The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

By Philippa Tracy

Australian writer Richard Flanagan’s book won the Booker Prize in 2014 and was this summer screened as five-part series on the BBC. The title refers to a classic set of Japanese travel writings and reflections on life, written by 17th century poet Matsuo Basho. Basho’s journey across Japan is long and difficult. Flanagan’s protagonist, Dorrigo Evans, looks back on his life and a different kind of journey, one that is equally reflective, long and painful.

Much of the novel is set during WWII when Evans is in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Southeast Asia. Evans, like Flannagan’s father, and thousands of other Australian POWs, is forced to work on the Burma Railway, built to link Thailand and Burma, now Myanmar. It was also known as the Death Railway because of the brutal conditions suffered by those working on it and tens of thousands of deaths: 90,000 Asian civilian workers and 16,000 prisoners of war. When the railway is completed, and makes its first journey in 1943, the narrator tells us, “it will be past endless beds of human bones that will include the remains of one in three of those Australians.”

Evans is a doctor and, as such, is in a slightly more privileged position than many of the men. Because of his ability to communicate, to empathise and command the men, he is able to ensure that many of them survive. After the war, he is treated as the hero he was to the men, but is never able to truly deal with the impact the experience had on him. He is scarred by the “suffering, the deaths, the sorrow, the abject, pathetic pointlessness of such immense suffering by so many.” Images of the war haunt him. The spirit of the men and their resilience is vividly described and unbearably painful to witness. Each “had to answer to the terrible drumming.”

The omniscient third person narrator tells us the story, often from Evans’ point of view. But the book moves between perspectives and time periods from Evans’ childhood to later life. Evans is a fan of poetry and much of the book is also devoted to discussions about it between Japanese officer Major Nakamura and his boss Colonel Koto. They discuss Basho’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which Kota believes sums up “the genius of the Japanese spirit.” And while Nakamura, after the war, believes he is a good man, there is no attempt to excuse any act of brutality. There is, instead, a fatalism not just to Evans’ character, but to the novel: “this violence had always existed and would never be eradicated, men would die under the boot and fists and horror of other men until the end of time.” This idea still seems to resonate 80 years later.

The book is also at its heart a love story. Evans is in love with his uncle’s wife, Amy. During the war they have a passionate affair. He recites Tennyson’s poem Ulysses to her and tells her that words were “the first beautiful thing” he ever knew. He finds his wife, Ella, dull and his marriage, “a profound solitude”. He does what he sees as his duty remaining married to Ella while sleeping with other women and searching for Amy.

This beautiful novel is considered by many a literary masterpiece. It is primarily about what it is to be human and the failings that involves. It is deeply moving. And if you have not read it, I highly recommend it before watching the TV series.