Stephen Barker Posted 7 January , 2004 Share Posted 7 January , 2004 Which novel is the better and why? Why was Birdsong in the BBC's top 20 novels? Why didn't Regeneration make the top 200 in the same poll? Pat Barker is no relation in case you're wondering!!!# Regards Stephen Barker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Reed Posted 7 January , 2004 Share Posted 7 January , 2004 Neither, in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenwoodman Posted 7 January , 2004 Share Posted 7 January , 2004 Looks like just a single option for the vote. Any chance of "I don't like either of them" category? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Denham Posted 7 January , 2004 Share Posted 7 January , 2004 Something up here! Only one option to vote for two books. Back to the drawing board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGWR Posted 8 January , 2004 Share Posted 8 January , 2004 Birdsong- an excessively tedious story crammed with cliches. His 'love scenes' are excruciatingly painful. If I had had the misfortune to read this book as a pre-pubescent, I would probably have been put off sex for life. God only knows why it was in the Top 20 novels along with Lord of the Rings, childrens books and all those O and A level texts. Regeneration - some interesting ideas and well-written, but I have never been a great fan of fiction with real historical figures. I used to think that I was the only one, who was less than impressed with these books. It's reassuring to see that I am not entirely alone. If I had to choose.... I would go for Regeneration. andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 8 January , 2004 Share Posted 8 January , 2004 I've edited the poll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham-McAdam Posted 8 January , 2004 Share Posted 8 January , 2004 Regeneration has to be worth a few hours of anybody's time on this forum - the stuff about Rivers and shell shock will surely make you go off and find his biography and admire his pioneering work, especially with our beloved WO. But the stuff in vol. 3 about the south pacific people has to be in the wrong book, surely - I can never make it fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Michelle Young Posted 8 January , 2004 Admin Share Posted 8 January , 2004 Neither, in my opinion. Couldn't agree more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted 8 January , 2004 Share Posted 8 January , 2004 Oh dear, did'nt realise Birdsong made it to the top twenty, what a travesty. Regeneration is far superior. No gues how I voted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Filsell Posted 8 January , 2004 Share Posted 8 January , 2004 Both are pretty poor. Birdsong's many grotesque errors and the descent of the trilogy into irrelevant smut (after a good beginning) must condemn both in the eyes of any serious Great War student. Birdsh*te and the Degenaration trilogy would be better titles. There are far better modern novels about the Great War not least The Ice Cream War (Boyd). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_Baker Posted 8 January , 2004 Share Posted 8 January , 2004 It seems to me that both have benefitted from a disproportionate allocation of their publisher's marketing budgets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Cross Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 David Filsell Posted on Thu, 8 Jan 2004 19:17:56 +0000 ................. the descent of the trilogy into irrelevant smut (after a good beginning) ............. Very politely put. The details of homosexual practices in Regeneration spoilt a good read and mean that I cannot put this book before my children as a representative of Great War literature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mordac Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Neither, in my opinion. I second that opinion. Garth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragon Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Birdsong's many grotesque errors and the descent of the trilogy into irrelevant smut (after a good beginning) must condemn both in the eyes of any serious Great War student. In my opinion, that serious Great War student is completely missing the point. There are books with factual accounts of more or less detail about the Great War. They are called history books. There are stories about human life, relationships, personal development and growth and they are called fiction. Birdsong and the Regeneration trilogy fit into the latter category. Both authors have taken a set of characters and examined the way that life, including episodes in the Great War, have affected those people. In real life, no-one develops in a preordained, unchangeable pattern: we are all affected by our experiences and that applies equally to fiction. (Before anyone decides to illuminate me, I am aware that Rivers, Sassoon and Owen are not fictional.) Neither novel is a Great War novel, but each has some episodes that are set in the Great War. My personal preference is for Pat Barker’s trilogy, because I find them more intellectually satisfying, and the characters’ growth more accurately reflects the turbulence of life, but I was gripped by Birdsong too. (I suppose the amendment to their names is an attempt at humour.) Most good fiction based in the Great War is not actually much about the Great War. Were either author to embark on detailed descriptions of actions in the Great War to set the background to their characters’ progress through the events thrown at them by life, the majority of the readership would be bored stiff within pages. Insisting that a clearly fictional piece is rigidly based on minute attention to military detail is effectively to reduce interest in the Great War to the equivalent of train spotting. I am sorry if that offends anyone, but it is how it seems to people who do not share the interest. I suggest that neither Sebastian Faulks nor Pat Barker was writing with military obsessives as their target readership. However, because both novels are enthralling fiction, they are likely to generate an interest in the Great War where none existed beforehand. Neither book is a memoir; neither is an historical account by an eye-witness; neither is solely dependant on the War for its interest. It would be absurd to expect a novel to take the place of an historical text analysing the complexities of the War. They are informed in a modest way by the historical events, but they are driven by the need to engage a non-specialist reader and to illuminate the human response to a variety of events which include some small aspects of the Great War: indeed, real-life protagonists would have seen only a very small part of the whole picture. Had either of them decided to write a detailed novel solely based on and within an episode in the Great War, I imagine that they would have been criticised for being imitative or even plagiaristic. (It would also have been largely unreadable.) Therefore, the only satisfactory outcome appears to be that no-one writes novels which are based in part on the War. I suspect that is what some people see as the ideal. What an insular, excluding attitude. I see that no-one has commented on the skills of the writers: their ability to tell a story, to use language effectively, to make interesting use of imagery, to address themes, to create convincing characters, to maintain a creative vision, to change readers’ thinking. These are the essentials when analysing whether or not a piece of fiction is a good novel. Fixing on minor inaccuracies which only bother Great War experts or enthusiasts is to withdraw into a circle of expertise from which most people are