.: The movie is also very good.
P.S.: The movie is also very good.
June 5, 2019
Fantástico
February 26, 2024
Pat Barker is a brilliant writer. This is the second part of her WWI psychiatry trilogy. It is layered, full of cultural and historic detail, and triggers internal conversations galore. I’m thinking of passing Hilary Mantel’s ‘best living English woman writer’ to Barker. Her writing is so good it is easy to miss how good it is.
April 13, 2024
Excellent, just like the two others in the series
September 19, 2016
I looked at my review of her Regeneration and was surprised to find myself having said the characters weren't quite real. I didn't feel that way at all in this one. Either Barker came to know her characters better, or I came to read her characters better. Or both, perhaps?
I found my appreciation of this enhanced by my having recently read To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918. That book focused on the war protesters and how the British government imprisoned "conchies" and others, including homosexuals. One glimpse here was that the conscientious objectors were used as orderlies at the hospital, and that they were ill-treated by fellow employees. This was a side-issue entirely - barely mentioned, but I had understanding. It's interesting how one's body of reading enhances the next book.
The title comes from the inside of a prison door. There is a peep hole for the guards to check on inmates. On many of the doors (all of them?) the peep hole has become the pupil of an eye painted on the door, complete with iris, veining in the white, eyelashes. Inmates know they are constantly being watched, and this is a particularly apt analogy for the political prisoners. The government was watching them, spying on them to catch them at anything amiss and locking them up.
The body of the story is the return of Dr. Rivers and his treatment of soldiers from the front. The primary character in this is a returning patient, Billy Prior. How much killing can a man handle before he breaks? Also making more than just a cameo appearance is poet Siegfried Sassoon. I liked this better than Regeneration, but I'm not at all sure that is because it is actually better, but perhaps because I am a more informed reader.
I found my appreciation of this enhanced by my having recently read To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918. That book focused on the war protesters and how the British government imprisoned "conchies" and others, including homosexuals. One glimpse here was that the conscientious objectors were used as orderlies at the hospital, and that they were ill-treated by fellow employees. This was a side-issue entirely - barely mentioned, but I had understanding. It's interesting how one's body of reading enhances the next book.
The title comes from the inside of a prison door. There is a peep hole for the guards to check on inmates. On many of the doors (all of them?) the peep hole has become the pupil of an eye painted on the door, complete with iris, veining in the white, eyelashes. Inmates know they are constantly being watched, and this is a particularly apt analogy for the political prisoners. The government was watching them, spying on them to catch them at anything amiss and locking them up.
The body of the story is the return of Dr. Rivers and his treatment of soldiers from the front. The primary character in this is a returning patient, Billy Prior. How much killing can a man handle before he breaks? Also making more than just a cameo appearance is poet Siegfried Sassoon. I liked this better than Regeneration, but I'm not at all sure that is because it is actually better, but perhaps because I am a more informed reader.
May 6, 2019
4.5
Fantastic historical fiction series about WW1 with the backdrop of psychiatric hospitals, therapist/patient relationships, the treatment of pacifists and conscientious objectors, socialists, and queer people. I.e all the bits that get glossed over and are coming to the surface more and more. Characters are memorable, dialogue is wry and witty, and the prose is at turns horrifying, funny, and endlessly revealing.
Fantastic historical fiction series about WW1 with the backdrop of psychiatric hospitals, therapist/patient relationships, the treatment of pacifists and conscientious objectors, socialists, and queer people. I.e all the bits that get glossed over and are coming to the surface more and more. Characters are memorable, dialogue is wry and witty, and the prose is at turns horrifying, funny, and endlessly revealing.
November 19, 2018
In the second part of the trilogy, we leave the psychiatric hospital for a while to deal with the group psychoses that were prevailed in Britain during the last years of the war. The prolongation of the war and the deadlock that was led to created the best ground for the development of all sorts of theories and at some point this situation reached a level of hysteria. Everywhere people saw spies and found them mainly in these groups where they had previously directed their suspicion. Homosexuals, socialists, pacifists, human rights defenders, people with German names, even women who questioned the traditional gender roles, were targeting and among them were looking for the reason why the war did not go well.
Back to the psychiatric hospital they are watching this situation and discussions about this strange phenomenon are commonplace, which gives the author the opportunity to make an interesting parallel between the individual psychoses of the patients caused by their participation in the war and the group psychoses concern the entire nation, also the result of the wound left by the war. Parallelism goes one step further, as there is a sense of individual duty, there is also a group one, as we are wondering about the need for individual sacrifice, we are wondering about the need of the group one. So the book may not have such emotional tension as the first part of the trilogy, but certainly we are driven to very interesting thoughts and we are further deepening on the consequences of the war.
