Life Class Book

This is the first volume of Pat Barker's second WW1 trilogy. I have managed to read the second volume (Toby's Room) first, so I have hastily read this to catch up. It revolves around a group of painters at the Slade and starts just before the War. The fictional characters are based on a real group of artists at The Slade at the time (Mark Gertler, Dora Carrington, Barbara Hiles, Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer and Christopher Nevinson). Elinor Brooke is Carrington, Kit Neville is a mix of Nevinson and Gertler, Paul Tarrant is a mix of Nash and Spencer. Their teacher Henry Tonks is one of the real life characters in the book and Ottoline Morrell and Augustus John show up as well.
The beginning of the book portrays the bohemian lifestyles the artists are leading based on the Slade and the coffee houses they inhabit. All is not particularly well for any of the characters; each has their own demons. Elinor struggles to be taken seriously as a female artist, she also has Paul and Kit pursuing her and can't really decide whether she wants both, one or the other or neither of them. Relationships come and go and there is a purposelessness about it.
The war then intrudes. Elinor, at this point in a relationship with Paul, decides to have nothing to do with the war. Paul is not allowed to fight because of his health and he joins and is a medical orderly near the front line. Kit also joins up and is a stretcher bearer. As always Barker pulls no punches and the medical descriptions are very graphic ranging from piles of amputated limbs and a rather too detailed description of a groin injury. There are interesting vignettes, especially the Quaker medical orderly who works with Paul for a while and Burton, the surgeon. The irony of war is obvious; a French soldier who has attempted suicide by shooting himself, is nursed back to health so he can be shot for desertion (suicide, or attempting it being considered desertion).
This is very much scene setting for the second novel (but having read the second I would say that). The novel moves along at a good pace and I read most of it in a day. Barker seems very at home writing about WW1 and she does it well.