deliberately excluded. And finally, I would suggest that the use of intellectually arrogant phrases such as ‘serious Great War student’ is what deters some people from contributing to discussions because they are aware that they are being measured by some Forum users against a standard of intellectual perfection which they will never attain, and nor may they wish to. Gwyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue Light Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Thankyou Gwyn for expressing so well what I have been writing and deleting, writing and deleting...... Having enjoyed both books, [although 'Regeneration' more], I did feel that I was firmly excluded from ever being one of those 'serious Great War students.' Perhaps also, while 'love and war' are compatible, 'sex and war,' and particularly homsexuality, are seen to be less acceptable in 'serious' literature. Regards - Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Birch Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Very well said Gwyn Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryn_Hammond Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Gwyn If we accept what you say, why are we discussing these two books that aren't historical accounts about the Great War on a web site devoted to the History of the Great War? Can we not ask for discussion of their relative merits to be moved to a site about modern English Literature? Bryn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue Light Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 ... why are we discussing these two books that aren't historical accounts about the Great War on a web site devoted to the History of the Great War? Because it's still rather more relevant to the Great War than 'Happy Birthdays,' or the merits or otherwise of Milton Keynes....etc. etc... [with no offence intended to Lee] Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Birch Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Bryn I think you are missing Gwyn's point. As she points out these books are novels set during the Great War, not histories. I see no problem in their being discussed on this forum, and as they are being discussed what is the problem with examining their literary merit or otherwise? Who else do you form an opinion? As Gwyn has very aptly reminded us, the books do not pretend to be histories. To criticise a novel on the grounds of its historical inaccurary or otherwise is pointless. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynthia Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 As someone who has written a novel about the Great War and suffered great pangs about being drummed off the Forum because of it, I second the statements of Gwyn, SueL and Tim. Exactly as Gwyn says, the novelist is aiming at general readership. One of my aims was to bring an individual story to the forefont of people's consciousness, especially Americans. The majority of my University students, for example, know next to nothing about the Great War and don't want to, but they relate to the story I told them about a young man and his brother, and what happened to them because of the War. If this Forum is only for 'serious Great War historians,' then I suspect that I don't belong here and never did. I am serious about my interest in the Great War, deadly serious, but I am no historian and have never pretended to be. Many of us have come to our interest, indeed, obsession in some cases, with the Great War because of a story. What the novelist attempts to do is tell that story using all the tools of history at his or her disposal to re-create the times, the influences on the characters, and the emotions. Because of my deep feelings about the War and British soldiers particularly, I want others to know about it, and found a story worked better for many people than the historical facts laid straight out. Cynthia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Birch Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Since historical accuracy seems to a problem with "serious students of the Great War" when reading a novel, these students might like to reflect on some autobiographies written in the years following the war which were reputed to have strayed into the realms of fiction. In particular Robert Graves's "Goodby to all That" incurred a lot of criticsim from Dunn and Blunden. And as for Sassoon's character Sherston how many of his advenures related in "Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man" and "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" are 100 % historically accurate? Perhaps our "serious student" has also avoided "All Quiet on the Western Front" or " The Middle Parts of Fortune", because lets face it they are fictional. Maybe novels are too flipant our "serious student" and he/she should stick to Official Histories. But, then, can you really believe them either? Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryn_Hammond Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Tim The fact that the books you mention were written by people who had some direct experience of the conflict might just make them a little more relevant than Regeneration or Birdsong to the serious student of the Great War (or, indeed, anyone interested in the subject). Bryn (As for 'The Middle Parts of Fortune' - please take the quote below as an indication of how highly I rate decent fiction about the First World War - and I try to be a 'serious student of the war') Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Birch Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Bryn I think we must agree to differ in that, I cannot claim to be a "serious" student of the Great War. I am merely a student of that subject. Cheers Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryn_Hammond Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Tim I think you do yourself a disservice. Bryn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_B Posted 9 January , 2004 Share Posted 9 January , 2004 Well I definitely do not claim to be a "serious student of the Great War", but I am "seriously interested in the Great War". I've read histories, unit histories, classic memoirs, and fictionalised accounts of the Great War. But it does seem a pity to ignore the possiblity of reading some good fiction in which the Great War is a major theme. I can see no reason why such a discussion should not take place on this Forum. If not here, where else? There is, after all, some pretty frivolous stuff elsewhere. As has been said elsewhere, shouldn't we be talking about the writer's skill (story telling, themes, vision, making the reader think etc) as far as "Regeneration" and "Birdsong" concerned and their contribution to the mass of Great War Literature. I don't think you can condem "Regeneration" for its sexual content. The very real problems the military authorities had with the spread of VD in the Great War are indicative of that part of human nature. It seems odd to reject a book for daring to explore this side of life in all its forms. Whether you think the character of "temporary gentleman" Billy Prior, who seemd to be without sexual scruples, is a realistc creation or not, is surely another agrument. Incidently, I would second what has been said about William Boyd's novel "The Ice Cream War", if you don't know it it is set in East Africa in 1914 and is a very good read. But I am sure this had some of the dreaded S..E..X in it as well, so look out! My own plug for another novel based in the Great War is for "A Very Long Engagement" by Sebastian Japrisot. Chris. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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