Στο δεύτερο μέρος της τριλογίας αφήνουμε για λίγο το ψυχιατρείο για να ασχοληθούμε με τις ομαδικές ψυχώσεις που κυριαρχούσαν στην Βρετανία τα τελευταία χρόνια του πολέμου. Η παράταση του πολέμου και το αδιέξοδο στο οποίο είχε οδηγηθεί δημιουργούσαν το καλύτερο έδαφος για να αναπτυχθούν κάθε είδους θεωρίες και κάποια στιγμή αυτή η κατάσταση έφτασε σε επίπεδο υστερίας. Παντού ο κόσμος έβλεπε κατασκόπους και τους εντόπιζε κυρίως σε αυτές τις ομάδες όπου από πριν κατεύθυνε την καχυποψία του. Ομοφυλόφιλοι, σοσιαλιστές, ειρηνιστές, υπέρμαχοι των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων, άνθρωποι με γερμανικά ονόματα, ακόμα και γυναίκες που αμφισβητούσαν τους παραδοσιακούς ρόλους των δύο φύλων, έμπαιναν στο στόχαστρο και ανάμεσά τους αναζητούσαν την αιτία που ο πόλεμος δεν πήγαινε καλά.
Πίσω στο ψυχιατρείο παρακολουθούν αυτή την κατάσταση και οι συζητήσεις αφορούν αυτό το περίεργο φαινόμενο είναι κάτι συνηθισμένο, κάτι που δίνει στην συγγραφέα τη δυνατότητα να κάνει έναν ενδιαφέρον παραλληλισμό ανάμεσα στις ατομικές ψυχώσεις των ασθενών που προκλήθηκαν από τη συμμετοχή τους στον πόλεμο και στις ομαδικές ψυχώσεις που αφορούν ολόκληρο το έθνος και είναι και αυτές αποτέλεσμα του τραύματος που έχει αφήσει ο πόλεμος. Ο παραλληλισμός πηγαίνει και ένα βήμα παραπάνω, όπως υπάρχει η αίσθηση του ατομικού καθήκοντος, υπάρχει και αυτή του ομαδικού, όπως αναρωτιόμαστε για την ανάγκη της ατομικής θυσίας, αναρωτιόμαστε για την ανάγκη της ομαδικής. Έτσι μπορεί το βιβλίο να μην έχει τόση συναισθηματική ένταση όπως το πρώτο μέρος της τριλογίας, σίγουρα, όμως, οδηγούμαστε σε πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες σκέψεις και εμβαθύνουμε ακόμα περισσότερο στις συνέπειες του πολέμου.
Back to the psychiatric hospital they are watching this situation and discussions about this strange phenomenon are commonplace, which gives the author the opportunity to make an interesting parallel between the individual psychoses of the patients caused by their participation in the war and the group psychoses concern the entire nation, also the result of the wound left by the war. Parallelism goes one step further, as there is a sense of individual duty, there is also a group one, as we are wondering about the need for individual sacrifice, we are wondering about the need of the group one. So the book may not have such emotional tension as the first part of the trilogy, but certainly we are driven to very interesting thoughts and we are further deepening on the consequences of the war.
Στο δεύτερο μέρος της τριλογίας αφήνουμε για λίγο το ψυχιατρείο για να ασχοληθούμε με τις ομαδικές ψυχώσεις που κυριαρχούσαν στην Βρετανία τα τελευταία χρόνια του πολέμου. Η παράταση του πολέμου και το αδιέξοδο στο οποίο είχε οδηγηθεί δημιουργούσαν το καλύτερο έδαφος για να αναπτυχθούν κάθε είδους θεωρίες και κάποια στιγμή αυτή η κατάσταση έφτασε σε επίπεδο υστερίας. Παντού ο κόσμος έβλεπε κατασκόπους και τους εντόπιζε κυρίως σε αυτές τις ομάδες όπου από πριν κατεύθυνε την καχυποψία του. Ομοφυλόφιλοι, σοσιαλιστές, ειρηνιστές, υπέρμαχοι των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων, άνθρωποι με γερμανικά ονόματα, ακόμα και γυναίκες που αμφισβητούσαν τους παραδοσιακούς ρόλους των δύο φύλων, έμπαιναν στο στόχαστρο και ανάμεσά τους αναζητούσαν την αιτία που ο πόλεμος δεν πήγαινε καλά.
