Historical Fictionistas discussion

I'm perpetually in awe of Pat Barker, in particular her The Regeneration Trilogy trilogy. Profoundly beautiful books set against World War I that give a whole new insight into that conflict. She's written some other lovely HF as well--including Life Class...curious as to the thoughts of others!

I loved her The Regeneration Trilogy, have the other on the shelf, unread as of yet.
I hadn't read much about WWI, but hers brought it to life so vividly.

Sometimes I read a novel that has received great critical acclaim and am perplexed when I can’t see any merit in it. This is the case with Regeneration. I tried to read it about ten years ago and gave up. Recently I saw the film and decided to give it another go. My opinion of the book hadn’t changed and again I had to give up. I found the writing dull, flat and listless, as if even the writer herself wasn’t interested in what she was writing about. It wasn’t the subject matter which put me off. I’m interested in anything to do with the First World War.

One of the great things about reading is how individual it is for each reader, I guess! I agree with Cateline--I found Barker's writing sparse and yet profound and very starkly beautiful--really well-suited to her subject. But I can see that others would have a different reading aesthetic....for the record, here's a list of WWI fiction compiled by the website Flavorwire that (hopefully) contains something for everyone: http://flavorwire.com/247793/essentia...

I found Regeneration vividly beautiful as well. The characters were trying so hard and sometimes falling so short of the good they meant to do. I guess I'm thinking of Rivers especially, but maybe Sassoon also. It felt very human. I also really liked the way Barker uses documents and literature from the period in her books. For example (I hope I'm remembering this correctly) she takes Sassoon's notes on one of Owen's manuscripts, and turns it in her book into an editing conversation between Sassoon and Owen. Or she takes the "Good night ladies" scene from T.S.Eliot's Waste Land and rewrites it but more from the perspective of the working women (and I think less judgmental of them). I'm sure there's a lot more of this going on in the book than I picked up, but I admired how Barker was thinking through her sources.

She wrote a trilogy for the ages with Regeneration. These books inspired me in writing a shell shocked main character in my first historical novel. I didn’t even touch her, however. Why even try?

I'm in awe of Barker as well after reading the Regeneration trilogy. All I can say is that she has such a deep soul that she seems to understand the good and bad in every character while making them all so human.

I would put Rumer Godden and Nevil Shute in the same category as Barker.