The Return of the Solider

Last night we met to discuss The Return of the Solider by Rebecca West. Our discussion was based upon the following questions:

• If you were to loose your memory like Chris, and return to a time in your life when you were truly happy, when (what time in your life) would you return to?
• Does society associate mental health issues with loss of the humanity of people, and especially loss of masculinity of men?
• Is it always important to know the truth?
• Which of the characters are deluding themselves most?
• Who is in love with whom in the novel?
• At the end of the book is Chris going to be made happier for regaining his memory? Is he ‘cured’ as Kitty says?

Rebecca West had an extra marital love affair with H.G. Wells and regularly met him on Monkey Island, which also features in the novel. Monkey Island is near Bray-on-Thames and has its own website which can be found here.

During the discussion we also came up with the idea of starting a blog about our book club! And this is what we’ve come up with!!