Πίσω στο ψυχιατρείο παρακολουθούν αυτή την κατάσταση και οι συζητήσεις αφορούν αυτό το περίεργο φαινόμενο είναι κάτι συνηθισμένο, κάτι που δίνει στην συγγραφέα τη δυνατότητα να κάνει έναν ενδιαφέρον παραλληλισμό ανάμεσα στις ατομικές ψυχώσεις των ασθενών που προκλήθηκαν από τη συμμετοχή τους στον πόλεμο και στις ομαδικές ψυχώσεις που αφορούν ολόκληρο το έθνος και είναι και αυτές αποτέλεσμα του τραύματος που έχει αφήσει ο πόλεμος. Ο παραλληλισμός πηγαίνει και ένα βήμα παραπάνω, όπως υπάρχει η αίσθηση του ατομικού καθήκοντος, υπάρχει και αυτή του ομαδικού, όπως αναρωτιόμαστε για την ανάγκη της ατομικής θυσίας, αναρωτιόμαστε για την ανάγκη της ομαδικής. Έτσι μπορεί το βιβλίο να μην έχει τόση συναισθηματική ένταση όπως το πρώτο μέρος της τριλογίας, σίγουρα, όμως, οδηγούμαστε σε πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες σκέψεις και εμβαθύνουμε ακόμα περισσότερο στις συνέπειες του πολέμου.
December 23, 2020
Το "Μάτι στην πόρτα " είναι το δεύτερο μέρος της πολεμικής τριλογίας της Βρετανίδας Πατ Μπάρκερ. Για την τριλογία αυτή (Ζωντανοί ξανα- Το μάτι στην πόρτα- Ο δρόμος των φαντασμάτων) κέρδισε το 1995 το βραβείο Μπούκερ και αφορά στον Πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο και στις ιστορίες των ομοφυλόφιλων ποιητών Ζίγκφριντ Σάσουν, Βίλχελμ Όουεν, του ψυχιάτρου Ριβερς , αλλά και του φιξιοναλ bisexual στρατιώτη Πραιορ, από την εργατική τάξη.
Είχα μείνει κάγκελο, όταν μικρότερος την ανακάλυψα, με τον τρόπο που γράφει το σεξ αυτή η βρετανίδα. Τραχύς και κυνικός. Ο κάθε ήρωας της είναι σύνθετος/περίπλοκος/γκρι, υπάρχει και εκείνο το ονειρικό στοιχείο , το εφιαλτικό, το παραληρηματικό. Έχει εντελώς δικό της τρόπο να δίνει μια βαθιά μελετημένη ανασύνθεση της εποχής με την τότε πολιτική κατάσταση και τα κοινωνικά και σεξουαλικά της ήθη, από τις γυναίκες της εργατικής τάξης που βγήκαν στην παραγωγή, το φιλειρηνικό κίνημα των διανοούμενων και των σοσιαλιστών, μέχρι και τις ανθρωπολογικές μελέτες του Ρίβερς στον Ειρηνικό. Βιβλία που συνδυάζουν ιστορία και μπορούν μαζί να είναι αισθησιακά. Δεν ξέρω πόσοι τα έχ��υν πάρει χαμπάρι.
