Siegfried Sassoon Books

"Regeneration" is best read as part of the so-called "Regeneration Trilogy," of which it is the first book. (The other two, in order, are "The Eye in the Door" and "The Ghost Road.") This way, you will be able to follow the main characters: Dr. W.H.R. Rivers, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Billy Prior (all but the last are historical figures) through all three books. In particular, you'll be able to appreciate the ways in which Barker develops the complex character of Rivers, the psychologist who treats soldiers who have suffered breakdowns and who, before the war, had done fieldwork in Melanesia, studying the cultural practices of a tribe of headhunters. "Regeneration" is set in Craiglockhart, the psychiatric hospital where Rivers treats Sassoon and Prior. "The Eye in the Door," mostly set in London, focuses on the social and economic conditions of British society in the war years, while "The Ghost Road" shifts among three settings: London, the battlefields in France, and Melanesia. As one reads through the trilogy, characters appear and disappear, but the figures of Rivers and Prior are central---and often antagonistic. I particularly admire the way Barker uses different techniques to illuminate complexity of character and thought, as when, in "The Ghost Road," Prior begins to write in a field diary (which he does not do in the first two novels). Some readers of "Regeneration" have compared Barker to Hemingway, but I don't think so. His technique is spare, but she works like a painter with a large canvas, one who paints panoramas of historic events. Thus, some parts of the canvas are minutely detailed, while others are merely brushed in. The effect, taken as a whole, is stunning and, by the end of "The Ghost Road," will reduce you to silence, the way a great painting does.

When the First World War broke out, most people assumed it would be over in a few months as their nation (whichever one that was) sent the others packing. In fact, many raced to enlist fearing that "the fun" might be over before they got there.

Instead, what they discovered in Western Europe was a stalemate with trenches dug from the North Sea to the Atlantic Coast across which English, French, and German soldiers faced each other for years from cold, wet, corpse-filled, and disease-ridden trenches.

No one knew how to break the stalemate. Millions died as shelling continued against these fixed positions.

Every so often some general would convince himself that a massive charge would break the other line. Each time this was tried, the slaughter accelerated as men ran into point-blank machine gun fire and artillery barrages.

Regeneration looks at the disillusionment that led one decorated English officer and poet, Siegfried Sassoon, to remonstrate against the military leadership in public. Rather than court-marital Sassoon, the military chose to send him to a psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers. Regeneration creates a fictional account of their relationship at Craiglockhart War Hospital. The book also looks at how Rivers treated other "mental" cases sent his way.

The most interesting parts of the story come in looking at the ethical dilemma of being asked to help those who cannot mentally deal with the war any more . . . when that "help" may lead to them going back to France where their life expectancy is measured in weeks. I was reminded of stories I've read about patching up people who tried to kill themselves so they could be legally executed.

There's a revolting section on how less sensitive physicians dealt with these "mental" problems . . . basically torturing soldiers until they wouldn't resist going back to fight.

The book has two weaknesses that mar its obvious strengths in recapturing that difficult moment in English history.

1. Ms. Barker assumes that her readers already know about Siegfried Sassoon (or at least that they don't mind her holding back details about what he did for some time). I had never heard of him so it was annoying to try to figure out what all the fuss was about in the early pages. The book could use an extensive historical footnote as a prologue for those who don't know about the incident.

2. The book often skates around the edges of how Sassoon and Rivers related to one another. Much is tacit, and I found it hard to understand in all scenes what Ms. Barker was trying to suggest each one was thinking.

I commend Ms. Barker for picking real characters and bringing them to life in a way that's very poignant (even for those who aren't English) 90 years after the events have taken place.

This book covers some of the same ground as Ben Elton's praiseworthy The First Casualty, although in an entirely different way. Both try to retrofit as mainstream largely post-60s values towards homosexuality, pacifism, and atheism (in the latter case by omission in writing as if Christianity was as marginalised as it is today, an historical absurdity), but in their defence it could be reasonably argued that of course homosexuals, pacifists and atheists/agnostics were plentiful. While Elton surrounds his message with action and a crime story, Barker instead goes deeply into conversation and rumination, and in both cases there's so much more to the book than mere preaching.

