Rick Astley Rut / Regeneration (Pat Barker)

(NoBloggerLove post 3: Friday 6 July)

Conversational snippet, which proves that Wednesday night’s clubbing ordeal was, at least, not all for naught:

Friend: Michelle, I just feel like I’m in a rut.
Me: _____, things could be worse. At least you weren’t dancing to Rick Astley on the platform at Mambo Night, for example.
Friend: You have a point. I feel better now.

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(NoBloggerLove post 4: Saturday 7 July)

Regeneration is one of those books that makes me want to slap myself on the head after finishing it.

There’s a kind of seething frustration, a sort of “I can’t believe I spent all these years not having read Regeneration” sense of annoyed wonder at this book that I’ve deprived myself the pleasure of over a significant period of time, either through ignorance or apathy.

It happens occasionally enough to be just about right – any more frequently, and I’d worry about my ignorance; any less frequently, and I might start to miss that exciting feeling of making a find. It last happened some time in January, I think, when I heard Paul Simon’s Graceland for the first time, and again, there was this feeling, this vexation, that the rest of the world had spent years listening to Graceland, and I’d stupidly missed out.

If, like me, you like war poetry, especially Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, and think the idea of being a fly on the wall in the hospital where they met and where Sassoon received “treatment” for his opposition to WWI is intriguing; if you enjoy subtle, intelligent writing somewhat in the vein of The Remains Of The Day, which is, in my opinion, a showcase of the art of saying just enough and no more, and if you haven’t read Regeneration (I don’t know about the other two books in the trilogy yet, but I’ll definitely get to them ASAP), then you might just be heading for a slap on the head.