Nobel for Ishiguro?

[Belgrove]

Ishiguro’s comments on RotD on the Imagine programme were interesting - the Butler being a metaphor for the passivity of all who fail to act against the actions and edicts of the ‘big people’ in society. Bernadine Evaristo’s technical comments on the writing were illuminating, explaining the immersive and enclosed effect it creates. It’s the first time I’ve seen Ishiguro interviewed and he came across as a deeply thoughtful and likeable individual.

[Katzelmacher]

The prize is awarded for a body of work, not for one work (why else would Bob Dylan have won it the following year?). RotD had been written 28 years before Ishiguro got it, he had then written six novels, two before it and 4 after it. Thematically, RotD has similarities with others of his novels, but if the narrative seems 'old-fashioned' the style was surely integral to the work - reflecting the character of the narrator and his memories stretching back before the war?

I know it’s for a body of work not for just one work but this must be the first time the Prize has been given to such a ‘conventional’ writer since John Galsworthy.

[french frank]

I know it’s for a body of work not for just one work but this must be the first time the Prize has been given to such a ‘conventional’ writer since John Galsworthy.

Yes, that why I raised an eyebrow at your having formed an opinion after reading a single work. Looking down the list of winners I can see plenty of writers as 'conventional' as Ishiguro.

[Richard Barrett]

I can see plenty of writers as 'conventional' as Ishiguro.

Lessing, Pamuk, Coetzee, Oe, Golding, to name only the first few that I've read myself.

[french frank]

Lessing, Pamuk, Coetzee, Oe, Golding, to name only the first few that I've read myself.

And in this context I'm not sure what the opposite of 'conventional' is? Experimental? In which case I don't think many novelists are in that category. I was also going to cite Coetzee (of whom I've read three), Hesse (several), plus French writers whom I know well: Mauriac, Gide, Martin du Gard, Camus, Modiano. They have their serious 'themes', such as the Absurd, Catholicism or whatever, but so does Ishiguro. Others I know slightly: Cela, G.G. Márquez, Pamuk, Andrić, Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak. As novelists, they seem fairly 'conventional' to me.

[Richard Barrett]

Others I know slightly: Cela, G.G. Márquez, Pamuk, Andrić, Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak. As novelists, they seem fairly 'conventional' to me.

Certainly no less so than Ishiguro. More unconventional might be Handke, Dylan, Pinter, Jelinek, Beckett, Grass, Fo, Simon; but even then the list is hardly a rollcall of experimental literature.

[french frank]

Certainly no less so than Ishiguro. More unconventional might be Handke, Dylan, Pinter, Jelinek, Beckett, Grass, Fo, Simon; but even then the list is hardly a rollcall of experimental literature.

I bought a couple of Herta Müller novels and a couple of J-M G Le Clézio's but didn't get get on with either. Perhaps they weren't conventional enough for me But getting back to the conventionality' of RotD, I'm reminded of the story (possibly apocryphal) of Lord Louis Mountbatten being canvassed at election time by a local Tory and answering 'Actually, I vote Labour … but my butler votes Tory.' The butler to an aristocrat is probably highly likely to be 'conventional' in his outlook. He inhabits a conventional world.

[ChandlersFord]

I ‘discovered’ Ishiguro towards the end of last year: ROTD and NLMG both excellent, imo. It took me only a day to finish each one.

More recently, I’ve read Nocturnes (good) and When We Were Orphans. I was intrigued to read the latter as KI reckons it’s his worst novel, an opinion with which critics seem happy to concur. But I thought it was up to the standard of the others I’ve read.

I’ve now got Artist Of The Floating World and Buried Giant on my tbr pile.