[a:Pat Barker|4000|Pat Barker|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1539120639p2/4000.jpg]'s books are never straightforward tellings of events. She deals with the traumas of war, and it would seem this has to be done in tangential ways, by not looking at the subject in order to look at it. One of the reasons I started reading Barker's books is because I have my own project writing about trauma and it was suggested to me to look at how she did it. I have found her methods to be exactly right and reinforce my own asides to get at the subject. This book, like the one before it, perhaps even more so, has passages of sheer brilliance. The book overall is less cohesive than the first one, but the writing is more powerful. The whole idea of "the eye in the door"! More than just a metaphor or symbol, the whole history of trauma is bound up into it. In a sense, the eye in the door is the ultimate trigger, which is, of course, the central problem of trauma : how to gain access to it without retriggering the harmful experiences which can self-reinforce. Not the easiest novel, but brilliant nonetheless.

I found large sections of this book riveting, but not because of any action or even relational interactions, but rather for its efforts to ferret out the dynamics of neuroses, trauma, dissociations, and so forth. So relational, yes, but of a very specific kind. And ultimately the analysis reminded me of [a:Robertson Davies|23129|Robertson Davies|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1225671081p2/23129.jpg]'s [b:The Manticore|114496|The Manticore (The Deptford Trilogy, #2)|Robertson Davies|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309286341l/114496._SY75_.jpg|1336039], perhaps inevitably, even though that book was about Jungian analysis and this was not. Difficult material to handle well, but done with a great deal of delicacy here. A thoroughly good book, and I am motivated to tackle the third volume as well.

This sequel to Regeneration is equally excellent and moving. Having focused on pacifism in the previous novel, this one focuses on the other scapegoat of the era, homosexuality. Barker is adept at showing her characters at their worst and yet never allowing the reader to lose sympathy; even the worst villains are at least a little sympathetic. Finishing this was a little like coming out of a dream; I looked up and expected to see WWI era London around me.

The only reason I kept reading in a series that generally didn’t impress me was that I was hoping against hope that Barker would suck it up and let Rivers and Sassoon kiss. They didn’t. Instead Sassoon, possibly one of the only interesting aspects of this series, is neglected for Billy Prior, who is not a particularly gripping character. So I think I am just going to have to stop here, since it’s not worth reading the third if I don’t get my kiss. They want to kiss! Why are you holding me in suspense for no reason, Barker, why?!