The Eye in the Door

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The Eye in the Door
Author Pat Barker
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) War novel
Publisher Viking Press
Publication date 1993
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Preceded by Regeneration
Followed by The Ghost Road

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

v • d • e
Works by Pat Barker
Novels:

Union Street • Blow Your House Down • The Century's Daughter • The Man Who Wasn't There • Regeneration • The Eye in the Door • The Ghost Road • Another World • Border Crossing • Double Vision • Life Class