The Eye in the Door is a novel by Pat Barker, first published in 1993, and forming the second part of the Regeneration trilogy.

The Eye in the Door is set in London, beginning in mid-April, 1918, and continues the interwoven stories of Dr William Rivers, Billy Prior, and Siegfried Sassoon begun in Regeneration. It ends some time before the conclusion of the First World War later the same year. The third part of the trilogy, The Ghost Road, continues the story.

The narrative is driven by action, balanced by lengthy and well-crafted dialogues, many of which simmer with the cat-and-mouse tension of doctor-patient consultations. Description is kept close to a functional minimum.

The first and eponymous part of the Regeneration trilogy finishes somewhat inconclusively with Sassoon being cleared to return to active service on the Western Front. Several questions remain unanswered. What happens to Sassoon? How does Rivers resolve his personal conflicts over the contradictory goals of war and medicine? What resolution lies in store for the couple Billy Prior and Sarah Lumb? The Eye in the Door goes a long way to answering these questions, and raises still more.

Whereas Regeneration is an anomalous, but not unique, mixture of fact and fiction, The Eye in the Door acknowledges real events, including the campaign against homosexuals male and female being waged that year by right-wing MP Noel Pemberton Billing, but remains consistently within the realm of fiction. This grants Barker more freedom to explore her characters and their actions, the descriptions of which might be considered slanderous if attributed to real people. A major theme of the book, Prior's intense and indiscriminate bisexuality, is effectively contrasted with Rivers's tepid asexuality and Sassoon's pure homosexuality. Greater fictional scope also permits a deeper and more fascinating treatment of the complex psychological, political, and professional life of the charismatic and enigmatic central character, Billy Prior. This makes the book more purposeful and formally coherent than its predecessor.

The Eye in the Door subtly draws out some of the contradictions that war brings forth, acts that would normally be immoral become moral, the sane are treated as mad, and while a fight is waged for 'freedom' injustice and prejudice continue to flourish throughout England. The emergent conflicts shared by the main characters - some of which are artfully developed from incidental and easily overlooked minor aspects of the first book - make for intrigue that is only partially developed in this book. This sense of incompleteness, of the author holding something back, seems to presuppose a third volume in the series, perhaps calling into question the integral wholeness of this book as a stand-alone work.

[edit] Real people who appear in the Regeneration trilogy

Winston Churchill

Charles Dodgson

Robert Graves

Henry Head

Edward Marsh

Wilfred Owen

William Rivers

Robert Baldwin Ross

Bertrand Russell

Siegfried Sassoon

Harold Sherwood Spencer

Lewis Yealland

成名前“靠退稿笺打发日子”的女作家帕特·巴克（Ｐａｔ Ｂａｒｋｅｒ）意外赢获今年的英国布克小说奖，令英伦书界倍感惊奇，因为获奖名单揭晓前被认为最有望中奖的应该是９月间推出新作《摩尔人最后的叹息》（ｔｈｅ Ｍｏｏｒ’ｓ Ｌａｓｔ Ｓｉｇｎ）的小说家萨尔曼·拉什迪（Ｓａｌｍａｎ Ｒｕｓｈｄｉｅ）。

