Japanese influences hang over the novel – its Rashomon approach to a central incident its title, borrowed from the 1689 Matsuo Basho classic a poetic undercurrent that drives the book – eloquently resonant given the setting of a Japanese PoW camp in 1943. After his great love, his wartime experiences and the aftermath, the fractured chronology of this deeply humane novel takes us from the self-doubt and uncertainty of youth to the self-doubt and regrets of old age. It is the story of Dorrigo Evans: surgeon, prisoner, leader, hero, symbol. It's a bit awkward, but I can't stop myself gushing. When I praise the book – effusively, inarticulately – as a masterpiece, he looks down at the table and goes quiet. Notwithstanding this moment of post-prandial reflectiveness, our evening together has been full of talk.įlanagan has just come from a second day in a studio recording the audiobook of his new novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, an experience he likens to "being locked in an esky". As well as being one of our finest writers, Flanagan is a man of passions and ideas: charming, erudite, opinionated. But Richard Flanagan is not, nor do I believe he has ever been, a man with nothing to say. On reflection I'm pretty happy to just sit, too. The detritus of our meal, plates stained with smears of anchovy and peppery relics of lamb, is strewn between us. At this point we're drinking Montenegros: sweet, slightly perfumed, delicious.
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