The Narrow Road To The Deep North - Richard Flanagan
The Narrow Road to The Deep North - Richard Flanagan
2014 Booker prize winner
Chronicles the life of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian Army Colonel and surgeon, captured during WWII and interred on the infamous death railway in Burma. There is more to the book than that, but in my opinion it suffers for the additions of a somewhat tedious love affair at the beginning and an even drearier and unbelievably coincidental series of events at the end.
That said, the heart of the story is the camp and the railway, and Flanagan's writing here is mesmerizing. His prose is elegant and unforced in describing the absolute horrors of the Pow's lives. The ulcers, infections, malaria, and cholera. The gangrene, and the squalor they are forced to live in, and the savagery of the Japanese officers and Korean guards who oversee them and ultimately work them to death are illustrated unflinchingly. The story of the camp transcends ideas of good and evil. Flanagan deftly calls everything into question. All of Evans' ideas of morality, purpose, fate, justice, and compassion are subsequently examined and shattered.
In one poignant scene Evans argues vigorously that the men should not be worked day and night, that they will die. Major Nakamura the commander of the camp, queries : "Your British Empire, you think it did not need non-freedom, Colonel? It was built bridge by bridge of non-freedom." (paraphrased)
Yet Evans holds on. He continues to do what is right for the men under his command. In all things, he places their needs before his. He sacrifices everything he has to save them and spare them whatever suffering he can. A strange thing because Evan's ultimately seems to believe in very little. Certainly not himself. He only holds on to his memories of his brief love affair, torn apart by his leaving for the war, and subsequently eradicated by an unfortunate turn of events relayed to him in a letter during his imprisonment.
Eventually the surviving prisoners are freed and attempt to return to their lives. Flanagan weaves a sort of kaleidoscopic vision of the prisoners, and even the Japanese officers, as they re-enter a world that has moved on without them. It takes many of them the rest of their lives to come to terms with what happened to them. Some die without ever managing to make sense of their lives. Evan's himself is chronically disconnected from his life. It is difficult to tell if it is the horrors of the camp that haunt him, or the loss of his ideal of love.
Overall a good book. One problem for me was the unlike-ability of the main character. I just could not bring myself to care much about him or what happened to him. He seemed "buggered" from the beginning and didn't seem to want to do much about it. This theme of inaction in the book was relentless and frustrating. Much more interesting and endearing were the men under Evan's command. Darky Gardiner, Jimmy Bigelow, Bill Rainbow and the motley rest of them were brilliantly drawn splashes of real humanity in an otherwise bleak story. Also the scenes involving the Japanese officers are intensely interesting. Their private conversations are fascinating, chilling, enviable, and pitiable all at the same time. They, just as much as the POW's, are prisoners of the railway and have to find a way to categorize this experience in a way that, even if it doesn't make sense, allows them to go on with what they feel they must do.
My other problem with the book was it's use of chance and coincidence to propel the story forward. I like a good coincidence as much as anyone else and am not against a writer making clever use of it to a good end. But this got a little ridiculous.
Despite my issues I can see why this book was an award winner, and Flanagan's prose is such a treat to read that, for most readers, it will probably more than make up for any detracting factors or plot problems.
I would give it 7 stars out of ten.
