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The Narrow Road to the Deep North cover art

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

By: Richard Flanagan
Narrated by: Richard Flanagan
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Summary

Winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize

A novel of the cruelty of war, and tenuousness of life and the impossibility of love.

August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle's young wife two years earlier.

Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever. This savagely beautiful novel is a story about the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost.

©2013 Copyright © Richard Flanagan 2013. The moral right of the author has been asserted. (P)2013 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"Richard Flanagan is one of the most exciting novelists working anywhere, full stop." ( The Age)
"Flanagan can stop a reader's breath." ( Los Angeles Times)
"Mr Flanagan is a master of sleight of hand, adept at using words to conjure worlds, an indefatigable artist." ( The New York Times)

What listeners say about The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Average customer ratings
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Weary narration overcomes incident

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Sharper editing and a professional narrator. This is an example of how the writer is sometimes not the best reader of his work. Flanagan narrates in a dull weary monotone which is only sometimes appropriate for the character of Dorrigo. It put me to sleep, lost my interest when driving no matter how dramatic the subject matter. Mispronounciations annoyed me: maybe an Australian 'antimacassar' is said with the stress on the third syllable but I don't ' think a hat is worn 'rakkishly' even Down Under. The writing is very uneven, especially in the Australian sections: longwinded expositions of unconvincing emotions, wince-making descriptions surely qualifying for entry in The Bad Sex Award ( lots of 'short pants'). The Burma railway chapters are vividly imagined and I was especially moved by the exploration of the Japanese officers' situation, more chilling and intense than the catalogue of the POWs' horrors. I look forward to reading the novel to judge for myself why it was selected for the ManBooker list to as I felt unable to stuck with the audio version beyond the arrival of the much-vaunted letter in Part 3, and while mildly curious to know the outcome, valued my will to live too much to carry on listening.


Would you recommend The Narrow Road to the Deep North to your friends? Why or why not?

Not in this version.

Would you be willing to try another one of Richard Flanagan’s performances?

No

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Really thorough research and convincing exploration of the Japanese viewpoint.

Any additional comments?

Only the second audio novel I have given up on in eight years.

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34 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Annoying voice

What would have made The Narrow Road to the Deep North better?

A professional voice.

What did you like best about this story?

it seems to be really well written and about a subject matter I find fascinating. it's just the read that lets it down

What didn’t you like about Richard Flanagan’s performance?

Unbelievably slow and laborious. Almost without emotion.

Any additional comments?

I will read this book instead of listening to it.

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Awful.

Any additional comments?

Thought I would identify with the subject matter because my father served in Burma in WW2, but really couldn't engage with this at all. Persevered for 20 chapters and I am rarely beaten by a book, felt like I was stuck in an endless traffic jam, relief to admit I want to return this one!

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18 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Not for everybody perhaps


There are certain people who should probably avoid this audio book:

1. Those who seek a straightforward account of the construction of the Burma Railway during WW2. (Flanagan's prose is often poetic and his use of modernist time-shift technique will probably annoy you).

2. Those for whom audiobooks are a form of escape and who prefer to avoid descriptions of cruelty and suffering. Richard Flanagan confronts the brutality with which POW's working on the railway (including his own father) were treated in all its horrifying detail.

For others, as for me, Flanagan's lyrical interweaving of several intricate themes will be a joy and will have a potency that fully justifies his selection as winner of the Booker Prize. An extra layer is added to the novel by his exploration of the ethos that led the Japanese to behave in the way they did.

With few exceptions - John le Carré for example - authors are not the best narrators of their own work. Several great poets have managed to reduce their poetry to banality when recording it themselves. Although I did come to wonder whether Flanagan's flat, impersonal delivery didn't in fact underline the horror of the events he was describing - and of course his Tasmanian accent is entirely authentic - nevertheless I longed for the phrasing and intonation of Glenister, Vance, Jayston or Jarvis.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Had to quit. Awful narration.

Any additional comments?

Despite the previous negative review I read, I thought I'd give this book a go all the same, I took a risk with it. Besides, any booker good enough to win the man booker award surely can't bas a narrated as poorly as it had been reviewed.. could it?

Well you know the answer. A real shame, I gave up after two hours. I could't stand the monotonous drivel that I was listening to, I could barely hear what he was saying as it was all mumbled. He sounded like a guy you would see hunched over a beer glass in a bar mumbling to anyone that will listen.

