Regeneration by Pat Barker -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Tiny Vices by Linda Dahl

Thank you for joining me this week for Book Beginnings on Fridays where participants share the opening sentence (or two) from the book they are reading. You can also share from a book you want to feature, even if you are not reading it at the moment. 

MY BOOK BEGINNING

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. 

-- from Regeneration by Pat Barker. 

Regeneration is the fictionalized story of real-life poet Siegfried Sassoon. The novel opens with the text of Sassoon's actual 1917 anti-war declaration, a declaration that landed him in military hospital for the "mentally unsound."

Regeneration is the first book in Pat Barker's World War I trilogy, followed by The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road, for which she won the Booker Prize in 1995. The three have been on my TBR shelf for a long, long time. Now that the audiobooks are available on Spotify, I am going to finally read them. It may seem weird to read books with my ears when I have the book books right here to read with my eyes, but I need a shortcut or I won't ever get to all the unread book on my shelves! 

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING

Please add the link to your book beginning post in the linky box below. If you participate or share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings so other people can find your post.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 asks participants to share a two-sentence teaser from their book of the week. If your book is an ebook or audiobook, pick a teaser from the 56% point. 

Anna at My Head is Full of Books hosts The Friday 56, a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please visit My Head is Full of Books to leave the link to your post. 

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from Regeneration:

"I told him, time enough to do summat for the Empire when the Empire's done summat for you."  

"It's natural for the young to be idealistic."

FROM THE PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION

In 1917 Siegfried Sassoon, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: the war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. William Rivers, set about restoring Sassoon’s “sanity” and sending him back to the trenches. This novel tells what happened as only a novel can. It is a war saga in which not a shot is fired. It is a story of a battle for a man's mind in which only the reader can decide who is the victor, who the vanquished, and who the victim.
 
One of the most amazing feats of fiction of our time, Regeneration has been hailed by critics across the globe.  More than one hundred years since World War I, this book is as timely and relevant as ever.