Art and War: Pat Barker Talks About \'Toby\'s Room\'

The novelist Pat Barker is perhaps best known for her “Regeneration” trilogy about World War I, which comprises the novels “Regeneration,” “The Eye in the Door” and “The Ghost Road.” Her latest novel, “Toby's Room,” is also set during the Great War. In it, Elinor Brooke, a young artist studying under the professor Henry Tonks, tries to learn the fate of her brother Toby, a medical officer who is missing and presumed dead. In The New York Times Book Review, John Vernon wrote of Ms. Barker's novels about the war: “Like most good works of fiction, they're not so much about the events they depict as about the resonance of those events, the way certain actions ripple through people's lives.” In a recent e-mail interview , Ms. Barker discussed her use of historical figures in fiction, thinking about war from a feminine perspective and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Q.

“Toby's Room” features many of the same characters as your previous novel, “Life Class.” Did you know when you wrote the previous book that there would be a sequel?

A.

I wasn't thinking of a sequel when I finished “Life Class.” What changed my mind was the perception that the characters had a lot of life left in them, a lot of unresolved conflicts, and also I became interested in the Tonks pastel portraits of facially disfigured soldiers and in the whole area of facial reconstruction.

Q.

The two novels you published previous to “Life Class” - “Border Crossing” and “Double Vision” - didn't concern World War I. Did you always plan to return to the subject?

A.

N o, when I finished “The Ghost Road” I had no plans to return to the First World War, but I realized when I was working on “Double Vision” that many of the issues of representing war and trauma that are dealt with in that novel could be explored - perhaps more tellingly - by looking at the artists who painted the battlefields of the Western Front.

Q.

You regularly use historical figures in your fiction - from the famous, like the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, to lesser-knowns like the psychiatrist William Rivers and, in “Toby's Room,” Henry Tonks. How much do you try to recreate these characters based on research and how much do you consider them more pliable sources of inspiration for your own imagination?

A.

When writing about historical characters I try to be as accurate as possible, and in particular not to misrepresent the view they held. With a real histo rical figure you have to be fair, and this is not an obligation you have in dealing with your own creations, so it is quite different. I also tend to leave their sex lives out of it!

Ellen Warner Pat Barker

Q.

Tonks painted his portraits of disfigured soldiers for medical purposes. How does his work conflict with the feelings Elinor has about the war, and is that tension what drew you to Tonks as a character?

A.

I think what drew me to Tonks as a character - apart from his pivotal role in teaching virtually every British artist of the period - was the fact that he considered the pastel drawings to be his best work, but he also believed that they should never be shown, presumably out of a feeling that the privacy of the disfigured men and their families should be respected. He did not own the works, so though he could make his views known, he could not make the decision.

Elinor believed (along with Yeats) that the war was not a fit subject for artistic expression, though I suppose even Elinor would accept that medical illustration is necessary.

Q.

In a profile in The New Yorker, you said, “In the end, I think about war from a very feminine perspective. In all my books, there's a great emphasis on the long-term damage to the individual and to the family.” What role does Elinor's feminine perspective play in these particular books?

A.

Elinor's perspective on the war differs from most women's in the sense that she believed that women's exclusion from the political process meant that women ought to disassociate themselves from the war entirely. This is not a pacifist posi tion, since Elinor believes opposition to the war is no more warranted than support for it. It's very like the position Virginia Woolf puts forward in “Three Guineas.”

Very many women threw themselves into the war effort from feelings of patriotism or from a desire to support husbands, sons, lovers and brothers serving in the armed forces.

Q.

You have a degree in history from the London School of Economics. When did you know you would write fiction deeply rooted in history, and did you ever consider writing more academic nonfiction history?

A.

I wanted to be a novelist from a very early age - 11 or 12 - but I don't think I ever thought I would write historical fiction. I never thought I might write academic history because I simply wasn't good enough! And also I knew I wanted to write about sexual and family relationships as well.

Q.

Do you have any favorite books about Wor ld War I by other writers that you think are unfairly neglected and that more readers should know?

A.

“Undertones of War” by Edmund Blunden seems to get less attention than the memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, but it is a great book.