"Δε ζεσταινόταν. Στην πραγματικότητα, είχε πουντιάσει, που λένε. Εν πάση περιπτώσει. Έβγαλε τη γραβάτα του, το χιτώνιο του και το πουκάμισο του και τα πέταξε στην πλάτη μιας καρέκλας. Ο Μάνινγκ δεν είπε τίποτα, απλώς κοίταζε. Ο Πραιορ πέρασε τα δάχτυλα του ανάμεσα στα κουρεμένα του μαλλιά μέχρι που στάθηκαν όρθια σαν καρφιά, άναψε ένα τσιγάρο, το έστριψε με έναν χαρακτηριστικό τρόπο στο κάτω χείλι και χαμογέλασε. Είχε μεταμορφώσει τον εαυτό του σε εκείνο το είδος αγοριού της εργατικής τάξης που ο Μάνινγκ θεωρούσε ότι επιτρεπόταν να γαμήσει. Ένα είδος σπερμικού πτυελοδοχείου. Και έπιασε. Τα μάτια του Μάνινγκ σκούρυναν καθώς οι κόρες μεγάλωσαν .σκύβοντας πάνω του, ο Πραιορ έβαλε το χέρι του ανάμεσα στο πόδια του, και ταυτόχρονα σκέφτηκε πως ίσως ποτέ άλλοτε δεν είχε νιώσει αυτό το αίσθημα του πιο ανόθευτου ταξικού ανταγωνισμού να φουντώνει μέσα του, παρά εκείνη τη στιγμή. Η προφορά του βγήκε πιο άξεστη. Εντάξει;"(σελ/17)
Είχα μείνει κάγκελο, όταν μικρότερος την ανακάλυψα, με τον τρόπο που γράφει το σεξ αυτή η βρετανίδα. Τραχύς και κυνικός. Ο κάθε ήρωας της είναι σύνθετος/περίπλοκος/γκρι, υπάρχει και εκείνο το ονειρικό στοιχείο , το εφιαλτικό, το παραληρηματικό. Έχει εντελώς δικό της τρόπο να δίνει μια βαθιά μελετημένη ανασύνθεση της εποχής με την τότε πολιτική κατάσταση και τα κοινωνικά και σεξουαλικά της ήθη, από τις γυναίκες της εργατικής τάξης που βγήκαν στην παραγωγή, το φιλειρηνικό κίνημα των διανοούμενων και των σοσιαλιστών, μέχρι και τις ανθρωπολογικές μελέτες του Ρίβερς στον Ειρηνικό. Βιβλία που συνδυάζουν ιστορία και μπορούν μαζί να είναι αισθησιακά. Δεν ξέρω πόσοι τα έχ��υν πάρει χαμπάρι.
"Δε ζεσταινόταν. Στην πραγματικότητα, είχε πουντιάσει, που λένε. Εν πάση περιπτώσει. Έβγαλε τη γραβάτα του, το χιτώνιο του και το πουκάμισο του και τα πέταξε στην πλάτη μιας καρέκλας. Ο Μάνινγκ δεν είπε τίποτα, απλώς κοίταζε. Ο Πραιορ πέρασε τα δάχτυλα του ανάμεσα στα κουρεμένα του μαλλιά μέχρι που στάθηκαν όρθια σαν καρφιά, άναψε ένα τσιγάρο, το έστριψε με έναν χαρακτηριστικό τρόπο στο κάτω χείλι και χαμογέλασε. Είχε μεταμορφώσει τον εαυτό του σε εκείνο το είδος αγοριού της εργατικής τάξης που ο Μάνινγκ θεωρούσε ότι επιτρεπόταν να γαμήσει. Ένα είδος σπερμικού πτυελοδοχείου. Και έπιασε. Τα μάτια του Μάνινγκ σκούρυναν καθώς οι κόρες μεγάλωσαν .σκύβοντας πάνω του, ο Πραιορ έβαλε το χέρι του ανάμεσα στο πόδια του, και ταυτόχρονα σκέφτηκε πως ίσως ποτέ άλλοτε δεν είχε νιώσει αυτό το αίσθημα του πιο ανόθευτου ταξικού ανταγωνισμού να φουντώνει μέσα του, παρά εκείνη τη στιγμή. Η προφορά του βγήκε πιο άξεστη. Εντάξει;"(σελ/17)
July 30, 2012
I think this novel stands quite well alone in addition to serving as an important second part in the series of three starting with Booker Prize winner "Regeneration". I read it out of sequence (as the last one), and that doesn't seem to matter for comprehension. Each focuses on a different set of characters in the circle of patients of psychiatrist William Rivers, a real man who treated soldiers damaged by their combat experiences in World War 1. The other volumes focus on the recovery of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, prominent gay poets who fought valiantly but wrote verse which stands among the great anti-war literature. This one concentrates on a complex fictional character Billy Prior, treated for what we would today call post-traumatic stress.
Billy's tendency toward manipulation and violence, scary memory gaps, and bisexuality makes him hard to identify with, yet Rivers' compassion and flexible approach to treatment helped move me toward empathy. The theme of Rivers' moral struggles of treating people so they can return to being cannon fodder is less a theme for this tale than the pathologies in society brought out by the war. Billy's work in domestic intelligence puts him in a moral quagmire through alliance with forces that scapegoated pacifists and homosexuals and imputed their collusion with socialist union workers in munitions factories.
The transformations of class discrimination during the social upheavals wrought by the war is another fascinating theme brought out well in the novel. This was brought out by having Billy try to save a childhood friend, a shopkeeper woman falsely convicted of plotting to kill the Prime Minister. The "eye in the door" of the title refers both to horror of being watched in one's cell or room in an asylum, as well as to being spied upon in daily life due to being perceived as a threat to the war effort.
