A very fine and structurally elaborate story built, to some degree, on the structure and meaning of Basho's great 17th century Haibun (a combination of prose and Haiku) of the same name. The novel has five parts, each introduced by an Haiku - the first by Basho and the others by Issa. Haikus also figure in the central part of the story which is based on the experiences of Australian prisoners of war building the Burma Railway for their Japanese captors in 1943. We see at least some portions of the Australian protagonist's whole life, before, during and after his war experience, but there is some jumping in time, and, with considerable imagery of hell, there is a sense that his life is defined by and revolves around a horrific day in Burma. All of the other characters are also limited by and trapped in this day.
Basho's Haibun is a description of his dangerous 1500 mile journey through Edo Japan in which he says that everyday is a journey, and the journey itself home. Noboyuki Yuasa wrote that "Basho had been casting away his earthly attachments...prior to his journey, and now he had nothing else to cast away but his own self...." (see Wikipedia entry on Oku no Hosomichi.)
There are other parallels - the sense of sabi (aloneness) in both books, the structure of Haiku itself with images on either side of a kirji, or cutting word, the change in Basho's poetry that occurred after his trip, etc.
Noboyuki Yuasa wrote that Basho's Narrow road to the Deep North was "a study in eternity and a monument set up against the flow of time". I defer to you whether Flanagan's book is this also.