Pat Barker
Pat Barker
Patricia Mary W. "Pat" Barker CBE, FRSL is an English writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken. In 2012, The Observer named the Regeneration Trilogy as one of "The 10 best historical novels"...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth8 May 1943
anyway detachment ideal identity novelists quite relationship short stopping total
That balance between involvement and detachment is what novelists do. It's the ideal relationship between a novelist and a character, I think, total involvement and identity and empathy, stopping short of being autobiographical - in my case, anyway - but also quite detached.
familiar fascinates novelists sincerity
My grandmother's first husband was a spiritualist medium. What fascinates me about that is the balance between conviction and sincerity and trickery, which is also something that novelists are very familiar with.
belong classics family hands laid library public sort
I didn't belong to the sort of family where the children's classics were laid on. I went to the public library and read everything I could get my hands on.
author characters
What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.
attention great less memoirs robert seems war
'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.
accurate characters dealing figure historical obligation particular quite
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 historical 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.
academic age early good historical history might novelist simply
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!
terrible
Being a writer is a poverty trap. I mean, it's a terrible profession.
slovenly
When I'm writing the first draft, I'm writing in a very slovenly way: anything to get the outline of the story on paper.
area became changed characters facial finished interested left life mind portraits sequel soldiers unresolved
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.
jobs mean thinking
We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive.
jobs fighting mind
The way I see it, when you put the uniform on, in effect you sign a contract. And you don't back out of a contract merely because you've changed your mind. You can still speak up for your principles, you can still argue against the ones you're being made to fight for, but in the end you do the job.
murder killing
Murder is only killing in the wrong place.
running war believe
Sometimes, in the trenches, you get the sense of something, ancient. One trench we held, it had skulls in the side, embedded, like mushrooms. It was actually easier to believe they were men from Marlborough's army, than to think they'd been alive a year ago. It was as if all the other wars had distilled themselves into this war, and that made it something you almost can't challenge. It's like a very deep voice, saying; 'Run along, little man, be glad you've survived