Reading guide: The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Alwyn ‘Dorrigo’ Evans 

The novel’s protagonist and one of the survivors of the Thailand-Burma Railway, also known as the ‘Death Railway’. Dorrigo is a prisoner of war, having been a doctor and officer in the Australian army during the Second World War. On the railway, he is tasked with being the camp’s surgeon, often operating on the injured with little or no tools. He is celebrated for his leadership among the POWs on the railway, and his experiences shape his identity and haunt him throughout his life. His relationships with Amy, who he meets before the war and loves deeply, and Ella, who he marries after the war for stability, underscore his internal conflict between passion and duty. 

Amy Mulvaney 

Amy is married to Dorrigo’s uncle. She embarks on a passionate affair with Dorrigo – their relationship, marked by fiery intensity, serves as a contrast to Dorrigo’s later marriage to Ella. While being absent for large portions of the novel, Amy continues to haunt Dorrigo, influencing his life far beyond the period of their relationship.  

Ella 

Ella is Dorrigo’s wife, whom he marries after returning from the war. She is practical, supportive, and understanding of Dorrigo’s experiences as a POW. Dorrigo has three kids with Ella, yet despite this, he longs for Amy, and wrestles with feelings of guilt. 

Colonel Kota Nakamura 

Nakamura is the Japanese officer in charge of the POW camp where Dorrigo is held. Nakamura is depicted as a complex and enigmatic figure, exhibiting both ruthless brutality and unexpected moments of compassion and kindness. Described as ridden with jungle ticks and dependent on methamphetamine, Nakamura’s character challenges stereotypes. Through him, Flanagan explores the moral complexities of war.  

Thomas Keneally, Guardian  

‘To say Flanagan creates a rich tapestry is to overly praise tapestries. One would notice, if not swept along by the tale, that the allocation of time to characters, the certainty of the narration, the confidence to pause and then lunge on, to play with time, are all bravura accomplishments. We don’t notice, though. Flanagan is too good to let us.’ 

Shan Wang, Harvard Review Online 

‘Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North has been praised as a “kick to the stomach” for its unforgiving depiction of conditions on the Japanese-run Death Railway, known to prisoners as “the Line,” during World War II. But it is equally remarkable for its depiction of how surviving Australian soldiers and Japanese officers live out their lives after the war. There is banality in evil, but there is also banality in heroism: The Narrow Road gives us a protagonist who bears witness to both.’ 

Amelia Lester, New Yorker 

‘Flanagan’s tender, direct way of writing about the body is reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence, and some have found this side of his work a little embarrassing, even cheesy, but I’m moved by Flanagan’s sentimental men, known in the beginning as numbers and by the end revealed to possess secret wells of sentiment. In “Narrow Road,” Dorrigo is celebrated for his machismo and for being a paragon of his gender: brave, strong, stoic. Australians traditionally value hyper-masculine men who don’t expose their vulnerabilities, and Flanagan is deliberately writing against type. You might even say that he’s proposing another way of being, though he would hate the didacticism implied there.’ 

Morag Fraser, Sydney Morning Herald 

It is a huge novel, ambitious, driven, multi-stranded, and unembarrassed by its documentary impulse. It is both record and tribute to the men who lived and died alongside his father, but tribute of the best kind a novelist son could pay - transmuting filial obligation into engrossing narrative. The novel’s fictional characters, Australian and Japanese, shimmer with life; they are familiar yet finally unknowable, compromised, betrayed, fallible and credible. 

Ron Charles, Washington Post 

‘What stretches the story beyond the visceral pain it brings to life is the attention paid to these men as individuals, their pettiness and their courage, their acts of betrayal and affection, and their efforts to cling to trappings of civilization no matter how slight or futile.’ 

Michael Hofmann, London Review of Books 

‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North has the scope of a big and ambitious novel. It was surely a difficult book to write, covering so much in terms of time, geography, cultures, destinies and outcomes: both an important but difficult piece of Australian history (brave, but also inglorious), and a fictional account, to boot, of the experience of Flanagan’s father, who, as one read in the press, died on the very day the book was completed. (It is said there is nothing of which one knows less and that fascinates one more than the period immediately preceding one’s birth.)’ 

The novel is named after Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō’s 18th-century travelogue of the same name. What does this title of the novel signify in the context of Flanagan’s novel, and why might he have chosen to adopt Bashō’s title? 

His father’s time as a Japanese POW on the Burma Railway influenced Flanagan to write The Narrow Road to the Deep North. In what ways do you think his father’s experiences and stories are reflected in the narrative and the characters, and does the knowledge that the story is based on personal experience impact your reading of the book?  

Australian critic Roger Pulvers critiqued The Narrow Road to the Deep North’s portrayal of the Burma Railroad, noting in particular that 90% of the people who died during the construction of the railroad were Asian. He argued that The Narrow Road to the Deep North gave the impression that it was primarily Australians who suffered. Discuss whether you think Flanagan’s portrayal of the events and characters is balanced and fair. Why might Flanagan have used creative license within the plot, and how does this choice impact the story’s effectiveness? 

The Narrow Road to the Deep North frequently shifts between different time periods, from Dorrigo’s childhood to his time as a POW, and into his later life. How does Flanagan’s use of time and legacy as a device affect your understanding of the characters and events? 

In a review for the Guardian, Australian author (and fellow Booker Prize winner) Thomas Keneally wrote that the novel was ‘a grand examination of what it is to be a good man and a bad man in the one flesh and, above all, of how hard it is to live after survival’. How does The Narrow Road to the Deep North challenge the reader’s perception of good and bad? Why could it be that Flanagan is keen to explore this moral ambiguity?  

The novel contains many graphic depictions of the POWs’ treatment and injuries, which often resulted in death. Why do you think Flanagan chose to write in such an unflinching manner? How did this serve the novel and your reading experience?   

While The Narrow Road to the Deep North is historical fiction, is it also deeply concerned with the idea of ‘true love’. Toward the end of the novel, Dorrigo sees Amy for the first time in many years and realises he ‘had got it wrong. Her, him, them, love – especially love – so completely wrong.… And the gravity of his error was so great, so overwhelming, that he could not fight it and turn around.’ How does the revelation that Amy is not dead affect Dorrigo’s perception of his past choices and his ongoing sense of emptiness? 

In an interview with The Independent, Flanagan revealed he tracked down a Japanese commander from his father’s camp and described him as a ‘gentle, gracious old man’. Much of the novel is concerned with the duality of those in such positions, which is observed in the character Nakamura. Discuss how Nakamura’s depiction oscillates between gentleness and savagery, and how this duality challenges perceptions of the nature of human behaviour in the context of war. 

The novel often defers to poetry and incorporates multiple poetic techniques. Haiku feature between sections, words are repeated along with imagery, and there are elements of rhythm. Discuss the balance between these forms in the novel and the wider purpose within the narrative. 

The red camellia that Amy wears when Dorrigo first meets her becomes a recurring symbol throughout the novel and has been used on the book’s cover. It later reappears in the POW camp after Dorrigo receives Ella’s letter about Amy’s supposed death. How does the symbolism of the flower evolve as the story progresses and what deeper meanings does it convey about love, loss, and the characters’ journeys?  

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