Nobel for Ishiguro?

[french frank]

I haven't read any of his most recent novels but a few years ago he was a favourite author. I was a long time being persuaded to read The Remains of the Day purely because I'd never heard of it/him until the film was made. I then became sniffy about reading it When I did get round to it (I never saw the film) I was completely won over, amazed that a writer who I'd lazily categorised as 'Japanese' should have been so inside the English world and idiom.

I then read A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, When We Were Orphans and the strange The Unconsoled, all keeping him at the top of my reading list.

Lazy as ever I was put off by the novelettish title Never Let Me Go and have read none of the later ones. Time to reread, at least, the ones on my shelves.

[ardcarp]

..and another Brit, Richard Henderson, shared a Nobel Prize for:

developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution

Maybe this should be in the Ideas and Theory department?

[ardcarp]

How did we get there? Anyway I couldn't possibly comment....

[french frank]

How did we get there? Anyway I couldn't possibly comment....

Me neither, but if anyone has any comments about Ishiguro, I'd be quite interested. Though I seldom have any knowledge or interest in 'what people are reading now', I suppose there's no reason why anyone should particularly like Ishiguro, just because I do …

[Richard Tarleton]

Me neither, but if anyone has any comments about Ishiguro, I'd be quite interested.

I read Remains of the Day before the making of the film, and Never Let Me Go after seeing a trailer for that film. It was nearly 30 years ago but I remember feeling annoyed and infuriated by the chief protagonist of the former - I know that was the point, but I felt there was something learned, rather than coming naturally, about the writing. This is not a reflection about nationality - he's not the only UEA alumnus I feel ambivalent about...(I find something contrived about several of Ian McEwan's setups....). Never Let Me Go downright strange, I just didn't buy it (the plot that is).

[french frank]

I read Remains of the Day before the making of the film, and Never Let Me Go after seeing a trailer for that film. It was nearly 30 years ago but I remember feeling annoyed and infuriated by the chief protagonist of the former - I know that was the point, but I felt there was something learned, rather than coming naturally, about the writing. This is not a reflection about nationality - he's not the only UEA alumnus I feel ambivalent about...(I find something contrived about several of Ian McEwan's setups....). Never Let Me Go downright strange, I just didn't buy it (the plot that is).

I think the really interesting one is The Unconsoled, which I've now forgotten completely (but that's just me - total non-recall). It was more experimental, rather than a straight story. I must try it again - it was by far the longest. I read several of McEwan's, the last being The Atonement - which I 'didn't buy' either.

[Richard Barrett]

I've read all of Ishiguro's novels and I he's certainly one of the authors whose next book I most look forward to. I would give the highest praise to The Unconsoled and his most recent The Buried Giant, although I found both The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go very powerful in their own different ways. The only book of his I found disappointing was Nocturnes but I'm not keen on short stories at the best of times.

[french frank]

Glad to find there's another enthusiast, Richard. I've just googled 'Ishiguro Unconsoled' and come up with this, which I may look at carefully before picking it up again.

After reading it, I placed on the same shelf in my mental library as Hesse's Glass Bead Game (quite pleasing as I comes after H even in one's mind ) which, once into, I also found totally absorbing. And just remembered - Hesse was a Nobel Laureate too (I didn't make much of Herta Müller, though.)

OT: Also pleasing to write 'I comes' …

[Richard Barrett]

ff, your link seems just to point back to this same page, not sure whether that's supposed to be some kind of comment...

I haven't read Hesse for many years but I remember getting bogged down in Glass Bead Game (and my copy has disappeared in the meantime) while getting completely absorbed by some of his other books, particularly Narziss and Goldmund. The former I frequently think I should read again some time.

[french frank]

ff, your link seems just to point back to this same page, not sure whether that's supposed to be some kind of comment...

No, it wasn't a reference to your wise comments! Link corrected.

I haven't read Hesse for many years but I remember getting bogged down in Glass Bead Game (and my copy has disappeared in the meantime) while getting completely absorbed by some of his other books, particularly Narziss and Goldmund. The former I frequently think I should read again some time.

Yes, Narziss and Goldmund is very good. A lesser work is Peter Camenzind which I took with me on holiday to Graubünden, wondering where Nimikon was, and getting excited when I found Pfäffikon, Wetzikon and lots of other -ikons (just no one say Emotikon, right?). Then there's Steppenwolf and Siddhartha ( I wasn't too keen on that one).

[Lat-Literal]

Deserved, I think, but those who say the Committee have returned to traditionalism following their choice of Bob Dylan may wish to note that KI started out as a singer-songwriter. Furthermore, the precision - and one might mention Jane Austen by way of reference - is such that it enables what is not being said to stand out. That, I suggest, has additional connotations with "the lyric" or at least poetry. I have seen the film "The Remains of the Day" and found it satisfactory but I am not a fan of Emma Thompson. Her father was the talented member of the family especially in his narration for The Magic Roundabout. I note that she and Anthony Hopkins who co-starred with her in "Remains" are to lead an all-star cast in a BBC King Lear. The announcement was made yesterday by the BBC which seems too convenient to be coincidental. So what are the links between the Beeb and Nobel?

[eighthobstruction]

....thank goodness for google because as you kind of mention above, some things in books/novels just go over your head and the reference passes you by....now just google....this week I had to look up - wedding at Cana (where Jesus turned water into wine) and an El Greco reference Storm over Toledo....

[Richard Barrett]

Glad to find there's another enthusiast, Richard. I've just googled 'Ishiguro Unconsoled' and come up with this, which I may look at carefully before picking it up again.

Yes, getting involved in that book is indeed a bit like being stuck in an anxiety dream, I thought.

Out of 114 Nobel literature winners I find I've read 33. (32 until I finished Orhan Pamuk's Snow last week.) Looking down the list I was surprised at how many poets there are, and indeed how many non-fiction writers. Going back to the first couple of decades of the Prize I find I've never even heard of most of the winners.

[Barbirollians]

Another fan here although for some reason I have not read The Unconsoled although I bought it ages ago . Otherwise like FF I loved those earlier novels . When We Were Orphans moved me particularly.

I also find Never Let Me Go on the shelves yet not read . I shall start one of them as soon as I have finished the gripping Attlee biography I have been reading .

[eighthobstruction]

....I tend to get quite a lot of books from the library so I do not have them here for reference....I think I read A Pale View from the Hills, as I remember was enjoying it well enough but seemed to end abrupty without anything resolved or indeed just seemed to stop for no reason. Floating World is a short beautiful and measured masterpiece. Remains the Day is just a long long writing exercise of developing character and not much else (really only the butler gets the psychological treatment, other characters are thin, probably because it is in the first person I think <that's the big trouble with first person>)....it's not a great book, I was glad when it ended. Never Let You Go....again thin on characterisation , motives, emotions. A Margaret Attwood rip off I thought after 20 pages, the idea of the organ harvesting was good but I was not convinced by the plot devices, depth of characters, timescale.