It took a series of things for me to read this: being impressed by Flanagan at the Galle literary festival, hearing The Narrow Road to the Deep North mentioned while I was looking for novels about male friendship, and eventually being lent it by Jen. It's a type of novel that I don't read a lot of - a romance (I don't mind a good one, but they're so rare), a war story (difficult to avoid but not particularly my cup of tea), an account of one man's life (these have to be really good to interest me at all) and, most of all, essentially formally conventional. Yet I found it gripping and quite affecting, and admired the way it achieved its effects, including through its interleaving of different time periods and perspectives, occasional lyrical language, and commitment to actual story-telling, including by knitting everything together by the end (e.g. Darky Gardiner's background) and showing how things end for everyone (e.g. Amy's perspective throughout). High quality.