Barker ambitiously imagines encounters between real and fictional historical figures. Of course once she's imagining dialogue that's not recorded her characters are all fictional, but her painstaking research (and the availability of so much detailed material) makes for some powerfully authentic writing. Moreover she has an impressive ability for informed empathy: she asks herself, "What would Dr. Rivers, or Sassoon have been thinking? How would they have reacted?" and comes up with some fascinating and plausible answers. Plausible? Hang on a minute: they seem plausible to me, a guy who'd never even heard of Rivers or Sassoon before reading this book! It would be interesting to hear reactions of others who had studied (or knew) them.

There is not a standard plot, and much of the book is composed of recreations of counselling sessions between `shell-shocked' soldiers and their psychologist. Barker's version of Dr. Rivers is a real triumph - one of the most developed characters I've probably come across. Hats off to Barker for having the skill, compassion and intelligence to convince us of Rivers' skill, compassion and intelligence by what she has him say and do. He's not a quaint historical curiosity, but clearly someone Barker has read extensively and admires. The way she's immersed herself in writing from the time making her characters not `just like us', but still wonderfully real reminds me of O'Brian's marvellous RN stories (much as the authors portray quite distinct attitudes towards battle).

We have in James Hillman's memorable phrase, 'a terrible love of war'. Living dangerously, at the edge, imminent distaster and probable annihilation excite the deeper drives. Baker's study of hospital records from the first World War (documents few of us would pause to access) have been recast as a fiction that sears all the more for its restraint of rhetorical flourish. Her avoidance of any hysterical note provides the appropriate tone for the accumulated horrors to seep in. By using her protaganist, the voice of novelist Siegfried Sassoon, she can shift her authorial tone to permit Sassoon and fellow 'inmate' Wilfred Owen, to rage poetically against the war's tragic outcomes. However, it's the dilemna of the psychologist, Rivers, treating them, that provides access to the less conspicuous, if no less dramatic consequences of the violence. It is his unenviable task to cure and deliver minds and bodies of young cannon fodder back to the trenches. This is a terrific book, and as we deal now with young veterans returning from their tours of duty be it Baghdad or elsewhere,and encounter the dysfunction from experiencing excessive violence, brutality and injustice, the text of this book should provide some understanding of their stress. Read to the accompaniment of The Pogues awesome take on Eric Bogle's,'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' from ,'Rum, Sodomy and the Lash', in turn attributed to that ace warmonger of both catastrophes, old Winston.

Honestly, my teacher assigned the book. I would never have picked up the book. It just did not sound like "my thing." Reaccounting the horrors of war just plain worries me. I guess I always fear the author will regurgitate cold, hard quasi-facts wrapped up in a political agenda. Thankfully for me, my teacher has wonderful taste. The book is emotional. It focuses less on the physical and more the mental well-being and change in the war combattants. Constant peaks into the characters' minds allows the reader to engage with the characters on a personal level and see them develop. There are no clear cut answers. They live in a perpetual grey, faced with hard decisions, and split loyalties. This book will make the reader question what the reader thinks, and give a whole new spin on the evils of war. Although, the book constantly has humorous moments; I'll never be able to look at a billygoat the same. It's an emotional experience of a lifetime.

I think Regeneration is one of the great novels of the 20th century. Its fictional recreation of historic events and people, brilliantly imagined, and its portrayal of the moral complexity facing the characters, are both extraordinary. Rivers gradually realizes that his job is to make officers well enough to go back to a morally bankrupt struggle. Sassoon decides that even though he decries the war and its senseless slaughter, he must go back to his men at the front. The themes are grand but made human by the wonderful characters. And the little touches are so powerful, as when a pretty girl walks into a ward of dreadfully wounded soldiers and is astonished by her impact. The whole trilogy is terrific, but the first volume, above all, is a true classic.

I do not believe that E.Gyurisin, whoever it may be, understands either characterisation, the reality of WW1, historical fiction,reality, or the basis of humanity.
This trilogy is at turns illuminating, harrowing, appalling, but suffers none of the defects levelled at it in this risible "review".
The novel has moved on and if one still required plonking exposition which expected that the reader would barely be able to join the dots in their work book then one should take note of this illiterate review. If not, buy this book, risk being stretched and discover the realities of the effects of war and discover the nature of heroism in extremis.

