[ J o ]'s Reviews > Regeneration

I find it a bit difficult to rate this book. In terms of subject matter-mental illness brought on by the First World War-it is one of the most important in history. In terms of the way it was written, it's not the best book by any means. In terms of character, it's quite interesting but lacking. In terms of exploration, it ventures no farther than the shrubbery.

The writing was mediocre, in all honesty. The flow of paragraphs was often rather disjointed, though one could attribute that to the whole theme of the novel. I did enjoy the writing and found it readable, though it did not necessarily draw me in nor did it convey to me the acute and substantial severity of the subject matter. It did explore some themes that, even now, people would find difficult to speak about, but often it felt slightly brushed aside in favour of dropping the name of another literary figure.

I feel the characters were-although for the most part based on real-life people-rather flat and dull. Even those of them who were critically traumatised by their time on the front-line, there always seemed something background about them. It was interesting to have real-life people as characters, though I am always wary about such things. Biographies are all very well, but fictionalised accounts of their lives or even small parts of their lives should be tentatively approached. I cannot comment on how accurate any portrayals of the WWI poets were, but that matters little since I don't feel like I learnt all that much about them, in any case.

The one character whom I found had developed substantially during the novel was Rivers, the psychiatrist treating the mentally war-wounded. His was a character of depth and layers and that was intriguing, but never fully explored. We got inside his mind and sat there rather comfortably, with closed doors all around. More of those doors should have been allowed to open.

I suppose, the prose reflected the mental state of the characters in some respects. I feel like more could have been done in parts, or at least tied-off. I believe this is a good novel since the subject matter is no easy one to tackle, but it lacks various things that could have made it so much more.

The meagre plot between patient Billy and a factory-working girl Sarah was a shambles and only seemed to be there for the fact that it was the only thing that resembled a true plot-line, but did help in giving an outside-the-hospital view of the patients, which I think was one of the key elements of the book and was taken straight from various sentiments from WWI poets.

It gives a glimpse beyond the poetry, which is probably just as important as the poetry itself, but I would say that biographies would tell a much better story, despite them being true life accounts.



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