The Narrow Road To The Deep North (2014)
Who wrote it?
Richard Miller Flanagan (1961-; active 1985- ), born Tasmania, Australia. He grew up in the remote mining town of Roseberry on Tasmania's western coast, and was born with severe hearing loss which was corrected when he was six. He left school at 16 but returned to study at the University of Tasmania and then gained a Rhodes Scholarship to Worcester College, Oxford.
He began by writing non-fiction works, including several political works and a ghostwritten autobiography of Australian con-man John Friedrich, who killed himself in the middle of the book's writing. His first novel was 1994's Death of a River Guide, followed by the best-selling and much-lauded The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997). His third novel Gould's Book of Fish won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, before winning the Booker with this, his sixth novel. Along the way he has also written more non-fiction, some controversial, and worked in film, including co-writing for Baz Luhrmann's Australia (2008).
What's it about?
The Narrow Road to the Deep North tells the story of Dorrigo Evans, a famed war veteran and public figure in his later years, who considers his accolades to be unjustly earned. The novel reflects on major moments in his life, most centrally his role in the Australian Imperial Force during World War II and his regiment's internment as hard labourers on the notorious Burma Death Railway. In this period he is reluctantly installed as the commander of his regiment in the camp, and is forced into making numerous impossible choices that will inevitably lead to the death of his comrades. Against this is a constant thread focusing on his obsession with his brief affair with his uncle's wife, Amy, prior to the war, and his ongoing post-war infidelities to his wife and mother of his children, Ella.
The novel covers a lot of ground, largely centred on Evans' own self-hatred and lack of fulfulment in spite of his socially accepted "achievements", but also focuses on the ambiguities of war, and the difficulty of drawing neat lines between good and evil. The final section of the book reflects on differing fates of those impacted by their time on the Death Railway, including the Japanese commandant Nakamura who evades capture and eventually absolves himself of blame, and the brutal Korean "Goanna" who is hanged for his crimes despite an enduring belief that he was "only doing his job."
What I liked
The scope of this novel is broad, sweeping, and wide-ranging. It covers a lot of ground historically, though its core is firmly in Evans’ POW days. And it covers a whole lot in terms of themes, hard to fully enumerate here.
It’s a book that’s relentlessly shocking, graphic, and brutal, and yet the quality of the writing means that it’s never difficult.
It’s brilliant with ambiguity, never drawing easy conclusions and leaving many threads hanging, offering huge amounts of space for reflection.
The novels is dotted throughout with references to poetry (including in its title, of course) and the economy on display here is certainly reminiscent of the haikus which are most prominent. So much of its beauty is in what’s left unsaid.
Again, it feels somehow weird that one can read a novel so viscerally packed with the literal stench of rotting flesh, featuring more than one scene involving men drowning in faeces, and untold horrors beyond, and still come out largely with a sense of poeticism and beauty, but there you are.
It’s a rich evocation of a truly horrific reality, which while fiction can only be rooted in Flanagan’s father’s stories of his own experiences on the Railway. Yet it presents this reality as complex, in which no victim is perfect, no torturer entirely without a semblance of (perceived) rationality behind his actions, and ultimately nobody coming out of it remotely the same person as they went into it.
For me, the romantic and familial subplots, while certainly lesser than the POW centerpiece, still carried emotional weight and helped bring to life Dorrigo’s complexity and humanity.
It’s absolutely full of memorable scenes that will stick with you long after reading.
What I didn’t like
To be honest, there was very little to dislike for me in here. It was certainly not a “fun” read but it was an extremely enriching and moving one.
If I were to really grasp for issues, I’d say that few of the characters in the novel are anywhere near as fully-realised as Dorrigo, and many are perhaps only there as ciphers for us to compare and contrast with the central protagonist. That’s not necessarily a criticism though, since this is very much his story.
Food & drink pairings
Sour rice
That’s about it :(
Fun facts
This was the first year under the revised Booker rules which allowed any novel published in the English language to be submitted. Fears that this would lead to an immediate influx of AMERICANS proved largely unfounded, with only two making the shortlist and neither given much of a hope of success by the Booker bookies and critics prior to the ceremony.
Despite this, the critics were out in force in 2014, including Peter Carey who said that he felt the "particular cultural flavour" of what was a prize for Commonwealth and Irish writers would be lost.
While there's some validity in this, it's also easy to take issue with - the Booker seems to me by this point to have long since moved away from it's focus on the aftermath of Empire, which certainly dominated its early years, and opened up to a much broader range of stories from across the world - regardless of the nationality of the writer.
Not a fun story, but Flanagan's father was a prisoner on the Death Railway and this book, while fiction, is obviously a tribute to him and his stories. He specifically references the details provided by conversation with his dad:
"the nature of mud, the smell of rotting shin bone when a tropical ulcer has opened up, what sour rice tasted like for breakfast..."
