Good story about art and love during WWI England. Raises some interesting questions, such as "What is art?" and "What should and should not be the subjects of art?" I was especially drawn to the protagonist's struggle to remain an artist and create while actively participating in the war. Barker depicts the opposite struggle just as well--the protagonist's girlfriend, safely tucked away in Bloomsbury, rejects the war and everything surrounding it, creating an insulated reality from which "pleasant art" is made. Very well written novel and a quick read.
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The whole world belonged to them because they were on their way to die.

In the spring of 1914, Paul struggles at Slade, the London art school, especially in life class. Coming from a northern working class background, he feels removed from the other students. But Elinor, one of the few women students welcomes him into her group of friends, which include Kit, a successful artist, and Teresa, one of the life models. All of their lives are turned upside down when war is declared and Kit and Paul sign on as ambulance drivers, Teresa disappears and Elinor stubbornly continues with her art.

This is the first book in a trilogy and, as such, I should almost wait until I've read the other two to say anything. Here, the most interesting character disappeared partway through and was never heard from again. I'm hoping she reappears because Teresa, scrappy Teresa with the troubled, dangerous husband and a determination to life her life, is far more interesting than Elinor, the upper class golden girl who attracts all the men. Still, this is a fascinating novel, describing everything from art school to how wounds were treated on and off the battleground (a lot of detail here, so be prepared). Barker's research may be exhaustive, but she deploys it in such a natural way. Looking forward to the next book in the trilogy. ( )

My reading for ANZAC this year.
Paul Tarrant enters the Slade School of Art in London in 1914 to pursue a degree in painting. He struggles to feel that he is developing and comments by his Life Class tutor only re-enforce this. He is attracted to a fellow student Elinor Brooke and impressed by her talent and passion for her work. She introduces him to a friend who models for the life class and embarks on an affair. It ends badly as she has a separated husband prone to violence. Elinor also introduces him to Kit Neville, who has completed his degree and is now working successfully as an artist.
At the outbreak of war the two men volunteer for the medical corps. They are stationed in Ypres and experience working on the front line.
The author successfully evokes life during this period. i was so taken with the characters, I immediately started on the sequel. ( )

A view into the estrangement caused by war, not only for those face to face with it but also for those at home. ( )

More than two decades ago I read the Regeneration Trilogy of novels by Pat Barker. They were all very good, in fact the final novel, The Ghost Road, won the Man-Booker Prize. They were set during the time of the Great War and most readers associate Barker with this war. She returns to it with Life Class, after more than a decade during which she published novels, including Another World, on more contemporary subjects.

Life Class is divided into two sections, the first of which opens with a scene in a life drawing class at the famous Slade School of Art in London. Readers are introduced to Paul Tarrant, a young student who apparently has some talent but is not progressing with his art at the rate that he or his teacher, the stern and overbearing Henry Tonks, would like. Paul has a friendship with, as well as some romantic interest in, his fellow student Elinor Brooke, who is also being wooed by recent Slade graduate and rising artistic star Kit Neville. The three, along with others from London’s art scene, frequent the Café Royal, where Paul meets and becomes involved with Teresa Halliday, an artists’ model whose physical charms and sexual frankness captivate him, despite his haunting sense that she is hiding something and despite the fact that her estranged husband stalks and threatens the lovers.

Near the end of the book’s first half, Paul, Kit, and Elinor are visiting her family’s country home when the news comes that war has finally broken out. Immediately discussions ensue as to how deeply and how soon England will become involved, who will enlist, and what all of this will mean to the future. The two parts of the novel, then, hinge neatly on the moment when World War I begins, the moment when Europe and the world are forever changed.

The second part is set primarily in Belgium where Paul has become a hospital orderly near the front. The story is told through letters between Elinor and Paul interspersed with sections of authorial narrative. The war is presented in quite revealing detail as Paul deals with the maimed and the dying in hospital. At the same time he rekindles his art by maintaining an atelier in a nearby village. This section is vivid and suspenseful with dramatic changes in Paul's life, his friendships with hospital comrades and the ultimate effects of the daily grind of the war.

Barker's fine writing style carries the first part while the dramatic developments in the second part take precedence. The combination makes this a worthwhile successor to her first trilogy and a great introduction to another one. ( )