The narrow road to the deep north - Richard Flanagan

The last book I read that was a winner of the Booker prize was Roddy Doyle's "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" and I didn't enjoy it.  Maybe it was the consistent, post-modern vignettes that drove me mad, maybe I was too immature to understand.  I had read "The Commitments" and "The Snapper" and enjoyed them somewhat, so I thought that I'd enjoy it.  I didn't.  I remember the brouhaha that surrounded Arundhati Roy's "The God of small things" and was tempted to read it, but no.  "The true history of the Kelly gang" seemed absurd and I consciously skipped "Life of Pi" just as I skipped the movie.

I don't read a lot of fiction, however, I make sure that I read at least one book a year.  So I tend to pick something that I will enjoy.  That hasn't worked so well for me in all honesty.  I did enjoy "Moby Dick" a few years ago, but it was difficult wading through those chapters on 19th century whaling techniques - worth it, but hard going. I chose a stupid Ben Elton book one year - figuring it would be light and funny - it was badly written and dull.  In July I read John Le Carré's "The perfect spy", a 700 page semi-autobiographical spy novel that was very well written but a bit sentimental for me; frankly not enough prestidigitation to keep one enthralled.  I wanted a thoughtful spy book and should've picked another of the George Smiley books - alas, another bad choice.

So, Christmas arrives and my brother obviously got 3 for the price of 1 (he probably kept the steak knives) and he emphatically told my Dad, brother and me that "The narrow road to the deep north" was a must read and gave each of us a copy.  So I have embarked upon Flanagan's book.

My initial impression was at how different the writing was.  No talking marks here, not even in rapid-fire dialogue sections.  I thought that maybe he'd get rid of commas and apostrophes too, maybe capital letters, after all, this is modern fiction.  Some sentences just don't make sense - I re-read them to make sure.

"They were the first beautiful thing I ever knew, Dorrigo Evans said." (pg. 14)

Here he is referring to Tennyson's poem 'Ulysses' and a woman named Amy.  They are two different things.  Maybe it's typo, but a number of things like this occur.  The lead characters name 'Dorrigo' seems unbelievable, especially as it is shortened to Dorry - which sounds to me like a dottily old lady who plays the organ in church.

This may just be a curse of not reading enough fiction.  So, I'm ignoring them and moving onwards; and justly so because the book becomes a little engrossing.  The sections set in the Japanese concentrations camps in Burma/Thailand are enthralling.  The great themes of human weakness and human moral virtue come into play early one hundred and fifty pages in you're hooked.  

Dorrigo is an outwardly virtuous (though privately immoral) leader of men, based on Weary Dunlop, in the hell-hole of a Burmese prison camp; yet he despises virtue as he is aware of his deep Human frailty.  Complex psychological stuff, indeed I found Dorrigo, the chief protagonist, neither a likeable or a believable character.  This is largely due to his almost incoherent, vaguely philosophical ramblings.

The affair chapters and the particularly the dialogue surrounding the affair (with his Uncle's wife, Amy) was sad - indeed demonstrative as a precursor to our current social malaise.  As I was reading I recalled CS Lewis's excellent essay 'We have "No right to Happiness'''.  Lewis is on the money here in the article and the affair in this book is an archetype of what he wrote about.  I found it difficult reading; sentimental nonsense juxtaposed with unnecessary crassness, and wanted to move forward in time to the POW experience which I found more engaging.

When the POW sections got going, they too were hard to read.  Very graphic descriptions of the life in a Burmese/Thai prison camp.  The apex of this disturbing narrative is the violent beating and tragic death of Darky Gardiner (who is hinted at being Dorrigo's nephew later in the book).  After reaching this climax we focus on the post-war lives and deaths of various characters.  There is an interesting inclusio (meaning structural brackets - to borrow a word from Biblical literary criticism) - the beginning structural bracket is around page 115 where we have a conversation between Japanese officers, Nakamura and Koto.  This conversation primes us for the Japanese side of the war story.  It sets the scene for the end bracket which follows particularly Nakamura after the war and the existential angst that he went through in justifying his violent and murderous behaviour as a POW officer.  Flanagan really greases the wheels to make us feel sympathetic to the Japanese - honour, Japanese glory, accomplishment of a railway 'against the odds', are repeatedly (too much to be subtle) presented as reasons to make us feel injustice for them.  Nakamura, in particular, ends his section with the most astounding soliloquy (page 409) where he, in a moment of honest clarity,

'...wondered; what if this had all been a mask for the most terrible evil? The idea was too horrific to hold on to ... he must henceforth conceive of his life's work as that of a good man.'

Structurally these chapters are important to the story.  Within the major themes of the book are articulated, namely:

1. What is love?
2. Does life have a purpose?
3. Is morality relative or objective?

Great themes, great questions.  They have dominated the work of great minds throughout the centuries. Are Flanagan's treatment of these themes insightful?  Does it build on the great philosophical tradition of the Western world?  Not really.  His dealing with these issues are banal and bland.  Wet lettuce type of bland.  Unfortunately, question 1 & 3 get no real answer, just weird assumptions and a passive acceptance that any expression of love is equally valuable - I'm just not inclined to agree.

Overwhelmingly the sense that there is no purpose, no meaning, no overarching plan for humankind resonates loudly throughout the book.  Sisyphus is mentioned by Dorry on pg. 401 - and that is the metaphor for life, there is no meaning there just is.  Dorry says this repeatedly - "The world is ... it just is" (pg. 420).  Much like Carl Sagan's statement in 'Cosmos'.  It is a declaration of meaningless.  What could be more meaningless that those people beaten, tortured, emaciated and stripped of all dignity building a railroad in slave labour.  There deaths were in vain; without meaning.  

Flanagan highlights this point repeatedly  - an excellent example is where he describes the death of an emaciated man during a food drop by American planes (pg. 381).  The irony is that he was killed by a 44 gallon drum of Hershey Bars - by soldiers on his side.  How could this death be meaningful?

The book finds no solace in love (of any kind) and no meaning.  It is essentially the nihilism of Satre and Nietzsche.  It offers little.

While suffering is a challenge for the Christian, I do not think it is insurmountable, and while it is easy to paint a picture of suffering on the Burmese/Thai railway that life is ultimately meaningless - I am not convinced.  Richard Wumbrand's outstanding little book "Tortured for Christ" or the book "Anointed for Death" about the revival in Cambodia just prior to the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge are a testament to a cosmic purpose - even in suffering.  Dorrigo cannot see purpose - but that doesn't mean that it is not there.

2-3 stars