2018- January - Life Class - Pat Barker

In April 2014 we read 'Toby's Room' by the same author. The same people feature here. This is what I wrote about that book:

A grim book about injuries to soldiers in WW1. I will remember it. The best part is the descriptions of the scenery. It should just be called 'Toby'. Toby and Elinor are siblings. Toby was a twin and Elinor in some respects replaces the twin that died. She is an artist and the people in the story are artists - Paul, Catherine and Neville. Elinor ends up working in a hospital drawing the mutilated faces of soldiers along with Professor Tonks. The whole book is about Elinor's search to find the truth about Toby's death. She discovers that Toby was queer and died to avoid humiliation. I didn't like the slipping from one scene to another within a paragraph - clever perhaps, but disconcerting. Marks - 7? downgrade due to unnecessary homosexuality.

Life Class precedes Toby's Room.

Now that I have finished it I don't know what to think of it. For the first half I was thinking that I had already read it as it was so much like Toby's room with the artists and Tonks.  Then It is about Paul working as a nurse in France and his life there, and his relationship with Elinor. Is it supposed to be investigating what love is? It ends somewhat abruptly with nothing decided about Paul's future. 
It was well written and flowed well. The descriptions were very vivid.
Mark: 5



Maggies Review:

Life Class - Pat Barker

Feb 2018

This novel revisits the period of WW1 and centres around 3 students, who at the outbreak of war are studying (or have recently studied) at the Slade School of Art. One of the married life models – Teresa- also features in an intense but short lived affair with Paul, (who eventually recognises his feelings for Elinor just as he leaves for the front as a ward orderly - having been rejected for military service on health grounds).

Elinor is from a well-to- do family, as is Kit Neville a talented war artist, who declares his unrequited love for her. Paul is from a more humble background pursuing his artistic ‘dream’ in an attempt to escape his working class northern coal-mining background.

The other significant relationships are between Elinor and her friend Catherine who is of German Jewish descent. As soon as the war begins her father is interned. Through this we learn of the plight of both Jews and Germans at this time.

Through Paul’s work as a ward orderly and ambulance driver we learn much of the conditions at Ypres with some graphic description of death and horrific injuries inflicted on the young men involved. We also see this through the eyes of the ill fated Quaker lad Lewis who works with Paul at Ypres.

I very much enjoyed reading this – it made me want to revisit Toby’s Room by the same author which describes the same period with a focus on Elinor’s brother Toby.

There are some beautifully evocative descriptions :

Challenged, Paul let himself fall backwards into the murky depths. All around him now were white struggling legs. Neville swam towards him, arms sheathed in silver bubbles, hair floating from side to side as he twisted and turned. P45

As well as those which really shock - particularly the description of the shelling of the supply chain and ambulance convey as they move to the front and the subsequent journey of the injure including Lewis back to the hospital.

At no point did I feel that Elinor really cared deeply for Paul. She is portrayed as having only one real love in her life which is her Art – persisting in enquiring about Paul’s ‘work’ meaning his painting when in fact he is worked into the ground tending the awful injuries of the fallen. Not even the shelling of the Belgian town when she is visiting Paul really seems to give her any true understanding of what is happening.

The letters between Paul and Elinor provide a useful device to convey the horrors of the trenches and the Front at Ypres. But we also see from these how little Elinor allows the situation to impinge on her. She doesn’t even respond to Paul’s epistles in a timely manner. Let alone knit socks or wind bandages! As a result I found myself rather annoyed by her self- centredness. It made me wonder how many other people at that time would have tried to ignore the war in this way.

All in all I found this a compelling read – descriptions that brought people and places alive and some believable characters struggling with the events of the time.

My score : 9