Billy's tendency toward manipulation and violence, scary memory gaps, and bisexuality makes him hard to identify with, yet Rivers' compassion and flexible approach to treatment helped move me toward empathy. The theme of Rivers' moral struggles of treating people so they can return to being cannon fodder is less a theme for this tale than the pathologies in society brought out by the war. Billy's work in domestic intelligence puts him in a moral quagmire through alliance with forces that scapegoated pacifists and homosexuals and imputed their collusion with socialist union workers in munitions factories.
The transformations of class discrimination during the social upheavals wrought by the war is another fascinating theme brought out well in the novel. This was brought out by having Billy try to save a childhood friend, a shopkeeper woman falsely convicted of plotting to kill the Prime Minister. The "eye in the door" of the title refers both to horror of being watched in one's cell or room in an asylum, as well as to being spied upon in daily life due to being perceived as a threat to the war effort.
December 9, 2019
Pat Barker's novel, The Eye in the Door (#2 in her Regeneration trilogy), is superb work of fiction that plumbs the horrors of WWI as experienced by soldiers returned to London from the trenches in France, and in interesting contrast, offers an intersection between some of these soldiers and the demimonde community of conscientious objectors, war machine saboteurs, and deserters. The writing is precise, vivid, and well-paced. The characters are convincing examples of people in the throes of PTSD, physical pain, and crises of conscience.
This is a conventional novel that draws on historical figures and incidents from the neurologist and social scientist William Rivers to the poet Sigfried Sassoon to the powerfully imagined Billy Prior, a man with a history of abuse as a child and a malady of disassociation at critical points in his post-trench return home. Prior is bisexual, intelligent, haunted, and guilt-ridden, an expert manipulator (including of his doctor, Rivers) who draws on his doubleness for purposes that are both moral and sadistic. His tale is one of graphic misery, desperation, and ultimately, a measure of self-understanding.
Lesser figures in the novel, low-life, upperclass, military, share a kind of directness that, in the context of the horrors of WWI, illuminates them quickly, adding to the narrative momentum.
The psychological propositions regnant at the time drew heavily on what might be called a literary understanding of humanity, i.e., personal narratives matter and have lasting consequences. Treatment didn't come in the form corrective drugs although painkillers and sleep inducers were quite prevalent in Rivers' "time and talk" therapy...and so was whiskey.
The dreams and living images of horror in this novel are chilling, which gives the story a grave potency. As the pages dwindled toward the end, I found myself wondering how Barker would resolve the many subplots and unique psychological disabilities. She finds a way without anything being sugared.
God doesn't find much of a role here as Barker illustrates literature's and history's evolution from preoccupations with the metaphysical to the humanistic and scientific.
This is a conventional novel that draws on historical figures and incidents from the neurologist and social scientist William Rivers to the poet Sigfried Sassoon to the powerfully imagined Billy Prior, a man with a history of abuse as a child and a malady of disassociation at critical points in his post-trench return home. Prior is bisexual, intelligent, haunted, and guilt-ridden, an expert manipulator (including of his doctor, Rivers) who draws on his doubleness for purposes that are both moral and sadistic. His tale is one of graphic misery, desperation, and ultimately, a measure of self-understanding.
Lesser figures in the novel, low-life, upperclass, military, share a kind of directness that, in the context of the horrors of WWI, illuminates them quickly, adding to the narrative momentum.
The psychological propositions regnant at the time drew heavily on what might be called a literary understanding of humanity, i.e., personal narratives matter and have lasting consequences. Treatment didn't come in the form corrective drugs although painkillers and sleep inducers were quite prevalent in Rivers' "time and talk" therapy...and so was whiskey.
The dreams and living images of horror in this novel are chilling, which gives the story a grave potency. As the pages dwindled toward the end, I found myself wondering how Barker would resolve the many subplots and unique psychological disabilities. She finds a way without anything being sugared.
God doesn't find much of a role here as Barker illustrates literature's and history's evolution from preoccupations with the metaphysical to the humanistic and scientific.
December 30, 2011
This review was written in the late nineties (just for myself), and it was buried in amongst my things until today, when I uncovered the journal it was written in. I have transcribed it verbatim from all those years ago (although square brackets indicate some additional information for the sake of readability). It is one of my lost reviews.
