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From Publishers Weekly
The Booker Prize recently awarded to Barker for this book, the culmination of her astonishing WWI trilogy that began with Regeneration and The Eye in the Door, persuaded Dutton to move publication ahead by eight months, which is good news for American readers. Though it would seem almost impossible to look at that appalling conflict with a fresh eye, Barker has succeeded in ways that define the novelist's art: by close observation as well as by deployment of a broad and painfully compassionate vision, all rendered in prose whose very simplicity speaks volumes. The present book can be read without reference to the others, but all are mutually enriching. They revolve around William Rivers, a psychologist who pioneered the treatment of shell shock, and some of his patients, who include such real-life figures as poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, as well as the fictional Lieutenant Billy Prior, a bisexual whose life as an officer is complicated by his working-class origins. The questions the trilogy addresses are profound ones like the nature of sanity, the politics of class, war and sex, and the struggle to maintain humanity in the face of meaningless slaughter. In The Ghost Road, the war is nearing its end, which renders the continuing horrors of trench warfare ever more futile. Prior is sent back to the front after Rivers's treatment, enjoys a strange idyllic interlude in a ruined village, rescues a horribly wounded fellow officer and then faces the stupidest massacre of all. Meanwhile Rivers takes on new nightmare cases?and begins to remember his anthropological researches in Melanesia years before, when he strove to understand the rituals of a people whose greatest pleasure, head-hunting, had been abolished by a British colonial administration. The contrast between the primitives' deeply considered approach to death and the pointless killing indulged in by supposedly more civilized people is only hinted at, but it gives the book, particularly in its deeply eloquent concluding pages, enormous resonance. The whole trilogy, which in its entirety is only equivalent in length to one blockbuster serial-killer frenzy, is a triumph of an imagination at once poetic and practical.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
The latest winner of Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, this final volume completes a trilogy that includes Regeneration (1992) and The Eye in the Door (1994). Displaying the remarkable virtuosity that has won her a good deal of praise, Barker further embellishes upon history, shepherding readers even more deeply into the psyches of her vividly rendered characters. Poet Wilfred Owen reappears, as does psychologist William Rivers and his invalid sister, Katherine, who as a child was befriended by Lewis Carroll. Here, Rivers becomes ill and is haunted by memories of the headhunters he lived with and studied in Melanesia. But it is Barker's riveting and complex portrait of Billy Prior that delivers the message of the pathos and horrors of war. When Prior returns to the trenches after recovering from shell shock, he describes in diary form the final battles of World War I. Restrained yet powerfully expressive, Barker writes at full tilt, with compelling humanity. Alice Joyce
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Raises Disturbing Questions about the Nature of Humanity,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: Ghost Road (Paperback)
Please do not read The Ghost Road before reading Regeneration and The Eye in the Door (the order intended by the author). As brilliant as The Ghost Road is, its message will hit you harder if you have read the other books first and anticipated what Pat Barker's final vision of humanity would be.Without revealing any spoilers, The Ghost Road is the most nuanced novel about war that I've ever read. Most war-related books take one of two basic themes: Either war is too awful to be tolerated and needs to be abolished . . . or human nobility is expressed within war, but war itself is an evil event with people being destroyed by incompetent leaders. You'll find a different message here, one implied by a combination of observations about a tribe of head hunters and by the behavior of Billy Prior, one of the primary characters in the three books. I leave it to you to find out what this nuanced message is . . . but I believe it will probably surprise and enlighten you. By narrowing down the focus onto just two of the continuing characters of the trilogy, Dr. William Rivers and Lieutenant Billy Prior, The Ghost Road has an intensity and power that I didn't observe in the prior two books. Clearly, The Ghost Road is a step above those excellent novels. I am often left wondering why books that win prestigious prizes (like the 1995 Booker Prize . . . awarded to The Ghost Road) did so. I have no doubt that this award was well earned. Life can be an ironic event, punctuated by moments of sublime joy. I have seldom read a novel that captured those perspectives as well as The Ghost Road does. Brava, Ms. Barker!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great war literature -- great book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Ghost Road (Paperback)
Everyone living in the 21st century who cares about the future of humanity -- not to mention fine literature -- should read this extremely skillfully written, emotionally powerful novel of The Great War. Pat Barker has perfect control over her material, and manages to write with power but never goes over the top or gets melodramatic -- a tough thing to do when you're writing about any war. Starting gently, subtly, even humorously, the book builds quietly until it reaches its final, wrenching chapters. It's a touching, compelling, beautifully told tale that deserves a worldwide audience. I can't wait to read more by Pat Barker!
5.0 out of 5 stars
I was disturbed and intensely involved with this book,
By "jenniferbraun" (Santa Rosa, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Ghost Road (Paperback)
Not your ordinary war read. I love authors that take a topic of huge proportions, say World War I, and write a book that actually stands taller in the imagination of the reader as great a couple weeks later.
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