Nina wrote:

And I actually liked this line "just a coffee cup which had not had coffee poured into it"

Raiziel wrote:

I think Muzzy might be anticipating that I didn't like The Narrow Road to the Deep North.  Well I've got news for you, buster: you'd be right!  But also wrong.  I really liked a particular part of The Narrow Road; the part that was the most focused, the most traumatising.  So the middle third of the book, which takes place in Burma, feels like the vertical slice of a better book we never get to read.  If the narrative had perhaps been a more traditional reflection on the horrors the POWs suffered in the jungle it would have been a more engaging piece.  But instead that really juicy filling is topped and bottomed by some thick, anaemic, doughy bread.

So it's the story of a life instead, then.  One scarred by regret.  But oh wait, it's also the story of some other lives too.  I mean the whole thing around that excellent jungle part felt so baggy and unfocused.  For my tastes Flanagan casts his net too widely, and a lot of the things he drags up just aren't all that interesting or engaging.  His love affair with Amy is too fleeting for me to care about once the story has moved on, and I'm also less inclined to care because Dorrigo isn't much of a sympathetic character.  In fact I think Darky Gardiner was the only character I found myself caring about throughout the entire story.

Flanagan wields his words well, and I found myself effectively transported to that jungle hell for the book's second act, so I can't help but wonder what could have been if he'd focused in on that.  But then what to I know.  It won the Man Booker Prize after all.