The Narrow Road to the Deep North

“Why at the beginning of things is there always light?”

My head is full of a plethora of thoughts that, somehow, need to find their way into a text? Or do they? Probably not. This must be one of the most difficult reviews I have chosen to write and this is not a cliche. It's reality. Difficult because how can one possibly describe the horrors brought about by monsters in one of the darkest eras of History that, sadly seems not too far away or lost in time? Difficult because love and pain and lose are feelings that cannot be easily turned into paragraphs or measured by phrases “this is good”, “this is bad”. Difficult because no matter how hard I tried, no matter how mesmerizing the writing was at times, this book will not enter my favourites. We failed to form any kind of connection.

Dorrigo Evans is a surgeon in the Australian Army during the nightmare of the Second World War. He and his regiment are now prisoners of war in a Japanese camp in Burma and the plague is quickly descending. So he is needed by friends and enemies alike, because there is a bridge that needs to be built and it won't wait. Dorrigo struggles to keep his men alive, physically and psychologically, and most of all, he tries to preserve his own will to live and not give up. Because he started feeling dead long before he became a POW. His mind travels back in time, to his younger days, and to the event that defined him and defeated him more than any other battle he had ever given. His relationship with Amy, a young woman, his uncle's wife.

“A happy man has no past, while an unhappy man has nothing else.”

Dorrigo is the most complex, interesting character in those pages. He is a kind human being, considerate and brave. He loves with all his heart, he fights to keep his men with him, but he is never happy. He cannot find happiness, he feels that every joy is a fleeting moment for which he is somehow unworthy. There were parts when I felt that Dorrigo had actually fallen victim to a weird notion of self-depreciation, of self-pity. He was broken beyond repair. But why? For whom? For Amy? For himself?

“My disgraceful, wicked heart”, thought Amy, “ is braver than the world.”

It seemed to me that Amy was the driving force of the story. She is definitely a controversial character, but she provides life. When I was reading Amy's POV, I was thinking that Flanagan had reserved the most beautiful language in this novel for her. There is a calmness and a tenderness, a childish spirit that suits Amy, although we somehow feel that the storm is about to break, on many levels. That the underlying terrors will soon become reality. And even though, many may call her “wicked”, “selfish” or “manipulative”, for me she is the breath of life in the book.

Flanagan provides many points of view. Too many, in my opinion. He divides the stories of the Australian and the Japanese characters almost equally and I found that this made the story significantly slower. I appreciated the Haiku references and the fact that he didn't omit the enemy's voice, creating a highly balanced narration. What I felt as a reader was that these characters weren't interesting enough to turn my mind away from Dorrigo and Amy's fate. As simple as that. They obviously served the purpose of the writer (and I don't dare to presume as to what it was) but they made me lose much of my initial connection to the story. I admit I skimmed quite a few pages of the Japanese chapters. I couldn't bring myself to care for them. In addition, the part of the book set after the end of the war felt slow, flat and melodramatic.

There were two things I deeply appreciated in the novel. First, Flanagan's use of the question of morality was exceptional. What is considered “moral”? What of the feelings that are experienced by all of us and may come in utter contrast with issues like fidelity or bravery or mercy? Especially in times of war when these things cease to matter. The second was the way the horrors of the camp were depicted. I found the chapters harrowing, haunting, raw, but not in any way disgusting or written for the sake of shock value. In fact, a minor issue I had was that there were times when I thought he played it safe, choosing the “easier” road. Sometimes, the situation called for language with more punch, more tension. There have been films and books about the subject that are more nightmarish, more realistic even.

The writing was at times exceptionally poignant and darkly poetic. Other times, I found it verbose, tiresome, melodramatic. Apart from the interactions in the camp, I felt that the dialogue resembled the old 40s films. Now, perhaps my stone -hearted self has taken over (once again...), but in my opinion, dialogue such as this is a bit unrealistic and inconsistent with the powerful themes dealt with in the rest of the novel. Keith and Ella's characters seemed copied out of cliches and I couldn't abide with this.

My journey with this Booker Prize winner started in anticipation and excitement, but somehow, my way fell flat. Yes, this is a special book, beautiful in a disturbing way. However, when I skipped too many pages, when I felt nothing, no connection throughout the story, when I compare it to other war novels, I cannot bring myself to rate it more than 3 stars. Will I recommend it to a friend? Certainly. Do I consider it memorable? Yes. But I do not think this is the best war novel ever written and certainly not one of the best books ever written. It gave me nothing I hadn't read before....