Collected comments: Regeneration

Gathering up my notes from this read-along, mainly my comments on Simon’s weekly posts. Collecting these here as a reminder - I may eventually post some more considered thoughts on this book…

Week 1: Part 1, Chapters 1 – 4

This is another one (like Midnight’s Children) that I read in the 90s and am very interested to revisit. When I compared notes with friends at the time, we all seemed to prefer the book of the trilogy that covered topics we knew least about already, which I found a bit disappointing - I suspect that back then I underestimated how much skill was required to craft an absorbing & insightful piece of fiction from real-life events, so it’ll be interesting to see whether I appreciate it more this time around.

I’m already finding myself drawn in and enjoying the themes being explored, pondering different types of courage & the competing demands of duty & conscience as well as the ways that beliefs about mental illness have changed over time, so I suspect that this will turn out to be a very rewarding slow read!

Week 2: Part 1, Chapters 5 – 7

This section has left me with much to ponder. I was fascinated by the nerve regrowth experiment (and oddly obsessed with the amazing tablecloth in that photograph, which somehow symbolises for me how different 'science' was back then, something that Rivers' Freudian methods also makes me think about). Rivers' observation that his methods might require "redefining what it meant to be a man" has stuck with me & seems to get to the heart of the book's concerns. And I feel very foolish that Sassoon's statement that "my intimate details disqualify me from military service" caused me a moment of surprise - I remember the end of "don't ask, don't tell" in America, but had I really forgotten that homosexuality was still grounds for dismissal from the UK military until 2000?

& also in response to a comment where Simon mentioned Cristophe from the Cromwell books (“It's a big decision to create a fictional character in a book mostly made up of real people”):

I was thinking about Cristophe too, Billy reminds me of him - his irreverent earthiness, his outsider perspective, the way he holds a mirror to other characters, and the author's need to insert a fictional character in a real situation!

Week 3: Part 2, Chapters 8 – 10

The observations about class were the ones I found most compelling in this section. (I also liked the observation in last week’s reading that hearing Prior’s voice for the first time even changed Rivers’ perception of how he looked, casting him as “a little, spitting, sharp-boned alley cat”.) The conversation between Rivers & Prior on different symptoms displayed by officers and men was fascinating (& I loved Prior’s scorn at Rivers’ arrogant assumption that officers have “a more complex mental life”). It also appears that Prior’s father had a point when he described him as “neither fish nor fowl” - his encounters with Rivers are full of these kinds of pointed reminders that he doesn’t quite fit in as an officer, but when he goes into town he pauses on entering the cafe, noticing that “nobody in an officer’s uniform was likely to be inconspicuous or welcome here,” and feels a twinge of discomfort when Sarah lumps him in as “you lot”. I enjoyed the contrast between Sarah, comfortable in her own identity and rejecting her employer’s attempts to ‘correct’ her language, and Prior’s mother, squirming in her previous encounter with Rivers as she attempted to keep up her “carefully genteel voice” but slipped up with a tell-tale “our Billy”.

I also liked the continuing exploration of different perspectives on what it means for a person to break down. Prior finds it difficult to have to think of himself as “the kind of person who breaks down,” perhaps sharing Yealland’s view that “men who broke down were degenerates whose weakness would have caused them to break down, eventually, even in civilian life,” but like Graves in an earlier chapter (”I hate it when you talk like that. As if everybody who breaks down is inferior.”), Rivers believes that anyone might break down when put under extreme pressure, and is increasingly struggling with the implications of this opinion.

Perhaps oddly, the “Billy”-goat headbutt is the only detail I clearly remember from reading this book before (~20 years ago) and I think it actually influenced me as a parent (in my better moments at least!) by planting the seed of the idea that lashing out could be a request for connection...

Week 4: Part 2, Chapters 11 – 13

…

Week 5: Part 3, Chapters 14 – 16

…

Week 6: Part 4, Chapters 17 – 19

…

Week 7: Part 4, Chapters 20 – 23

…