The purpose of the seminar is to read two brilliant and less-well-known fictional accounts of how war enters the lives of ordinary people, and to think about ways war affects us all.
DESCRIPTION:
Billiards at Half Past Nine (1962), by Nobel Prize-winning German author Heinrich Böll, portrays the fictional lives of three generations of a pacifist German family whose world was shattered by the events of World War (WW) II. As architects who created spaces of beauty for human growth, they saw their work destroyed and their families fractured.
Regeneration (1991), by Pat Barker, is an historical novel based on accounts of officers sent to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh during WWI to be treated for shell shock (i.e., post-traumatic stress syndrome; PTSD). Among these officers were two poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, treated by W.H.R. Rivers who pioneered treatments for PTSD. The book deals with those who refused to participate in acts of war and the moral dilemmas they faced.
ROLE OF PARTICIPANTS: Participants will read the two novels and either lead a discussion on a section of a novel or make a presentation on a topic related to themes in the books.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR: Deborah Rubin taught English literature and is a psychotherapist. She is interested in human trauma and is immersed in traditions which shed light on these experiences.