１９４３年出生于英格兰北方的巴克出身劳动阶层，曾就读于伦敦经济学院，从事文学创作前以教书为业。其祖母、母亲和姐姐都是吃苦耐劳的清洁工，从小由开小食店的祖父母养大的巴克对英国劳动妇女有着深厚情感，自１９８２年出版处女作《联盟街》（Ｕｎｉｏｎ Ｓｔｒｅｅｔ）后，她一直以劳动妇女的悲惨命运为题材进行写作，相继写出了《炸塌你的房子》（Ｂｌｏｗ Ｙｏｕｒ Ｈｏｕｓｅ Ｄｏｗｎ）和《世纪的女儿》（Ｔｈｅ Ｃｅｎｔｕｒｙ’ｓ Ｄａｕｇｈ－ｔｅｒ）等小说。她于１９９１年起开始以第一次世界大战为背景写作，先后出版了《再生》（Ｒｅｇｅｎｅｒａｔｉｏｎ）、《门里的眼睛》（ｔｈｅ Ｅｙｅ Ｉｎ ｔｈｅ Ｄｏｏｒ）和《幽灵之路》（Ｔｈｅ Ｇｈｏｓｔ Ｒｏａｄ）小说三部曲。今年出版的《幽灵之路》为她赢得了众所瞩目的布克奖，并获得２万英镑奖金。她认为，创作此小说目的并不是让人们感受战争的恐怖，而是要人们思考为什么会发生战争以及战火带给人类社会的灾祸。她说，作品是受当年参加过战争的祖父激发而写就。

巴克是继Ａ．Ｓ拜阿特（Ａ．Ｓ Ｂｙａｔｔ）１９９０年获布克奖以后，又一个获此奖的女小说家。她在英国文坛甚有影响，处女作《联盟街》曾被改编成电影《斯坦利和艾丽丝》（Ｓｔａｎｌｅｙ Ａｎｄ Ｉｒｉｓ），由著名影星简·方达和罗伯特·德尼罗主演。今年与她同获布克奖提名的除拉什迪外，还有３年前的布克奖得主巴里·昂斯沃思（Ｂａｒｒｙ Ｕｎｓｗｏｒｔｈ）、澳大利亚小说家蒂姆·温顿（Ｔｉｍ Ｗｉｎｔｍ）和南非作家贾斯廷·卡特赖特（Ｊｕｓｔｉｎ Ｃａｒｔｗｒｉｇｈｔ）。

全称布克·麦康奈尔小说奖（Ｂｏｏｋｅｒ Ｍｃ－Ｃｏｎｎｅｌｌ Ｐｒｉｚｅ ｆｏｒ Ｆｉｃｔｉｏｎ）的布克奖设立于１９６９年，评奖经费由英国布克·麦康奈尔跨国公司提供，由５位资深文学评论家组成的评委对每年在英国和英联邦国家内用英文出版的小说进行评选，初次选出１４１部，经过评委６个月审读，再推举出６部（有时可达８部）入围终评，最后评出一名获奖者，奖金２万英镑。

年选一次的布克奖虽常因评奖结果引起争议，但也因其得奖作家的非凡功力而被认为当今英伦最有权威性的文学大奖，历届得主中不乏获奖后又获诺贝尔文学奖的纳丁·戈迪默和威廉·戈尔丁，以及因作品被拍成电影而名扬全球的实力派作家，比如《辛德勒名单》作者汤姆斯·基尼利和《余日残恋》作者石黑一雄。

Pat Barker

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Pat Barker (born May 8 1943[1]) is an English writer and historian. She published her first novel, Union Street, in 1982 and has since won critical acclaim for her First World War series, the Regeneration trilogy, a fictionalised account of the wartime experiences of the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, the psychiatrist W. H. R. Rivers, and the fictional protagonist, Lt. Billy Prior. The final book in the trilogy, The Ghost Road, won the Booker Prize upon its publication.

In 1965 Barker completed a degree in international history at the London School of Economics[2] and subsequently studied at Durham University marrying David Barker, a now retired Zoology Professor at the institution. Their daughter Anna Ralph published her own novel The Floating Island (Hutchinson, ISBN 10: 0091795559) in 2007.

Barker's biographer is Sharon Montieth.[3].

[edit] Books

Union Street (1982)

Blow Your House Down (1984)

The Century's Daughter (also known as Liza's England; 1986)

The Man Who Wasn't There (1989)

Regeneration Trilogy :

Regeneration (1991)

The Eye in the Door (1993)

The Ghost Road (1995)

Another World (1998)

Border Crossing (2001)

Double Vision (2003)

Life Class (2007)