Regeneration

Yes.

The Dream of W.H.R.Rivers...

Im flabbergasted that no ones commented on this yet! Idlerich, Jenks???

Anyhow - I havent finished it yet, im around page 150 at the mo.

But im really enjoying it, personally I dont feel its as conceptually developed as Austerlitz but this is unfair seeing as I havent finished it and either way its certainly no less affecting or pleasurable.

On pages 45-47 there is Rivers dream. This lept out at me as being a very well conceived metaphor for the position Rivers is in- his relationship with his patients.

The dream contains images of Rivers carrying out Protopathic research on his friend Head, this means hurting his scarred forarm with various instruments, its something he doesnt want to do because it hurts Head however he must in order to understand nerve regeneration...

Then the dream changes to Rivers marking a map of the protopathic area directly onto Heads skin with a pen, however this hurt Head just as much as the sharp instruments...

At the end of the dream, head asks Rivers if he would like to try it before bringing a scalpel down onto Rivers arm, blood appears and the dream ends.

This is obviously representing Rivers daily efforts to coax painful feelings/memorys/emotions etc out of his stubbornly repressing patients, all his patients are psychologically scarred, and disconnected with their past experiences/emotions/sensations etc and its his job to keep poking questions at them till the connect with their past experience/sensations. asking them painful questions till they can start to feel and deal with their past.

To me his job is Psychological Protopathic research, however obviously this is painful for his patients ( emotionally ), hence this being represented in his dream where Head asks "Why dont you try it", before bringing a scalpel to Rivers arm. This happens between Prior and Rivers, Prior asks him questions ( as does Sasson I think ) and makes him uncomfortable, often leaving him with a question that knaws awat at him in his spare time.

Just my thoughts...

Anyone else agree or disagree? Found anymore important metaphors??

"I flabbergasted that no ones commented on this yet! Idlerich, Jenks???"

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Yeah, sorry, having a bit of a cash crisis at the moment to be honest and I haven't bought the book yet. Fingers crossed that should be eased tonight and I can get the thing tomorrow. Apologies, I know I was one of the main movers on this so I will get on it as soon as I can I promise.

sorry - i read it about 6 years ago and was not greatly inspired to read it again but i will because that's what the book club thingy is about, i suppose.

i have a holiday coming up and will try to get a copy in the next couple of days - i seem to remember enjoying the second volume in the trilogy much more.

Also i have just finished the Richard Maybe book - Nature Cure which i thoroughly loved and I've started Ackroyd's book on The Thames and I'm feverishly awaiting the Richardson third volume on Picasso!

Good to know your still around.

On a side note im still waiting on my camera lucida to arrive, but when it does I hope to read it and contribute to the Austerlitz disscussion.

Oh, the tate talk is still not archived, the one with talks after WG Sebalds notions with Mark Fisher, hmph....

To keep this post somewhat relevent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Halse_Rivers_Rivers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon

"Good to know your still around.
On a side note im still waiting on my camera lucida to arrive, but when it does I hope to read it and contribute to the Austerlitz disscussion.
Oh, the tate talk is still not archived, the one with talks after WG Sebalds notions with Mark Fisher, hmph...."

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OK, went out at lunch and got Regeneration but they didn't have the Barthes. Oh well, I'll start on this soonest.

OK, started reading Regeneration yesterday and I'm about eighty pages in. Can't say it's grabbing me too hard at the moment to be honest.

"Is the Robert Graves who's friends with Sassoon the same fella who wrote the Claudius books?"

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OK, now I know what you're on about. I don't know much about Robert Graves (beyond his novels) and I'd be interested to know how accurately this character represents him. He's certainly not the person I would have imagined (if I ever did) but I'm prepared to be wrong on that.
Also, the meeting with Wilfred Owen - did that really happen?

"The dream contains images of Rivers carrying out Protopathic research on his friend Head, this means hurting his scarred forarm with various instruments, its something he doesnt want to do because it hurts Head however he must in order to understand nerve regeneration..."

