richard flanagan long road to the deep north

Because courage, survival, love–all these things didn’t live in one man. “Darky Gardiner loathed Tiny, thought him a fool and would do anything to keep him alive. Instead, I realised that the POWs themselves had no room in their quest for their own survival for pity, either for themselves or for anyone else, although that didn’t mean that they didn’t show kindness to each other, generosity and a spirit which made me feel overwhelmingly patriotic at times (for an Australian society which no longer exists). The stories of the Australian POWs while building what became known as the Death Railway in The Narrow Road to the Deep North are harrowing, but the story does not treat the characters with pity. Later, the story switches to Dorrigo’s life after the war. The story is interspersed with the story of Dorrigo’s love affair with his uncle’s wife, Amy, who for Dorrigo, no other woman ever lived up to.

The story follows the life of a Tasmanian doctor, Dorrigo Evans, who for most of the book is a Japanese prisoner of war on the Burmese Railway. Like all immigrants, he seemed to have an erring instinct for the oldest, truest words in his new language. It also took me a while to get used to quotation marks not being used to differentiate dialogue within the text. Still he searched, on more Ithaca for which he was forever bound.”Īnd lastly, don’t be put off by the beginning of the book which doesn’t do justice to the rest of the story. Such books were for him rare, and as he aged, rarer. A great book compels you to reread your own soul. “A good book, he had concluded, leaves you wanting to reread the book. I can list other books which have made me feel this way with just the fingers on one hand. There were times I had to stop reading because I was feeling too much to continue. I avoid war novels and wouldn’t have read The Narrow Road to the Deep North had I realised what the setting was before starting, but as it turned out, I read most of this emotionally draining, gruelling story with a huge lump in my throat. Secondly, don’t be put off because most of the story takes place during World War 2. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Australian author Richard Flanagan won the Man Booker Prize in 2014, but don’t let that stop you from reading this book.*

Richard flanagan long road to the deep north