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"My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy."
The Ghost Road
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The Ghost Road
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3 journalers for this copy...
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Inkognitoh! The Ghost Road arrived :^). It was covered with yellow Canada Customs tape when I pulled it out of my mailbox, so I guess it was one of those parcels randomly pulled off the line at the border and searched. It's arrived, nonetheless, and in great shape. Thanks so much -- it was lovely to receive this today.
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The Ghost Road tells the story of Billy Prior, a working class man who becomes a British Officer during WWI, in time to complete three tours of duty in France. As the book begins, Prior has been cured of shell shock by his psychiatrist and friend, Dr. William Rivers, and is preparing to return to the front for the last -- and worst -- days of the war. Offered the alternative of a safe position in a munitions factory in London, he chooses battle, apparently out of disgust with those who would choose the safe option while so many are suffering. Through Prior's recollections, we are introduced to fellow patients Wilfred Owen (who he subsequently encounters once again) and Siegfried Sassoon.The characters in Ghost Road are a blend of real-life and fictional. Siegfried Sassoon (1886 - 1967), Dr. William Halse Rivers (1864 - 1922) and Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918) were real historic figures, although Billy Prior is Barker's own creation. (The stammering Dr. Rivers really did treat shell-shocked officers at Craiglockhart War Hospital, near Edinburgh, during WWI, and Sassoon and Wilfred Owen really were his patients.) I enjoyed this book, but was very aware of reading the third book in a trilogy without having read the first two (Regeneration and The Eye in the Door). The references to Sassoon throughout the novel seemed odd, since the details of his story, and the character himself, never make an appearance. Other characters -- such as Charles Manning -- appear in "cameo" roles, their role in the story somewhat detached and without context. It's clear why Barker was awarded the Booker, but of the WWI novels I've read I would place Timothy Findley's The Wars above The Ghost Road. Some related links about the characters in Ghost Road, for anyone interested: -- Dr. Rivers' paper "On the Repression of War Experience" can be viewed on the internet here. -- An archive of war poems and manuscripts of Wilfred Owen is available here, courtesy of Oxford University Computing Services. -- Oxford University's "WOMDA" -- Wilfred Owen Multimedia Digital Archive. -- The World War I Document Archive, also maintained by Oxford University. |
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