The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan won the Booker prize for 2014, an award that was probably deserved. Much has been made of the author’s a relationship with his father, who was a prisoner of war in southeast Asia when the Japanese were building their railroad to the north using forced labor. Approaching the book as a tale of this war time experience would be a mistake, however. The personal experience of the 1940s is most certainly there, but it is by no means the totality of the book.

On the contrary, The Narrow Road to the Deep North presents several lives in all their contemporary complexity. The style is varied, sometimes disturbingly disconnected.  Often there are short sentences delivered like punches, and then long passages that seem to meditate around the perimeters of their interest, perhaps without seeming to engage in content. But don't take any of this as criticism (except, of course, in the literary sense): it's merely an attempt at observation and description. When a reader approaches a book, it's often useful to know what not to expect.

A character who remain central to the novel is an individual called Dorrigo Evans. We follow his life, his loves and, to some extent, his profession. Married to Ella, he loves Amy. And, for Dorrigo Evans, it seems that however fleeting the thought, however inconsequential the encounter, it is destined to be remembered, to be recorded and then recalled when least considered, if, and only if, Dorrigo Evans chooses to do so. Thus, life seems to aggregate around these characters to create a shell of allusion, association and chance, mixed with a fixer of self.

The wartime experiences are indeed central, however. They are not a blow-by-blow account of conflict, nor of the confinement which ensues after capture. There is something of the day-to-day suffering via forced labor and deprivation that these men suffered, some in the extreme, but more important is the continual challenge of survival, the daily challenge of reaching tomorrow. How these men cope with their privatization is central to Richard Flanagan's approach. And by the end of their captivity, everyone involved remains forever changed, forever scarred by the experience. Except for the legion who died, of course, for perhaps they were by then beyond suffering.

It's not a one-sided account, by the way. Richard Flanagan attempts to enter the minds of the captors, the Japanese soldiers who are responsible for creating the conditions that impose suffering on the captives. The attempt is not totally convincing, but the story of the Korean guard, conscripted to do Japan's dirty work, with the same level of choice as the captives he helps to torture and who is eventually tried for war crimes, is one of the most successful, powerful and memorable aspects of her book. And then there is the amputation episode… Realism rears its features here, and they are vivid.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is not a novel that can be reviewed easily. It is complex, involved, subtle and involving. These are characters – particularly Dorrigo Evans – who seem utterly credible. We are interested in their lives, because they make mistakes, imagine themselves in the wrong while doing something right. This makes them as vulnerable as the real people they never quite become. But they get do on with it. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan is a beautiful book.