Life Class represents her best work since The Ghost Road, for which she received the 1995 Booker Prize…As she did in her "Regeneration" trilogy, Ms. Barker conjures up the hellish terrors of the war and its fallout with meticulous precision. Grievously injured soldiers crying out for morphine that does not exist; field surgeons tossing bits of damaged flesh into buckets; civilians scurrying for safety as bombs torpedo their homes and gardens; columns of rain-drenched men marching toward the front in "gleaming capes and helmets, like mechanical mushrooms"—such images and the ineradicable memory of these sights are captured with unsparing clarity by Ms. Barker in these pages, as are the less visible scars they leave on the psyches of soldiers, doctors and witnesses alike.
—The New York Times
Life Class
Narrated by Russell Boulter
Pat BarkerUnabridged — 7 hours, 34 minutes
Life Class
Narrated by Russell Boulter
Pat BarkerUnabridged — 7 hours, 34 minutes
Audiobook (Digital)
Related collections and offers
Overview
Editorial Reviews
Barker has constructed this novel with a daringly languid plot. That the story remains so engaging is a testament to her elegant style and psychological acuity…The lessons in Life Class aren't easy, but they're deeply affecting and necessary.
—The Washington Post
Set initially in 1914 before the start of WWI, Barker's first novel since 2004's Double Vision tells the story of two students at London's Slade School of Fine Art, Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke, along with that of Kit Neville, a promising young painter. Paul begins an affair with Teresa Halliday, a troubled artist's model, and Kit woos Elinor, but both men rush off to the Continent at the outset of hostilities to work with the wounded. The author's unflinching eye for detail and her supple prose create an undeniably powerful narrative, but her skills cannot compensate for a weak plot. What appear to be critical story lines (Paul's affair with Teresa, Kit's painting career) are almost abandoned once Paul and Elinor become lovers. And the book's main theme-war's impact on art and love-pales in comparison with the tragic experiences of those who fight and die in the conflict. Despite riveting passages depicting the waste and horror of WWI, this effort falls short of the standard set by Barker's magisterial Regeneration trilogy, the last of which, The Ghost Road, won the Booker Prize. (Jan.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationBarker returns to the World War I setting of her award-winning Regeneration trilogy (Regeneration; The Eye in the Door; and The Ghost Road). It's the spring of 1914, and Paul Tarrant, a working-class lad from the North of England, is enrolled at London's Slade School of Art. He's attracted to a fellow student, the beautiful and self-contained Elinor Brooke, who has also drawn the romantic attentions of Kit Neville, a recent Slade graduate and rising star on the art scene. Instead of pursuing Elinor, Paul embarks on an affair with Teresa, an artist's model with an abusive, jealous husband. When war breaks out, Paul and Kit volunteer for the Belgian Red Cross, while Elinor remains in London to focus on her painting. Although Barker aims to make a profound statement about the role of art in a time of war, her book sadly lacks the devastating power and beauty of the Regeneration trilogy. Thinly drawn characters appear and disappear for no apparent reason; there are few scenes about the actual process of making art, an odd omission; and Barker half-heartedly throws in psychological suspense that goes nowhere. All in all, a muddle. Buy only for larger fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ9/15/07.]
—Wilda Williams
Set initially in 1914 before the start of WWI, Barker's first novel since 2004's Double Vision tells the story of two students at London's Slade School of Fine Art, Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke, along with that of Kit Neville, a promising young painter. Paul begins an affair with Teresa Halliday, a troubled artist's model, and Kit woos Elinor, but both men rush off to the Continent at the outset of hostilities to work with the wounded. The author's unflinching eye for detail and her supple prose create an undeniably powerful narrative, but her skills cannot compensate for a weak plot. What appear to be critical story lines (Paul's affair with Teresa, Kit's painting career) are almost abandoned once Paul and Elinor become lovers. And the book's main theme-war's impact on art and love-pales in comparison with the tragic experiences of those who fight and die in the conflict. Despite riveting passages depicting the waste and horror of WWI, this effort falls short of the standard set by Barker's magisterial Regeneration trilogy, the last of which, The Ghost Road, won the Booker Prize. (Jan.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationThe Booker Prize-winning British author (Double Vision, 2003, etc.) returns to the subject of World War I, treated so memorably in her celebrated Regeneration trilogy. This is a story of hopeful ambitions and relationships redirected and reshaped by a climate of catastrophic change. Early chapters set in London chart the experiences of Paul Tarrant, in flight from his youth spent in the working-class north and his family's unhappiness, studying at the Slade Gallery, where-a demanding professor harshly implies-Paul will not transform himself into an artist. Parallel disappointments and rejections accumulate quickly. In a scene reminiscent of Dostoevsky, Paul attempts to protect a drunken teenaged girl from a well-dressed older man who appears to be stalking her-and cannot tell whether he succeeds. Paul fails to connect romantically with his virginal classmate Elinor Brooke, and a brief sexual relationship with artist's model Teresa Halliday, the victim of her abusive estranged husband, also goes awry. Then, the War-hitherto a threatening presence rumbling in the background-takes Paul and another Slade classmate, wealthy, supremely confident Kit Neville, to Belgium, where Paul labors as an orderly in a battlefield "hospital" in Ypres, two miles from the front. Exchanges of letters between Paul and Elinor, as well as her harrowing "visit" to Ypres during which she surrenders her closely guarded virginity, and barely escapes a violent bombing attack, render the horrors of combat with (Barker's trademark) meticulously researched detail and piercing clarity. Secondary characters' experiences likewise amplify into lucid microcosms of the global cataclysm that shadows every individual life. AndBarker pulls strings expertly, leading to a heart-wrenching anti-resolution perfectly expressed by Elinor's guilty, self-lacerating rejection of Paul's commitment to serve and sacrifice. Mature, unsentimental and searching. One of this excellent writer's finest books. Agent: Gillon Aitken/Gillon Aitken Associates Ltd
Beautiful and evocative . . . a coming-of-age story that transcends the individual and gestures to the fate of a generation.” —People“Life Class possesses organic power and narrative sweep. . . . Barker conjures up the hellish terrors of the war and its fallout with meticulous precision.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times“Here, as in her best fiction, Barker unveils psychologically rich characters. . . and resists the trappings of a neat love story, reminding us once again that in art and life we remain infinitely mysterious.” —San Francisco Chronicle“A book so alive from page to page that it's difficult to put down.” —Seattle Times
In one of the most brilliant novels of the past decade (by a previous winner of the Booker Prize), a group of young artists studies under Britain's most acclaimed master. They go out after class, forming friendships they think will last forever. Then WWI breaks out. Some become orderlies or work on ambulances. None stop drawing and painting. The novel is broken into short sections, and listeners are treated to a vision of art in a wartime that no one could have been prepared for. It's difficult to imagine anyone but Russell Boulter reading this. Nothing escapes him. He knows how to create suspense and when breathiness is called for, and he understands the frequent need for a moment's silence. R.R. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169902860 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 01/29/2008 |
| Series: | Life Class Trilogy , #1 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
1
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Life Class"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Pat Barker.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin UK.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Videos
