This
would have to be one of the best (if not the best) book I have read
this year. The writing is, as with all Flanagan’s books,
superb. Although
the main part of the book deals with Australian prisoners of war and
the building of the Burmese railway (and
is, consequently, extremely confronting), it does not merely dwell on
the
atrocities
of
war,
but gives
a balanced two-sided view as to why such things may have happened. It
makes no excuses, but it does
give
explanations.
The
book follows the life of
Dorrigo
Evans
from
his beginning in Tasmania, through a career in medicine punctuated
by several years
of
military service, to his end on the mainland of Australia. Woven into
his life is his love for Amy (his uncle’s young wife), and his
less-than-satisfactory
marriage
with Ella.
This
is a book that stays with you long after the last paragraph has been
read and the book closed. There are definitely many images that
refuse to go away, but there are also thoughts and perspectives that
smuggle their way into your subconscious and, hopefully, shed some
light on all the bigger questions: why are we here? What is life?
What is death? What is love?
Days
and months are travellers of eternity. So too the years that pass by.
(From
Basho’s
travel journal The
Narrow Road to the Deep North).
The
edition I read (by Vintage) has 467 pages, so it is definitely not a
one-evening read (and, even if it were possible, I do not think that
most people would be able to absorb so much in such a short space of
time). Apart from the fact that it was awarded the Man Booker Prize
in 2014, it is definitely a book I would recommend.
The photo of Flanagan receiving the Man Booker Award is from the ABC.
Days
and months are travellers of eternity. So too the years that pass by.
(From
Basho’s
travel journal The
Narrow Road to the Deep North).