The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2013) is set predominantly in Thailand
during World War II and the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway, but also
set in Tasmania, Australia. The title comes from the travel journal of Japanese
official, Shiro Kota, in the book – the real author was Matsuo Basho, a 17th
century haiku poet.
Dorrigo Evans is 77 years old, recalling his time as army surgeon 50 years
ago – because he was asked to write an introduction to a book of sketches drawn
by Guy ‘Rabbit’ Hendricks, who died in the war. Evans is not a particular
decent character – he has had a reckless life of deceit and scandals as a
womanizer. He begins his narration with his womanizing. The real story begins
in Siam (now called Thailand) in 1942 with the fall of Singapore, and the
construction (1942-1943), for the Japanese Empire while the men were Prisoners
of War (POWs), of the 415 kilometres of the Burma Railway from north of Bangkok
to Burma (Myanmar). It was known as the Death Railway, or The Line.
There were 22,000 Australian POWs and 9,000 of them worked on the railway –
2,802 died. No one knows the real count of all those who died constructing it –
‘Australians, British, Americans, Dutch, Tamils, Chinese, Javanese, Malayans,
Thais, Burmese’ – the novel tells of the brutality, relentless work, malnutrition,
cholera, dysentery, poor hygiene, and disease: ‘you either survived The Line or
you didn’t.’ Evans was a colonel in charge of a thousand men. Hence, the
writing in parts is not an easy read, placing both POWs and Japanese soldiers
and officials as ‘victims of war’ and the psychological costs years later –
alcoholism, suicide, faltering relationships, guilt, shame, silence, financial
problems and more. For Dorrigo Evans, he was either ‘pushing away’ people or
‘pushing in’ thoughtlessly and intrusively.
Overall I didn’t enjoy the style, the repetitiveness, the unlikely female
characters, the host of minor characters, the ungainly back-and-forth time
frame (sometimes three time periods on one page), the stilted dialogue, the
random thoughts, the endless pages about his relationships with women, and the
ending.
I did like the references to haiku poetry throughout the novel. I also
liked the references to literature. Evans liked books: ‘He believed books had
an aura that protected him, that without one beside him he would die. He
happily slept without women. He never slept without a book.’
I preferred the book Le Pont de la
Riviere Kwai by French author Pierre Boulle – The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1952), which was the basis for the 1957 film. Boulle had been a Japanese
prisoner, and the novel was about one of the railway bridges over the Mae Klong
near the town of Kanchanaburi in Thailand, whereas Flanagan was inspired by his
father’s experience during the war. Boulle (1912-1994) also wrote the novel,
Planet of the Apes (1963), which was also made into a film in 2001. Although
both Boulle and Flanagan are best-selling authors, Boulle is a more proficient
writer than Flanagan in my view; although Flanagan attempted to write about the
years ‘beyond’ the railway construction, it was rather too melodramatic,
lengthy, and repetitive.
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