Just finished the final volume of this excellent trilogy . I can't help but think the books should not be sold seperately because they do build one upon the other and if you read one on it's own you might just shrug your shoulders and move on. Also I can't agree with many of the reviewers that 'Ghost road' is the weakest of the bunch .I found it a very moving finale with the edition of Dr Rivers pre war African experiences giving a necessary twist to what could be a rather over familiar ending. The other thing I felt about the Regeneration trilogy is that some of the writing cries out to be translated into if not film, then at least a tv miniseries ........but billy priors graphically portrayed bisexuality probably makes that unlikely . Shame.

The Regeneration Trilogy is both wonderful and disappointing, an odd combination of characteristics for a set of novels, but then the First World War itself was characterized by heroic exhileration and utter dispair, by encrusted tradition and unanticipated revolution, by invention and backwardness.

Ms Barker takes us to an institution, a quiet and somewhat remote place, seemingly safe from the savagery of the Western Front, where damaged men are sent in hopes of recovery. She quickly has us involved in several fascinating characters, the full extent of whose experiences she only gradually reveals. Most interestingly, the characters of the men themselves are only gradually revealed, as often to our horror as satisfaction.

After reading the first volume, I could hardly wait for the second. It was the third volume I found disappointing. The disappointment comes through what she does with characters we have become intensely interested in, but I'll not reveal any details and leave it to new readers to see whether they agree.

The characterizations of the first two volumes are wonderful (although I am not a great fan of mixing real people in with fictional characters, the practice does not feature too heavily), and Ms. Barker gives us a remarkable sense of what that terrible war meant, particularly in ordinary lives on the home front.

Ms. Barker's trilogy is highly recommended for those interested in history, students of human psychology, and those who enjoy good writing and a gripping story.

Several years ago a friend recommended Regeneration; after reading it I immediately read the second two books in the trilogy. The story so moved me that I began reading all the published work of Sassoon, Owen and Brooke. After the beginning of the Iraq war, I was asked to participate in an arts project begun in my state (Wisconsin) called "Epidemic Peace Imagery." A friend who is a textile artist and I created a collage of images and words. Sassoon's declaration is central, and we incorporated old photographs taken by soldiers in France in WWI. The EPI exhibit has traveled for nearly three years now. Pat Barker's books were the stimulus for our contribution.

In the aftermath of WWI, Siegfried Sassoon became known as a "soldier-poet", a fighter who recorded his experiences in verse. What made Sassoon's experience unique was that those who fought in the trenches saw a new brand of warfare and the horrors that went with it: they recorded these atrocities and their sense of betrayal at being told that war was a glorious and noble enterprise. And Siegfried Sassoon, one of the more famous soldier poets to survive, became a voice for that generation, but was ultimately trapped by his war time world.

Born half-Jewish, but raised away from the faith, Siegfried Sassoon lived a somewhat sheltered life, the middle of three boys whose father had abandoned them when they were young. Growing up, he wished for a more wealthy and aristocratic upbringing, thinking that many things had been denied him by his father's deseration and susequent death. He knew almost immediately that he was not like other boys, for he was shy and introspective, cocooned in a shroud of creativity and writing. Knowing that he had to break away from the oppressiveness of his mother's slightly overprotective love, he enlisted in the service, and his life fianlly began on the battlefield.

Much has been documented about Sassoon's war time heroics, which earned him a Military Cross and the nickname 'Mad Jack' for his danger-seeking ways. Perhaps more than the poetry he wrote during the war, which showcased the true horrors of modern warfare and satirized those in charge, Sassoon is famous for his anti-war declaration - a statement that caused him not to be court-martialed, but to be sent to Craiglockhart, a supposed sufferer of shellshock. It was there that he met the ill-fated fellow soldier poet, Wilfred Owen, who looked upon Sassoon as a mentor. But usually, that is where the story ends: most people do not know much about Sassoon beyond that point.

Max Egremont does a remarkable job in documenting Sassoon's life. One definitely needs a familiarity with Sassoon's poetry, especially to enjoy Egremont's critiques of his poems, from the famous war poems, to the ones he struggled with later in life that are not so well known. Egremont explores all facets of Sassoon's life, from his time in the trenches, to his homosexual affairs (and most famous partner), to his sudden marriage and eventual conversion to Roman Catholicism. Max Egremont allows readers to see the physical and psychological strains Sassoon experienced as a homosexual in a less accepting and more persecuting time: he doesn't shy away from details that may prove unseemly, but lays bare the entire man. Readers can experience fully this almost paradoxical being, described as shy and bumbling, aloof and haughty, always craving more recognition than he was given, always drawing others to him as if he were an idol to worship.

