BarkellWH -> RE: Big favor please (Nov. 6 2014 0:00:26)
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Then I shall become a singer and sing of the egg girl who left me for the truck driver, who was married with kids and lived next door. True story Actually, Simon, that has the makings of a novel that might be shortlisted for the Man-Booker Prize. I say that because I brought with me to read during my stint here in Samoa this year's Man-Booker winner, "The Narrow Road to the Deep North," by Richard Flanagan, an Australian author from Tasmania. The story concerns an Australian army doctor who, with his fellow Australian army personnel, was interned by the Japanese on Java and taken to Thailand to work on the infamous Thai-Burma "death" railroad (the River Kwai, and all that). It is a story of grit and endurance against Japanese atrocities and cruelty, interspersed with Japanese Haiku poetry written by a Japanese army Major. Nevetheless, at least half of the novel concerns the doctor's pre-war dalliance with his uncle's wife. It seems to haunt him, wherever he is: Getting ready to deploy to Java, during his captivity as a POW by the Japanese, and after surviving the war and returning to Australia. His pre-war moving in on his uncle's wife appears to have marked him for life. It seems a bit much to me, given what he endures as a POW of the Japanese in Thailand. I would rate the book interesting but not great. The writing is good, though. Obviously the Man-Booker committee members were very much taken by it. Anyway, your experience with the egg-girl and the truck driver shows literary promise. Cheers, Bill
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