RAP READING GROUP REVIEW Tobys Room by Pat Barker Margaret’s choice for our February meeting, Toby’s Room by Pat Barker, was well-timed as we begin commemorating the centenary of World War I. This is the fifth of Barker’s novels to deal with the Great War. Her first great success was the Regeneration trilogy, the last volume of which, The Ghost Road, won the Booker Prize in 1995. Later there followed Life Class; and Toby’s Room (2012) continues the story of this group of former Slade art students, each struggling to cope with the effect of the conflict on their lives. Pat Barker was born to a single mother and raised by her grandparents. She became interested in the Great War because of its effect upon her Grandfather, who would never speak about the severe bayonet wound he received in battle. What remains unspoken becomes obsessional, and imagination can produce something far worse than reality. Today, we have access to a huge archive of factual information about the Great War, but are left feeling that the direct experience of it remains completely beyond our imagining. The narrative moves between three main characters, Elinor, Paul and Kit, who are loosely based on the artists Dora Carrington, Paul Nash and Richard Nevinson. Barker has used this technique before in Life Class, but it is one that works best if the reader is unaware of these origins. Those familiar with these artists of World War One found the match/mismatch of the real life/fictional characters distracting; those who did not, found an uneasiness in their depiction and the psychology sometimes unconvincing. The most successful part of the novel is Barker’s account of the early days of reconstructive facial surgery for those desperately wounded in battle; and the work of artists in recording the terrible injuries and the many stages of treatment. This is vivid and well told. In this setting Elinor is obliged to shake off her passive resistance to involvement in the war, forming tenuous relationships with the wounded men as she draws them, and eventually coming to identify with the hospital team. The Toby of the title is Elinor’s brother, whose death must be mourned and finally accommodated, by this family as by so many others. The momentum of the novel is Elinor’s quest, shared with her former lover Paul, to discover how he died. There was great poignancy in Elinor’s inability to either bear the sight of, or relinquish, the returned uniform still smelling of her lost brother, echoing her conflicting feelings about him and their shared childhood. Descriptions of how soldiers travelled to and from the front found a counterpart in the sharing of a real letter brought to the meeting by one member. Written to her Grandmother in 1917 it was a small fragile piece of paper written in pencil, speaking in guarded terms of long, uncomfortable sea and rail journeys to unknown destinations and unknown futures. It brought us full circle to think how we might reach back into the past in an attempt to understand those appalling experiences beyond our immediate grasp. Toby’s Room gave us an opportunity to try. * * * * * * * * * * * * * We always welcome new members. Meetings take place at 7.30 pm on the 3rd Friday of the month (except August & December) at the Youth Centre. For full details ring 880631, or call in at The Old Saddlery Bookshop, 56 High Street.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 11:10:27 +0000
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