Tragically, his father died the same day the completed manuscript was submitted.
Flanagan was the third Australian winner, following Thomas Keneally and Peter Carey (the latter twice)
Flanagan said he would spend his £50,000 winnings on “life”, as he was not wealthy and had as recently as 18 months ago considered trying to get work in the mines of northern Australia because he had spent so long on one book.
That's because he spent 12 years working on it, and apparently burned five "deficient" versions - which almost feels like an act worthy of Dorrigo Evans himself...
Speaking again of our central character, he was apparently largely based on Australian hero Edward "Weary" Dunlop.
The title is taken from the 17th century epic Oku no Hosomichi, the travel diary and magnum opus of Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō.
Vanquished Foes
Joshua Ferris (To Rise Again At a Decent Hour)
Karen Joy Fowler (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves)
Howard Jacobson (J)
Neel Mukherjee (The Lives of Others)
Ali Smith (How to Be Both)
I really remember enjoying the Karen Joy Fowler rather a lot. In general this feels like a reasonably heavyweight shortlist.
The 2014 Women's Prize (as of 2014, the "Baileys Women's Prize", replacing the old Orange Prize nomenclature after a year with no tile sponsor) went to Eimear McBride for A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, beating another strong list including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah and Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. No direct Booker crossover again but How To Be Both would appear on the 2015 list...
Context
In 2014:
ISIS / Daesh begins offensive in Iraq; declares caliphate
Disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370#
Ebola epidemic in West Africa kills more than 11000
Ukranian revolution after days of civil unrest in Kyiv
Russian annexation of Crimea
Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 shot down over Ukraine
Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in Nigeria
Election of Narendra Modi as Indian PM
Peshawar school massacre in Pakistan
US intervention in Syria
Ferguson riots in Missouri, US following shooting of Michael Brown
Scottish Independence referendum sees Scotland vote to remain part of the UK
Colorado becomes the first jurisdiction in the modern world to officially begin state-licensed sales of cannabis
Eurovision song contest won by Austrian drag artist Conchita Wurst
Brazil World Cup is won by Germany, who defeat the hosts 7-1 in the semi-finals
Opening of One World Trade Center in NYC, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere
Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything
Interstellar
Boyhood
Whiplash
The Lego Movie
Taylor Swift, 1989
St. Vincent, St. Vincent
Sia, 1000 Forms of Fear
Ed Sheeran, x
Life Lessons
Shades of grey, and that
Regrets, we’ve had a few…
Are we the bad guys??
Score
9.5
Easily up there with the best of the Bookers for me. Poetic, beautifully-written, complex, provocative and thought-provoking. Improbably, there are even a few laughs. A classic, and I must seek out more of Flanagan’s novels.
Ranking to date:
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) - 9.5
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981) - 9.5
Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee (1999) - 9.5
The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan (2014) - 9.5
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst (2004) - 9
Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively (1987) - 9
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (2008) - 9
Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth (1992) - 9
Oscar & Lucinda - Peter Carey (1988) - 9
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978) - 9
Life & Times of Michael K. - J. M. Coetzee (1983) - 9
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (1997) - 9
Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982) - 9
The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai (2006) - 9
Life of Pi - Yann Martel (2002) - 8.5
Bring Up The Bodies - Hilary Mantel (2012) - 8.5
The Bone People - Keri Hulme (1985) - 8.5
How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman (1994) - 8.5
Troubles - J.G. Farrell (1970, "Lost Booker") - 8.5
The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes (2011) - 8
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (2000) - 8
Possession - A. S. Byatt (1990) - 8
Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (2009) - 8
Saville - David Storey (1976) - 8
The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton (2013) - 8
The Sea - John Banville (2005) - 8
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell (1973) - 8
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (2003) - 7.5
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992) - 7.5
The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson (2010) - 7.5
Rites of Passage - William Golding (1980) - 7.5
The Gathering - Anne Enright (2007) - 7.5
True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey (2001) - 7.5
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) - 7.5
Last Orders - Graham Swift (1996) - 7
The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (1970) - 7
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer (1974) - 7
Holiday - Stanley Middleton (1974) - 7
Heat & Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) - 6.5
In a Free State* - V.S. Naipaul (1971) - 6.5
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle (1993) - 6
G. - John Berger (1972) - 6
The Famished Road - Ben Okri (1991) - 6
Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby (1969) - 5.5
The Ghost Road** - Pat Barker (1995) - 5.5
Staying On - Paul Scott (1977) - 5
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan (1998) - 5
Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner (1984) - 4.5
The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis (1986) - 4
*Read in later condensed edition.
**Third part of a trilogy of which I hadn’t read pts 1&2
Next up
Something a little different in the shape of Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings, as we roll into 2015 and my 50th Booker winner!