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Well, it obviously has some significance because presumably this is where the title comes from (at least partly anyway). I'd pretty much agree with what you said on the subject, it seems fairly clear that it stands for him examining and hurting the patients' minds.

One scene that really stuck out to me so far is the bit about the guy (Burns I think he's called) who landed with his head in a decomposing human stomach. I guess this is supposed to be kind of blackly humorous, making you laugh at the cruelness of a war that can torment someone in such a peculiar way. To me though it just seemed totally stupid, I found myself laughing at the clumsiness of the way it was done. What I mean is, I was doing the equivalent of laughing at the book rather than laughing with it.

Well allmost at the end now, its certainly not as potent or concentrated conceptually but I still really rate it.

Idlerich - yeah - im going to go out on a limb and say that dream sequence ( and perhaps another one that happens in London for Rivers regarding another anthropologists treatment ) are the most important points in the book. Although after half way Barker introduces alot of other themes...

Themes of a more freudian nature, the male mother, emasculation, and also the absurdity of war creeps in a little - how the treatment is absurd because for a man to develope a huge fear of a lethal occupation is biologically totally logical - however in the social climate this biological, will to live is scene as wrong and unmanly..... also homosexuality is touched on, how men really ought to love each other in war but then realise when these feelings are brought back home ( not sexualy, just loving ) its regarded as wrong, and ironically Sassoon and Rivers talk of how when a country is asking there men to do terrible unnatural things for the sake of the greater good, when they come home they face a society thats less forgiving and less tolerant than it would be in peacetime - I guess this could apply to mental breakdown as well as any homosexuality....

Later in the book Rivers really starts to struggle with his "treatment" , or rather why hes doing it, for good or for bad? Is it natural or political? Etc.... this is another very interesting developement..

Id presume Owen and Sasson did meet as did Owen and Graves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen#Relationship_with_Sassoon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hydra

Im trying not to touch on too much because I dont want to spoil it for people, having said that it feels like its just me and idlerich.........

"Id presume Owen and Sasson did meet as did Owen and Graves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred...p_with_Sassoon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hydra"

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Thanks for that. I'd guessed that she wouldn't mess around with with real events but it's nice to have it confirmed.

Wikipedia=Truth

i have succumbed to all the unsubtle hints you've been leaving about my lack of comment you; considering you have my copy of regeneration it's a bit tricky. Are you going to be a completist and finish the trilogy, i think you should and i'll join you. Im sad that idlerich found the human stomach bit laughable, from what I remember that upset me. I suppose you've had enough of war but if not i've just bought eric lomax's the 'railway man' if anyone cares to join in. Just finished reading 'the ragged trousered philanthropists' so think i need a pat on the back for sticking with the 600 or so pages of repeating just one idea! anyone else read it?

Hey kathy - Id like to read the next one in the trilogy yeah. Im very curious to see how the ideas of irony, homosexuality, class divides, masculinity etc all develope.... Have you read all 3?
Hows Austerlitz going then? Maybe post in the other thread tho...

The Burns war experience really got to me, I really found it horrid, also the 'eye' experience really rendered the horrific nature of war for me all too vividly...

I may give myself a break though and read Ryu Murakamis "Piercing" or Atwoods "oryx and crake".... or maybe a couple of Dalhs Adult Stories, i dunno.

"Browseforbooks" the AmazonUK seller have really miffed me, so they get a public mention, I ordered Camera Lucida on the 24 of september, I know strikes have held things up but I would have thought Id have received my copy by now! They take their time emailing me back too, in future im going to avoid buying from them.

"Im sad that idlerich found the human stomach bit laughable, from what I remember that upset me"

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I just thought that I could tell what note it was trying to strike and it didn't hit it. It felt wrong and not only that it stuck right out as wrong (to me).
Anyway, I didn't get a chance to read any more last night but I'm going for a drink tonight and I'm going to be an hour early with Regeneration as my only companion so I ought to have more to report tomorrow (unless I get really drunk).

