Title: The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Author: Richard Flanagan
Tags: #pow #bookerprize #australia
Discovered: Man Booker Prize winner 2014
Where read: (In part)
The Word's Shortlist view:
"A good book, he had concluded, leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your soul"
My one regret with this book is that I didn't pick it up when it was first shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Much of the reviews for the novel, although gushing, focused primarily on the explicit descriptions of life as a POW on the railway in Burma. The truth is that the real genius of this book lies in the way these sections are told with a clever narrator switch that a lesser author just couldn't pull off.
This is the story of Dorrigo Evans, an young Australian surgeon who finds himself propelled into war and ultimately into incarceration by the Japanese on the infamous Siam to Burma railroad which was so key to Japan's aggressive empire building. Flanagan doesn't hold back on intimate and forensic detail
The novel takes us on the full journey from Dorrigo's youth and a passionate pre-War affair right through the horror of War and beyond. Flanagan plays with pace effectively, the hellish mundanity of life on the railroad unfolding slowly and methodically in a numb nightmare.
Truth be told the prose in the novel is both harrowing and lyrical in equal measure. Graphic descriptions of disease torn inmates and cruel torture by Korean guards are balanced by heart breakingly beautiful passages which keep you wanting to read on and on. Really, you need to read this book.
Watch Richard Flanagan discuss the book in an interview here: http://youtu.be/GAJ1v3YPhpU
Instagram: your_next_read
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