It's a feeling I can't quite place, a feeling I can't pinpoint, but I feel The Eye in the Door is a more enjoyable book, although less literary, than Regeneration. Still, I will try here to point out a few elements that stand out in my mind.
First, I love Prior's struggle with the dissociative state. His slipping into fugue states, and the resulting loss of memmory, adds a tinge of fear and menace to the story that makes me more emotionally involved. Second, I enjoy Barker's handling of betrayal in a torn society. Third is the wonderful way in which Barker deals with homosexuality in WWI-era Britain. Fourth, and maybe the most important, is the imagery of WWI warfare. When we hear Manning's story of the soldier slipping into the mud of a foxhole, it makes me feel weak and privileged in my relatively safe late 20th Century society.
This book challenges me, and I love being challenged.
It's a feeling I can't quite place, a feeling I can't pinpoint, but I feel The Eye in the Door is a more enjoyable book, although less literary, than Regeneration. Still, I will try here to point out a few elements that stand out in my mind.
First, I love Prior's struggle with the dissociative state. His slipping into fugue states, and the resulting loss of memmory, adds a tinge of fear and menace to the story that makes me more emotionally involved. Second, I enjoy Barker's handling of betrayal in a torn society. Third is the wonderful way in which Barker deals with homosexuality in WWI-era Britain. Fourth, and maybe the most important, is the imagery of WWI warfare. When we hear Manning's story of the soldier slipping into the mud of a foxhole, it makes me feel weak and privileged in my relatively safe late 20th Century society.
This book challenges me, and I love being challenged.
August 28, 2013
In the second book, Billy Prior, a patient in Craiglockheart in the first volume, is working for Army intelligence as his asthma is deemed too bad to be sent back to France. Part of him resents this, and his guilty feelings of being safe, while another parts hates the civilians he meets on a day to day basis. When he starts working on a case of someone he used to know when he was a child, a woman accused of plotting to kill the prime minister, he finds the two sides of his personality come into conflict. Literally. With periods of black-out, he begins a Jekyll and Hyde existance that confounds those around him. Step in Dr Rivers to lend a helping hand.
Another study on the psycological issues of the day. As well as the shell-shock/neurosis explored in the first novel, there is more emphasis put on the attitudes towards homosexuality that were prevalent at the time. The case that Prior takes on, the taking down of Spragge while trying to save his old friends, is a sad testament to the treatment of the conscientious objecters of the day.
This isn't the sort of book that you can actually enjoy, but it is an interesting read.
Another study on the psycological issues of the day. As well as the shell-shock/neurosis explored in the first novel, there is more emphasis put on the attitudes towards homosexuality that were prevalent at the time. The case that Prior takes on, the taking down of Spragge while trying to save his old friends, is a sad testament to the treatment of the conscientious objecters of the day.
This isn't the sort of book that you can actually enjoy, but it is an interesting read.
January 20, 2021
This was a brilliant sequel to Regeneration and continues the story of Billy Prior, a fascinating character from the first novel. Taking place at the end of WW1, The Eye in the Door follows Prior as he deals with the psychological effects of the war including instances of memory loss.
As in Regeneration, Pat Barker takes real events from history and weaves them into the narrative to create a detailed context for Billy's struggles e.g. as a bisexual man in a country where he has hide his attraction to men, and attitudes towards mental health issues.
There were occasional moments where these real events felt a bit forced into narrative but for the most part they were a crucial part of the fictional story. The interactions between Billy and Dr Rivers, and with his intimate partners, were where the real strength of the book was for me as it gave a real insight into Billy's mind and touched on so many important and interesting themes.
As in Regeneration, Pat Barker takes real events from history and weaves them into the narrative to create a detailed context for Billy's struggles e.g. as a bisexual man in a country where he has hide his attraction to men, and attitudes towards mental health issues.
There were occasional moments where these real events felt a bit forced into narrative but for the most part they were a crucial part of the fictional story. The interactions between Billy and Dr Rivers, and with his intimate partners, were where the real strength of the book was for me as it gave a real insight into Billy's mind and touched on so many important and interesting themes.
