Product Description

London, 1918. Billy Prior is working for Intelligence in the Ministry of Munitions. But his private encounters with women and men – pacifists, objectors, homosexuals – conflict with his duties as a soldier, and it is not long before his sense of himself fragments and breaks down. Forced to consult the man who helped him before – army psychiatrist William Rivers – Prior must confront his inability to be the dutiful soldier his superiors wish him to be … The Eye in the Door is a heart-rending study of the contradictions of war and of those forced to live through it. The second book in the Regeneration trilogy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17568 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
Gripping, moving, beautifully constrcted and profoundly intelligent (Independent on Sunday )

About the Author
Pat Barker was born in 1943. Her books include the highly acclaimed Regeneration trilogy, comprising Regeneration (1991), which was made into a film of the same name, The Eye in the Door (1993), which won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and The Ghost Road (1995), which won the Booker Prize, as well as the more recent novels Another World, Border Crossing and Double Vision. She lives in Durham.

Customer Reviews

Powerful Pat
I am writing this in response to the only other review of this book so far, which I do not think does the novel justice. All right, some of "The Eye in the Door" is "brutal and dark" - Pat Barker's books usually do have that element - but what I find so impressive about this novelist is how she manages to deal with difficult, and sometimes unpleasant, subjects in a way that is intelligent, compassionate and unsensational. Her books also have a streak of dry humour running through them that keep them becoming all doom and gloom like a Thomas Hardy novel. And yes, Prior's character is 'flawed" - (whose isn't?) - and sometimes difficult to like, but he seems real and human, and it is impossible not to sympathise with him sometimes, particularly given the courage with which he confronts his situations (not to mention the scalding sense of humour and irony.) Maybe "Regeneration" seems a "cleaner" novel, with characters it is easier to admire or like or pity, but I thought this one continued the tradition of amazingly powerful writing and is definitely worth a read, not just as part of the trilogy, but for its own sake.

tough-minded debate-novel about sexuality and national pride
Reading the trilogy as a gay man I was struck and impressed by Barker's handling of her largely male cast, in particular Billy Prior. She writes convicingly about men and masculinity. In the opening scene she writes the most erotic and unpretentious sex scene between two men that I have ever read (bar the description of a kiss in Baldwin's Giovanni's Room). Incidentally I do feel Billy Prior is an appealing figure in his flawed humanity. More importantly he is a great anti-hero. With his anger, intelligence, working-class background and bisexuality he represents a brilliant anti-establishment challenge to everything the war he fought claimed to defend.

Healthy and Unhealthy Mind Dualities Driven by War Tragedies and Paranoia

If you haven't read Regeneration, you are making a big mistake if you read The Eye in the Door before Regeneration. Regeneration sets the stage for The Eye in the Door and provides much background information that you need to appreciate this book.

Those who liked the first book in the Regeneration trilogy, Regeneration, will absolutely adore The Eye in the Door. The characters from Regeneration return, and you have a chance to find out the consequences of the treatments they received from Dr. William Rivers in Regeneration. Pat Barker builds on the tensions, damage, doubts, and despair of mid-World War I to show how much more desperate matters were for the British by the spring of 1918.

In developing these themes, Pat Barker does a masterful job of explaining how a soldier has to operate both by emotion and by objective distance in order to function. From there, she helps us use the crucible of war to see how that duality is important to everyday functioning for all people.

As the title indicates, the book builds on a central metaphor of everyone being under observation as doubts build about Britain's ability to win the war. Those on the margins are most under pressure and at greatest risk.

I thought that the portrayal of Lieutenant Billy Prior was brilliant. He comes across as the kind of complex, interesting character that can help us learn a lot about Ms. Barker's messages for us. The eye metaphor is nicely developed in the context of Billy's life.

Brava, Ms. Barker!