Michael's Reviews > Regeneration

It has been more than four years since I read this novel. Thus, I am now just contributing impressions and integrating some background on the historical characters brought to life in the book. For a fresh and rich thematic response to the book, I would I recommend highly the reviews by Steve Sckenda and James Henderson.

I appreciated the in-depth character study of William Rivers, the psychologist treating shell shock victims at Craiglockhart War Hospital. His empathy for those broken men and the efforts he took to help them “regenerate” was remarkable. The book included some on how his experience with field ethnology among the Melanesians made him sensitive to mythic and cultural themes in his patients’ disorders. The key drama in the book concerned the moral dilemmas he faced due to success in his treatments leading to his patients being shipped back to the front. Such was the case of two of his famous cases he treated, that of poet soldiers Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. In the case of the former, he was not in treatment for shell shock but under medical review after a protest statement he published in the newspaper while home on leave in 1917:

Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration
I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority, because I believe the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this war upon which I entered as a war of defense and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this was should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. …

His friend Robert Graves had pulled strings of influence so he would get a medical review rather than a court martial. Barker does well in bringing to life a portrait of Rivers friendship with Sassoon, as well as the friendship Sassoon forged with Owen. To some extent we get a believable vision of critical encouragement that Sassoon provided to Owen over his writing. A reader’s dream of insight on their poetic vision is, as to be expected, unfulfilled.

The context of Sassoon’s case was brought out in Hochschild’s book
To End All Wars: Loyalty and Rebellion. Anti-war activists Bertrand Russell helped him draft his statement and Sylvia Pankhurst published it in her newsletter. Sassoon’s expectation was that a public court marshal would give him a platform for his message, while Russell and Pankhurst hoped that would trigger a movement of soldiers to follow the Bolshevik’s lead of laying down their weapons. Instead, the War Office a public statement proclaimed, “Sassoon has been reported by the medical board as not being responsible for his action, as he was suffering from a nervous breakdown.” Eventually, Sassoon chose to return to fighting at the front, noting in his diary that “I am only here to look after some men.” Hochschild summarizes: “It was a haunting reminder of the fierce power of group loyalty over that of political conviction—and all the more so because it came from someone who had not in the slightest changed, nor ever in his life would change, his belief that his country’s supposed war aims were fraudulent.”.

The fate of Owen is too tragic for words. Hochschild summarizes:
At only 25, Wilfred Owen had never published a book but had his notebooks the finest body of poetry about the experience of war written in the twentieth century. At noon on November 11, an hour into the celebration [of the peace accord], Owen’s mother received the black-bordered War Office telegram telling her that, a week earlier, her son had been killed in action.

The background story of W.H.R. Rivers is outlined in a great article in Wikipedia. . He was quite innovative in his approaches for treating what is now called PTSD. Barker captures how he used the “talking cure”to encourage his patients to relive and react to their experiences. Yet, he was no Freudian. Instead of seeing shell shock as relating to psychic neuroses and repressed sexual urges, he saw their trouble as simply related to the fear and trauma of their war experiences. .A quote from a professional source on his accomplishments has it that:

Rivers, by pursuing a course of humane treatment, had established two principles that would be embraced by American military psychiatrists in the next war. He had demonstrated, first, that men of unquestioned bravery could succumb to overwhelming fear and, second, that the most effective motivation to overcome that fear was something stronger than patriotism, abstract principles, or hatred of the enemy. It was the love of soldiers for one another.

The article suggests that even though both Rivers and Sassoon were gay, the propriety at the time makes it plausible that the subject would come up little in their sessions, which in fact is how Barker portrayed the issue in the book. The likelihood that Sassoon might have loved Rivers is also covered in the Wikipedia article. Barker only goes so far as to impute the basic transference effect of Rivers being seen as a father figure. He must have been a great therapist. A friend and colleague summarized the strengths in his character:

Rivers was intolerant and sympathetic. He was once compared to Moses laying down the law. The comparison was an apt one, and one side of the truth. The other side of him was his sympathy. It was a sort of power of getting into another man's life and treating it as if it were his own. And yet all the time he made you feel that your life was your own to guide, and above everything that you could if you cared make something important out of it.

It turns out that the fictional Billy Prior is more of a main character in each of the three books more than Sassoon. He is a complex, violent, and manipulative character who also had a playful and humane side. Here in “Regeneration” we get a rendering of Rivers working with him, revealing a lot about issues of class in the war:
‘I suppose most of them turn you into Daddy, don’t they? Well, I’m a bit too old to be sitting on Daddy’s knee.’
‘Kicking him on the shins every time you meet him isn’t generally considered more mature.’
‘I see. A negative transference. Is that what you think we’ve got?’
‘I hope not.’ Rivers couldn’t altogether conceal his surprise. ‘Where did you learn that term?’
‘I can read.’
…
‘You have to win, don’t you?’
Prior stared intently at him. ‘You know, you do a wonderful imitation of a stuffed shirt. And you’re not like that at all, really, are you?’
…
‘How did you fit in?’
Prior’s face shut tight. ‘You mean, did I encounter any snobbery?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not more than I have here.’
Their eyes locked. Rivers said, ‘But you did encounter it?’
‘Yes. It’s made perfectly clear when you arrive that some people are more welcome than others. It helps if you have been to the right school. It helps if you hunt, it helps if your shirts are the right colour. Which is a deep shade of khaki, by the way.’
…’Do you know, for the first time I realized that somewhere in the back of their …tiny tiny minds they really do believe the whole thing’s going to end in one big glorious cavalry charge. “Stormed at with shot and shell,/Boldly they rode and well,/Into the jaws of death, Into the mouth of hell …” And all. That. Rubbish.’
Rivers noticed that Prior’s face lit up as he quoted the poem. ‘Is it rubbish?’
‘Yes. Oh, all right, I was in love with it once. Shall I tell you something about that charge? Just as it was about to start an officer saw three men smoking. He thought that was a bit too casual so he confiscated their sabres and sent them into the charge unarmed. Two of them were killed. The one who survived was flogged the next day. …’

Thus, you can see the book’s content does not draw the reader directly into the drama and horrors of the war. It is a more subtle, indirect take on the impact of war. It explores well the struggle of individuals messed up over the experiences to recover and the unpleasant reality of the medical professionals tasked with facilitating their transition back into harm’s way. Our twisted conceptions of courage and masculinity are elucidated with sensitivity.



W.H.R. Rivers


Lt. Siegfried Sassoon


Craiglockhart War Hospital, in Derby, U.K.