December 11, 2018
The 2nd book in Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy takes place in 1918 London. The main protagonist in this novel, Billy Prior, is a young officer who, when we met him in the first book, Regeneration, was suffering from shell shock. Here, Billy is trying to put the pieces of his life together and is working for the Ministry of Munitions. That Billy is leading a double life is amply clear from the first chapter of the book; after having been turned down for sex by his date—a girl who has put out for him once before—he proceeds to follow a man to his home for a romp in the sack which is described in great detail, clearly reminding us that this is a contemporary historical novel. Billy has no qualms about his bisexuality, but what he does have a problem with is the increasing frequency with which he experiences loss of time which he can't account for, and although Dr. Rivers (a main protagonists in the first book) tries to convince him that he doesn't necessarily turn into a Mr. Hyde when he loses track of his actions, Billy fears the worst.
There were plenty of interesting themes in this novel, though I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I did the first one, which instantly became one of my all-time favourites. Billy isn't necessarily a sympathetic character, though his plight is interesting to witness, and one wonders if and how he'll find his way out of it all. I look forward to reading the last book in the trilogy to see how Barker has tied all the loose ends together, or if indeed she has... —February 2011
There were plenty of interesting themes in this novel, though I can't say I enjoyed it as much as I did the first one, which instantly became one of my all-time favourites. Billy isn't necessarily a sympathetic character, though his plight is interesting to witness, and one wonders if and how he'll find his way out of it all. I look forward to reading the last book in the trilogy to see how Barker has tied all the loose ends together, or if indeed she has... —February 2011
June 6, 2011
Unlike Regeneration, which can function as a stand-alone novel quite apart from its place as the first in the trilogy, I think both the subsequent books require the knowledge of the characters and the circumstances that comes with Regeneration. Billy Prior, who has somewhat of a secondary role in Regeneration, as opposed to Rivers and Sassoon, takes centre stage this time, and despite being one of the few fictional characters in this trilogy, is arguably the most fascinating.
Prior is a working-class officer, working in Intelligence when he longs to be back at the Front, investigating anti-war pacifists, most of whom he grew up with as a child, bisexual, neither fish nor fowl and the strains of this shatter his psyche and he suffers from memory lapses, blackouts and even a split personality. He's a wonderful, brittle, hard-edged character, eminently memorable, and a heartbreaking example of the inner wounds war can inflict on even the strongest of characters.
Many people make the mistake of thinking of this trilogy as a 'war trilogy' and that does it a disservice, almost. It's so much more. The Western Front only makes a physical appearance in the final novel - this is a trilogy about the mental scars of war, about the pressures of government and politics during war, about the evolution of mental health care, about sexuality and national pride. I think this is my favourite book of the trilogy.
Prior is a working-class officer, working in Intelligence when he longs to be back at the Front, investigating anti-war pacifists, most of whom he grew up with as a child, bisexual, neither fish nor fowl and the strains of this shatter his psyche and he suffers from memory lapses, blackouts and even a split personality. He's a wonderful, brittle, hard-edged character, eminently memorable, and a heartbreaking example of the inner wounds war can inflict on even the strongest of characters.
Many people make the mistake of thinking of this trilogy as a 'war trilogy' and that does it a disservice, almost. It's so much more. The Western Front only makes a physical appearance in the final novel - this is a trilogy about the mental scars of war, about the pressures of government and politics during war, about the evolution of mental health care, about sexuality and national pride. I think this is my favourite book of the trilogy.
June 19, 2012
I really enjoyed Regeneration back in 2008 and picked up the second in the trilogy a while back. It's quite different in style and approach than the first but equally well written (winning the 1993 Guardian Fiction Prize). The focus has shifted to Billy Prior who makes for an interesting character promoting sympathy, intrigue and slight disgust all at the same time. He's conflicted and not a well man, split in his responsibilities and possibly his personalities as well.
Barker wonderfully constructs a vivid mid-war Britain; a nation thrown into conflict psychologically, unsure where to place emotions and who to trust. The conchies and homosexuals in particular are suffering in the public eye and Billy is stuck somewhere in-between as we revisit the 47000 and the Cult of the Clitoris amongst other historical events (Barker provides some relevant historical background as an afterword, making for some interesting reading).
I have to say it took a while to get into, mainly due to the difference in style and my different expectations but gradually I got sucked into the world portrayed. The latter parts move towards more of the psychiatric exploration present in Regeneration which I enjoyed. I'm not sure how well it works on its own, feeling like the middle segment it is, particularly with the ending. Still, I'm keen to pick up The Ghost Road to see how things play out.
Barker wonderfully constructs a vivid mid-war Britain; a nation thrown into conflict psychologically, unsure where to place emotions and who to trust. The conchies and homosexuals in particular are suffering in the public eye and Billy is stuck somewhere in-between as we revisit the 47000 and the Cult of the Clitoris amongst other historical events (Barker provides some relevant historical background as an afterword, making for some interesting reading).