In his writing life after the war, Sassoon became more famous for his prose than his poetry, with his three attempts to document his life through fictionalized autobiograhies. What he achieved with all three, but especially the first, "Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man", was to create an idyllic picture of England, a time lost forever encapsulated by the author's innocence. But these accounts leave out much from his life and do not give a full picture of this enigmatic man. Whether he realized it or not, Sassoon did receive a fair amount of recognition in his time, much more than he receives now. While his best poems are arguably those written during WWI, his other writings offer a glimpse at a world that changed before his eyes at the turn of the century, and the role that WWI played in that. His is a voice not just for his generation, but for all generations, and Max Egremont demonstrates that in this intelligent and thorough biography.

The horrors of World War I are usually set forth by historians, but the poets paint a seriously moving portrait. Sasson is one of the best. I do become tired of the author constant reference to Sasson's sexual preference.

This is probably the most boring, worst book I have ever read. It is filled with miniscule details which are of no interest and devoid of his romances, affairs, and real personality.

Siegfried Sassoon has much more to say about the world, indeed about our times, then some much more contemporary writers.

While many people focus on his 'war poetry,' his relationship with Stephen Tennant, and his family's wealth and fame, what I find most striking is his ability to document a time of change, the first decades of the 20th century. The changes in England at that time: a time of the lowering importance of an aristocratic class; the demise of agrarian values; the changes in mores and manners, are they really that different then America in the first few years of this century with its shift of importance to the blue states; diminishing value of science; a nation where someone thinks up the idea to protest at a soldier's funeral. These changes are as puzzling to me as mustard gas, and a diminishing of un-earned income was to Sassoon.

Do yourself a favor. Read all you can by and about this brilliant man. I would suggest you start with "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man."

I was stunned several years ago to realize there was no modern biography of Sassoon so I was really looking forward to this book and in the end I was really pleased with it. It is perhaps a little too detailed (descriptions of the personalities of Sassoon's schoolmasters, etc.) and she occasionally jumps around chronologically but Wilson does bring Sassoon to life. Rather than emphasizing his sexuality she puts it into context and she follows his emotional development through his poetry. She also does an excellent job sorting out the confusion of wartime events. I'm looking forward to the next volume of this biography and I'd like to read her bio of Charles Hamilton Sorley, another war poet.

I'm ashamed to admit I'm not much of a biography reader. I can actually count on one hand the number of bio's I've completed and they have all been rather fluffy. After reading Pat Barker's wonderful WWI trilogy I was moved to find out more about Sassoon and discovered this book through a library search. I was a bit daunted by its length but have managed to read almost all of it in a couple of weeks. It reads quite easily and has actually at times left me reluctant to put it down. I am inspired to read biographies of Dr.Rivers, Robert Ross, and Robert Graves. I have also begun a better appreciation of poetry in general. Ms.Wilson writes on the assumption that her readers have knowledge of the technical aspects of poetry which I definitely lack. But she can be forgiven that. I am looking forward to reading Sassoon's memoirs and fiction. I will definitely read other installments of this fascinating biography.

Ms Wilson needs to make up her mind whether to write a book of Literary Criticism or a biography. The book suffers from too much critical analysis of Sassoon's poetry and not enough about his life. Either he was an extremely boring and prosaic poet or Ms. Wilson needs to delve deeper into his intellectual and emotional development - really his cricket exploits and his hunting prowess does not lend anything to the very essence of his life. Ms. Wilson's prose is turgid and repetitive. An extremely disappointing work.

The biography is artfully crafted with an entertaining balance between story and documentation. I found the level of detail fascinating and not at all constraining, very much like enjoying following brushstrokes in an impressionist landscape. The book broadened and deepened my appreciation of the man, the times, the War and the literary and cultural environment of the first two decades of 20th century Britain.

If Ms Wilson follows with further volumes of Sassoons biography, count me in as an enthusiastic reader!

This guide has enhanced my teaching of _Regeneration_ no end. And I feel confident in recommending it to my students. Even if they only read the first short chapter, about Barker's background and upbringing, I've found that it helps a great deal in putting this novel into context. I also like the links to useful websites provided at the back of the book (note to the Publisher: a couple of these no longer work properly).

I'd like to thank Ms Westman for producing this book. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has found it this helpful.