Pat Barker

May 2012
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Jul
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

July 15, 2002 6:40 pm | audio books

Pat Barker

Regeneration by Pat Barker?

I'm reading Regeneration in preparation for my A level course, and was wondering to what extent it's truthful? I know that it is based on Siegfried Sassoon's time at the hospital and on WHR Rivers, but I don't know enough about either of them to know how much is real

Thanks

The sequence of events is real and many of the main characters (incl SS and WHRR), but the detail of the conversations is obviously made up.
Barker attributes the immediate inspiration for Regeneration to her husband, a neurologist familiar with the writings of Dr. W.H.R. Rivers and his experiments with nerve regeneration.
Siegfried Sassoon - The fictional Siegfried Sassoon is closely based on the real Sassoon. Sassoon's father abandoned the family and died shortly afterwards, when Sassoon was still a child. In parts of the novel Rivers is portrayed as a paternal figure to Sassoon, which reflects their real-life relationship. Despite the fact that Sassoon was a decorated soldier, his experiences in World War I caused him to turn against the war. Although he eventually returns to the front, Barker gives the impression that Sassoon does not sacrifice his opposition to the war. Sassoon was a latent homosexual.
Photograph of W.H.R. Rivers

Dr. W.H.R. Rivers - A character based upon the real life W. H. R. Rivers who worked at Craiglockhart War Hospital between 1916 - 1917 and was a treating physician for Siegfried Sassoon. Rivers has a stammer which he finds difficult to control despite the fact that his father was a speech therapist. Rivers studies anthropology, and the novel describes how he researched nerve regeneration with a friend, Henry Head. Rivers suffers throughout the novel from the moral dilemma that he is treating soldiers in order that they can return to war. He watches the harsh methods used by Dr. Lewis Yealland to treat patients and asks whether his methods are just as painful for his patients.

Billy Prior- Prior is one of the few fictional characters in the book. Prior is a soldier at Craiglockhart who suffers from mutism and asthma. Prior is a difficult character for Rivers to deal with as he often reflects Rivers's own dilemmas and insecurities. Prior is a working-class officer who has risen to the rank of lieutenant despite his background. He sees the British army mirroring the class system even in the trenches. Prior appears envious of those who are not involved in the war experience, such as his love interest in the novel, Sarah. In the later novels of the Regeneration Trilogy we learn of that Prior is a bisexual, but this is not apparent in the first novel.

David Burns - David Burns is another patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital, a fictionalised version of one of Rivers's real patients. Burns has been unable to eat after a bomb explosion forced him into the gas filled belly of a corpse, resulting in his digestion of the rotting flesh. Rivers describes the incident as turning the young officer who rose to the rank of captain into a "fossilized schoolboy".

Pat Barker on Gambling, McDonalds, and Snoop (Stand Up Comedy 2010)