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Toby's Room (2012)

by Pat Barker(Favorite Author)

3.65 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0385524366 (ISBN13: 9780385524360)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Doubleday

review 1: Really enjoyed this. Pat Barker is so good at transporting the reader to another era. I always learn from her books and love the alternative view of WW1 that she opens up. I didn't give 5 stars because sometimes the writing was a bit over-descriptive for me. I don't remember this in her other books, but in this one there were a few instances where I thought she could have edited back the descriptive passages. Example: 'The woodwork was swollen and cracked and bloated and blistered from constant exposure to damp air'. Just the one adjective would have done there in my humble opinion. But there were plenty of passages that were extremely good so overall a very good read.
review 2: A fascinating approach to the First World War, focusing on the facial injuries unit... more, the narrative driven by the memories (or nightmares) of one of the patients which gradually reveal the truth of what happened on the Front. Interesting to guess which real-life characters the protagonists are based on (Tonks, the artist who drew the 'before and after' portraits of the victims of facial injuries as a sort of medical archive, plays himself). I was less keen on the very modern dialogue - and even the modern mode of description - which jarred with my knowledge of how people spoke then and with the images that the novel should have conjured up. I was also slightly unconvinced by the surreal, redemptive ending, but perhaps this was the best (or only) means to tie up the narrative satisfactorily. Nevertheless, I raced through the novel in a matter of days! less

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