There is a character in Pat Barker’s novel Double Vision who is a would-be writer. This character mentions novelist Ian McEwan as an influence, a writer he admires. Late in Double Vision there is a sudden, violent home invasion that comes to the reader as a bolt-from-the-blue much like the one that takes place in Mr. McEwan’s novel Saturday. A-ha, I thought while reading, Double … Continue reading Double Vision by Pat Barker
One bad cliche spoils the whole bunch. Early on in Louis de Bernieres new novel, The Dust that Falls From Dreams, two of the major characters, Rose and Ash, have a chance encounter with a gypsy girl. When they ask the girl to read their futures, the gypsy tells Rose that she will have two and a half children. After she takes one brief look … Continue reading The Dust That Falls From Dreams by Louis de Bernieres
The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker is the second part of her “Regeneration” trilogy. (You can read my review of the first part here.) The books follow several soldiers returned to England from fighting in the trenches of the first world war to the care of psychiatrist Dr. Rivers. Ms. Barker mixes historical figures with imagined characters to create a fascinating cross-section of … Continue reading The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
Regeneration by Pat Barker combines the stories of real and fictional people to create a compelling account of life in a psychiatric hospital for British soldiers during the first world war. Barker uses the true stories of poets Siegfried Sassoon and Owen Wilson, who met and worked together during their stay at Craiglockhart Hospital, Dr. William Rivers their psychiatrist and the fictional Billy Prior. The … Continue reading Regeneration by Pat Barker
May Contain Spoilers 