I have to say it took a while to get into, mainly due to the difference in style and my different expectations but gradually I got sucked into the world portrayed. The latter parts move towards more of the psychiatric exploration present in Regeneration which I enjoyed. I'm not sure how well it works on its own, feeling like the middle segment it is, particularly with the ending. Still, I'm keen to pick up The Ghost Road to see how things play out.
August 30, 2010
In this, the second volume of Barker's Great War trilogy, she continues the stories of Dr. Rivers, Siegfried Sassoon, and Billy Prior, introduced in Regeneration. In the current volume, themes hinted at in the first novel are made explicit, including the homosexuality and bisexuality of some characters, class divisions, and the antagonism of many in the war-stressed British population toward "conchies," pacifists, and other opponents of British war policy. The story of Billy Prior's schitzophrenia takes center stage, as he attempts to save an old pacifist friend from an unjust imprisonment. The "eye in the door" refers explicitly to the peephole in the door of a prison cell, but Barker explores the symbolism of "eyes" and "seeing" at great length and with good effect. On the whole, the book is weaker as a stand-alone novel than Regeneration, but it functions well as the bridge in the trilogy, having, as is usual in such constructions, the burden of narrative development to carry from the introduction toward the climax and denouement. The dehumanizing effect of war on the British civilian population is as much a theme here as is the barbarity of trench warfare for the soldiers. In neither case does what happens in France stay in France. Insanity is a relative term in wartime, and, as Barker shows, much depends on who gets to write the labels.
May 17, 2008
Although it feels very different for some reason to me than the preceding book, Regeneration, Eye in the Door is a just as fascinating look at psychological trauma and political conflict during WWI. Because this book revolves primarily around an entirely nonfictional character, Billy Prior, rather than some of the historically present characters like Sassoon, Graves, and others, it definitely reads more like a piece of fiction than Regeneration did. Nonetheless, Prior was in the first book one of the more interesting characters - perhaps because Barker has more license with an entirely fictional character - so it was interesting to hear more of his story and to discover how he's coping after he leaves the hospital. What astounds me the most about this book, and is true as well of Regeneration, is how true the voice feels and sounds. Who would think that a woman writing in the 9Os could so beautifully write using variety of masculine perspectives from a time as remote as WWI. She is a writer in a class of her own. Again, I would put her in the same category as some of the great American writers (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc.) from the last century, in terms of style, voice, and story.
February 4, 2011
OK, so I already think Bat Barker is super-amazing, and I've read Regeneration about four times, but I have to admit, I never cared as much for Prior as I think I was supposed to. And then I read TEITD. Yeah. Sad lack of Sassoon and Owen, obviously, but so, so much background on Prior that I now absolutely love him. (He can be a complete jerk, but he's got enough self-perception all mixed up with self-disgust to really make that work.) What I noticed here is that in the first 20 pages, Prior gets pre-tty damn close to sex with a girl, and ends up actually having sex with an officer... and then nothing. Well, not nothing exactly - I think there's one more sex scene when Sarah visits - and there's quite a lot of talk about his sexuality without there actually being sex. And I think it works very well to establish Prior as a highly sexual person. Since this is a strong theme in his character, it's quite important to establish this early on. And the plot is interesting, and there are enough Sassoon-and-Owen references to keep my inner history-geek happy (though Rivers manages that quite well, along with Robbie Ross et al.) Also, fuck yeah for morally ambiguous protagonists. I haven't seen one as well done as Prior in forever.
May 16, 2021
4.5
I enjoyed this book enormously. When I finished the first book of the trilogy and saw that Prior was going to feature heavily in the next one, I wasn’t that enthusiastic because he had been my least favourite character. I much preferred him in this one however, and was very happy to see Rivers and Sassoon again.
It’s just such an interesting and readable book.
My only criticism is that the ending seemed abrupt, with lots of issues left unresolved. Perhaps they’ll be resolved in the final installment, and I can’t wait to find out!
I enjoyed this book enormously. When I finished the first book of the trilogy and saw that Prior was going to feature heavily in the next one, I wasn’t that enthusiastic because he had been my least favourite character. I much preferred him in this one however, and was very happy to see Rivers and Sassoon again.
It’s just such an interesting and readable book.
My only criticism is that the ending seemed abrupt, with lots of issues left unresolved. Perhaps they’ll be resolved in the final installment, and I can’t wait to find out!
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