OK, read a bit more of this last night and I know what you're on about with the eye now. I am enjoying it more than I was before but I still think the whole thing seems a bit heavy-handed. The repressed homosexuality is signposted again and again without any subtlety (the grass cutters happier with their tops off, the jokes about how good looking the waiter is etc) and the theme about how men can't (or couldn't) deal with their emotions is very simplistic. For example, there is the bit after the story of the eye when Pryor starts butting Rivers in the chest but before you have time to wonder why that is the explanation is given to you on a plate. I have the feeling that it's very didactic, this happens, here's why, now this happens, for this reason and so on. Perhaps this is partly because I've read You talking about it already so I was already partly aware that these ideas were coming. If so I'm being a little hard on the book I guess.

Well I finished it shortly after my last post, I can see where your coming from Idlerich, yeah, in parts its distinctly unsubtle but I dont necessarily regard this as a bad thing, think of Ballard, his last two books really felt like plays of pawns by the hand of the author, yknow?
That said - although i dont feel its a bad aspect I do think from what ive read so far Austerlitz is much more conceptually developed and "whole" than regeneration, Sebalds book really felt like a artwork, a piece of art whereas Barkers feels like a story - so far... remember it IS a trilogy..

Im going to go out on a limb and make a slight criticism - in regard to idlerichs comments yeah, when you take into consideration the period and the themes explored Freudian methods and approaches to things like class, homosexuality, masculinity etc the way these are dealt with is unsubtle but then I find most of these sorts of notions very obvious having grown up in a post-all that sort of stuff world ( Flake adverts etc ) - but for the period and the characters in the book ( except the anthropologists and psychoanalysts - but then they would think of it as radical and pioneering.. ) these themes would be seen as controversial and alternative, certainly not second nature like you and me. So I think the deal of Patients experience followed by Rivers ( fairly obvious to us, ) thoughts and interpretation of the subject is understandable... however their are lots of parallels that are only afforded by presuming our position and views, I think a good example of this would be the constant eugenics discussions Rivers collegues tend to have regarding Height, breeding, and how the upperclass soldiers are better built etc... obviously within the story the irony is impossible to express but im pretty sure these passages were wrote knowing how apparent it would be to a reader in 1991! But the same treatment is not given to other subjects hence maybe...maybe why Idlerich and to a lesser degree myself feel the comparisons of topics and freudian themes are clumsily explored and explained... explained rather than implied or hinted like irony of eugenics coming up.

Yaknowaddameen??

"when you take into consideration the period..."

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Yes, all good points, it's obviously very hard (impossible?) to put yourself in the place of someone from such a different time (which it is even if it's not so long ago) and unlearn all the stuff that you take for granted. You're definitely right about how aware the author would be of the familiarity of the themes to the modern reader and there is an interesting irony there. The question is whether or not she uses this gap well.

OK, finished it now.
First, something I meant to say earlier, the scene where Prior gets it on with Sarah and there is a line something like "He made a cup of her pelvis and drank from it deeply" - which stuck out for two reasons; firstly it's one of very few metaphors in the book and secondly it's a really really bad one. Do you think there was something deliberate in making one of the few such a strange one? Seems as though it's so bad it can only be there for some kind of purpose although what it is escapes me - maybe I'm just being charitable.

Yeah, that line really made me cringe.

I did enjoy the scenes later in the book where Rivers visits Burns, just a shame you keep being reminded of why he is the way he is. I think this undermined quite an important aspect of the book for me.
Really horrific all the stuff about the methods used to get people to speak that Rivers witnesses towards the end. Further evidence that at that time a large number of people were viewed as simply pieces of machinery that could be pressed into service by the state and, if they "broke", repaired purely by treating their symptoms and returning them to the front as fast as possible.