Richard Flanagan's
novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North takes its title from a
famous piece of Japanese literature Okuno Hosomichi written by
Matsuo Basho in 1689, when the poet embarked upon a journey from Edo
(modern Tokyo) to the north of the country. Basho recorded his
1500-mile journey in 'haibun', a style of prose and haiku. Basho
commented 'every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.'
I wonder if that was
the sentiment of Dorrigo Evans, the protagonist of Flanagan's account
of Japanese prisoners of war building the Burma Railway? Dorrigo is
an officer and a doctor in charge of the camp hospital. His men are
suffering not only the cruel realities of life in the jungle, but
also the incredibly brutal conditions of their captors. Every day is a
fight to survive the camp's harsh conditions, and every day Dorrigo
has to confront his Japanese counterpart and negotiate how many men
will join the railway working party for the day. Most of the men are
dying or riddled with tropical diseases, and all of them are
starving. But it is during this critical mental arithmetic exercise
(critical for his men) that Dorrigo's mind becomes clouded with the
image of Amy, his uncle's wife that he has been having an affair
with. But now when he thinks of Amy he can no longer remember her face –
he can only remember the dust motes that clouded his vision when he
first met her in a second hand bookshop. When dust motes sparkle in
the light it is like millions of tiny diamonds floating up to heaven.
Flanagan's love story
juxtaposes the inhumane conditions of war with an unpredictable and
passionate love affair. Flanagan graphically describes the brutality
of one human being to another, and he exposes the destructiveness of
human nature for the sake of obedience and deference. The portrayal
of the Japanese officers' attitude to their mission - fulfilling the
Japanese Emperor's command to construct a railway linking Thailand to
Burma at any human cost - starkly contrasts with Basho's deeply
aesthetic poetry. There is the description of Colonel Kota with his
sword poised to decapitate Darky Gardiner, desperately trying to
recite a haiku. His inability to finish the poem saves Darky from
losing his head. But not for long. Later, Fukuhara is ordered to give
Darky a severe and fatal beating, and in the middle of it he is
forced to recite a poem; 'A world of pain – if the cherry blossoms,
it blossoms.'
Through the individual
stories of each prisoner we are touched by their live stories and
their survival mechanisms. It is Darky Gardiner whose demise is the
need to relieve himself in the latrines, in which he ultimately
drowns. Nakamura tries to maintain his dignity in front of his men by
commanding Darky's severe beating for the sake of his own vanity. And
even in the opening scene we see Dorrigo refusing a piece of steak in
order to feed those with greater need, a sacrifice that he must make
to assert his authority over them . . .
After the war has
ended, those who survive pick up their lives and try to live as
normally as possible. Both Amy and Dorrigo believe that the other has
died. Dorrigo spots Amy one day in a crowded street, but he continues
walking. They are never re-united, but Dorrigo's dying memory is the
crimson flower that Amy was wearing in her hair the day that they met
that day in the bookshop . . .
By the 1980's, when I went to live and work in Japan, little was said about of the atrocities of the Burma Railway, and I didn't have much idea about Japan's role in the Second World War. But having read this story I have come to realise why my family, in particular my grandfather, couldn't really understand why I would want to visit this country and meet its people. My experience of Japan, its culture and its people was of course very different. By referring back to Basho's poetry, Richard Flanagan, whose father was a POW on the railway, is attempting to reconcile the high and low points of Japanese culture.
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