LIFE’S
LESSONS – UNRECOGNISED
About six weeks ago I finished reading
Richard Flanagan’s book, “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” which subsequently
won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in the UK.
Over
the years I’ve read many books about WW2 and the dreadful treatment of Japanese
prisoners of war, the death marches, the death camps, the starvation, the
beatings and killing and so on.
So,
I was well-prepared for Flanagan’s tale of deprivation and horror about the building
of the Burma Railway in the early 1940s, where the Japanese used about 300,000
slave labourers, including 12,000 Australian prisoners of war.
Or
so I thought.
Flanagan’s book of fiction is the story about Dorrigo Evans, a surgeon,
who endured the privations of this horrible experience and was an inspiration
to the men who relied on his dedication, leadership and self-sacrifice to
survive the living hell of the Burma Railway.
The
author delves into the many layers of his main character, who, like all of us,
is deeply flawed, although kept hidden from most of those who knew him and who,
in later life, was revered as a national icon.
Richard Flanagan’s father had been a prisoner on the Burma Railway and
survived. He was the inspiration for Flanagan to write about this infamous
episode of WW2. A book he knew he had to write, even though it took him 12
years to complete the task.
Flanagan’s graphic descriptions of what those prisoners were forced to
endure, for me, was torturous and shocking reading. His graphic descriptions
left nothing to the imagination leaving me chilled and disturbed.
No,
it isn’t a book about holding grievances against the Japanese as much as a book
about man’s inhumanity to man, regardless of race, religion or ethnicity.
Despite
Richard Flanagan's wonderful writing, and the unexpected twists and turns, the
book's nihilistic theme and ending left me flat and, even despairing. I was
disappointed Dorrigo Evans did not find any meaning from his life or seem to
learn anything from the wrong choices and decisions that brought him so much
pain.
Beautifully
composed and written, but a nihilistic anthem lacking hope and optimism.
djdelene.blogspot.com
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