So disappointed as I wanted to give this a go. I couldn't bear to give the story rating any less than what It would have probably been with a decent narrator. Robert Glenister would be perfect!

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Poor narration of a good book

This is likely to have been a good book. However, the narrator was monotone and and draggingly slow in his reading. I even tried to speed up the reading on my iPod to x1.25 in the hope of a more enjoyable listen but this also turned out to be tedious. Such a pity. For the record this would have been my 32 audiobook so I am not a novice.

If it is released with a different narrator I would try again.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A good story but not a good listen

Would you try another book written by Richard Flanagan or narrated by Richard Flanagan?

I might be tempted to try another book by this author so long as the author is not the narrator.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Narrow Road to the Deep North?

I found the experiences of the PoW inmates and that of their Japanese captures interesting, inspiring and heartbreaking.

How could the performance have been better?

This really did need a professional actor who could separate and bring to life each character. Richard Flanagan's narration was monotonous and lacked passion.

Did The Narrow Road to the Deep North inspire you to do anything?

This book is a lesson for the the whole of mankind on the evil of war and the depts of cruelty and evil that one group of people is capable of inflicting on another.

Any additional comments?

This is a good book that has sadly been very let down by the narrator.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Its brilliance stands out!

This is a beautifully written book. The mellifluous flow of the language counterpoints the horror of the content. The author reads the book in a virtual monotone which entirely suits the subject matter. The words speak for themselves. It was heart rending, poignant and moving. My only gripe was the swipe made at British officers but I wasn't there so cannot really say if they behaved as badly as depicted or not. Certainly the later chapters dealing with the aftermath from the Japanese point of view showed that the author is even handed and fair so maybe we do need to revisit the British part played in this terrible theatre of war.
I had not heard of the author before but will be searching out his other works; along with many others I suspect as he recently deservedly won the Booker!

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Narrow Road to the Deep North: a Life

What did you like most about The Narrow Road to the Deep North?

This is not an easy story, but it is very absorbing and moving. The listener experiences a life's journey through the sufferings of WWII as a Japanese POW and the dissatisfactions of the return to 'normal life.'

What did you like best about this story?

The emotional involvement and the engaging story was the best part of the story.

Did Richard Flanagan do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?

Some effort needs to be given to differentiate between each of the characters, particularly at the beginning. One criticism I have is that the names of the characters are rather unrealistic and become a little annoying.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I did listen to this all in one sitting and this was how I would advise you to listen to it.

Any additional comments?

The author is an excellent writer, but a poor narrator. The monotone of the reading, in a thick Tasmanian accent, is soporific and does not help the listener. For such a, now, prize-winning novel, I would advise Audible to re-record this with a more engaging narrator.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • T
  • 20-10-14

A terrible journey through a world of pain

Let’s start with the narration, as this has been a problem for other reviewers. I prefer fiction to be read by actors not authors, but Flanagan’s gruff delivery became oddly compelling once I got used to it. His reading is at times reminiscent of a poet intoning their work – while it may lack the variety of an actor’s voice, it somehow has additional power, even authenticity, so I was won over. The authenticity is important because this is a book to appreciate rather than enjoy. And there is a great deal to appreciate, if you have the stomach for it. The writing draws you in, almost despite yourself, to a world beyond the comprehension of most of us.

We follow in the steps of Dorrigo Evans, from early life in Tasmania and an early romance that will haunt the rest of his life. He is a surgeon when war wrenches his life into a squalid jungle PoW camp, trying to hold himself and the men under his command together. As commanding officer, every day he is forced to choose which of his desperately ill men must leave hospital to be worked to death through exhaustion or disease.

We learn of the horrors experienced by the Australians as they suffer increasingly frenzied but vain attempts to meet Japanese demands. We hear of the institutionalised brutality of the Japanese military and how that is then turned on the Chinese, the Koreans and indeed anyone not Japanese. The death railway is a microcosm of the bending of all humanity to the will of the Japanese god emperor. For me the most chilling episodes were when we are offered some insights into the Japanese mentality of the time – atrocity as a necessary act in fulfilling the Emperor’s will. How individuals felt they should be honoured for following orders, whatever savage act was required. The book doesn’t pass judgement, but acts as witness, leaving us to draw what we can from it all.


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