Has anyone else read this?

Has anyone else read this?

>That semi-fantasy setting
>That comfy-but-dangerous atmosphere
>That focus on moral-grey-ground and questioning ethics

I can't find anything else like it. I tried Never Let Me Go, and was sorely disappointed by the comparatively drab everything.

Any recs?

I read it, I prefered The Unconsoled.

Just checked out the blurb, looks super interesting.
What's with the acclaim about Never Let Me Go, if you read it? I feel like I might be missing something about it, nothing about it seemed to affect me at all.

its the most normie one. also had a movie.

Definitive Ishiguro Power Ranking:

>Canonical masterpiece tier
The Unconsoled - S

>Beloved classic tier
The Remains of the Day - A+
The Buried Giant - A+

>Delightful intro tier
Cellists - A
Crooner - B

>Flawed but touching tier
Never Let Me Go - B+
>Novel experimentation tier
A Pale View of Hills - B
>Traditionally proficient tier
Artist of the Floating World - B-

>Flawed experimentation tier
When We Were Orphans - C
Nocturne - C
Come Rain or Come Shine - C-
Malvern Hills - C-

I read it and I really didn't see any point to it. I don't understand why it's praised.

Thanks man, exactly what I'm looking for. Should I be checking out anything by other authors?

Expand? I'm curious to see how someone would criticise it outside of people typically saying that it's too slow-paced.

It was excellent, but not as good as Remains of the Day. The ending from before the dragon was unrelentingly bleak and destroys fantasy convention in every way. One of the few works of genre fiction that passes into the literary realm.

The Unconsoled was C+ for me. Beloved classic tier is a step above the rest.

That IS genre fiction.

>The Unconsoled was C+ for me. Beloved classic tier is a step above the rest.

read some criticism on it and read it again.

try Banville (The Sea). prose style is different but similar themes.

Kawabata could work.

maybe something by Saramago - Blindness?

>read some criticism on it and read it again
I get it. I did. Remains of the Day stays as his Opus. Humbert and Stevens stand as the perfect unreliable narrators, whereas the Unconsoled was unreliable as its premise. I accept that I have a simple mind and honest narrative appeals more to me than what is happening in The Unconsoled. Perhaps that is why it is only praised by a somewhat extreme ivory tower.

you can prefer it but it's pretty obvious to me that the unconsoled will be the book he's studied and known for decades later..

I'm fairly new to reading, I've been through less than 50 books over the past couple of years. What makes NLMG genre fiction?

it's not. it has shit reviews. even on goodreads.

Certainly that may play out in the upcoming decades, but as it stands, it is an intimidating work that is certainly above most modern reviewers, and the payoff isnt quite worth the bulk in my opinion.

I feel like the novel exists for the setting and the action, as opposed to exploring some aspect of existence like Remains of the Day, The Buried Giant, and yes The Unconsoled does. It is built towards THE TWIST. the unconsoled does this too, but much more artistically

I really liked The Buried Giant, could've been a horrible experiment for him but he pulled it off incredibly. The Unconsoled is great, I'd go for that but i'd also like to echo someone's recommendation of Kawabata.

Got it, thanks.

Really don't understand this. I honestly put TBG maybe just a little notch under Stoner for being one of my favourite books so far.

On having a look, criticisms are:

>The characters didn't have any personalities
>They're too polite!
>It's boring
>Axl says princess too much
>I don't like fantasy

????

I feel like it may have received a lot of negative feedback from fans that weren't happy with the change of direction from his previous work.

Bought this on a whim not knowing about the author at all. Thought it was excellent and enjoyed the idea of the dragon, the island and the reveries. Memorable but maybe not worth the re-read - I remember it too vividly.

Wistan reminded me of Lan from The Wheel Of Time occasionally.

I think the ending is clear in that Beatrice dies/goes to the Island, leaving Axl behind and alone.

First I've seen this here, thanks for bringing it up.

I thought for a second that they were all in purgatory

What I like about TBG is that, for me at least, you really do believe in Axl and Beatrice finding happiness. Then you get through it, learn the truth of things and by the end (again, in my experience) you know that it does not end happily, and that Axl and Beatrice will not be together.

I'd forgotten how much I loved this book.

>its obvious to me blah blah blah

if you cant elaborate or persuade as to why its his masterpiece, its obvious to me you dont know what youre talking about

read criticism. not like reviews. i mean actual criticism.

It's hard to explain, which is why I came here to ask why I might be wrong. The premise didn't really do anything of interest, though I also admit I don't really know much about Arthurian legend. People are slowly forgetting things, but so what? There didn't seem to be any significant issue with this, unless that was the point. Something that stands out for me now was that subplot with the kid that's supposed to be a demon or something. Doesn't seem to resolve or have much of an impact on anything.

I read The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, and those books had an impact on how I think, and at times had me happy to read some great prose. I can't say the same for The Buried Giant.

>People are slowly forgetting things, but so what?

yes yes goyim think no further about things like this

To add on to my post, I'm going to respond. From the start I didn't really have any expectations for how the relationship with Axl and Beatrice, or really any of the other characters would go. It's told that they don't have any memories, so of course something may suddenly come up and change their relationships. With so little information, I couldn't presume what would happen to them.

I also thought that it wasn't clear whether or not they would be together on the islands. Like many things in the book, it just left me asking, what was the point of this? What did the author want me to take away here? Why should I have read this? It felt lacking in purpose.

there is a massive twist and I am trying to be sensitive spoiler wise.

That said, if you have to read analysis to get what happened and understand it fully, than the author hasnt done his job. Hence why I respect the work but dont enjoy it and didnt derive anything from reading it. Nor do I plan to reread it.

Such a vague message as "don't forget important things" is devoid of any value.

its not vague at all. some people know whats important, you dont. its simple really.

if you need to read analysis to understand the basic plot of the unconsoled that's your problem, it's not particularly hidden. it's much less opaque than, say, a pale view of hills.

What a shit post. Dismissed.

>He doesn't file the failed Kafka imitation that is The Unconsoled under flawed experimentation tier

It definitely has strong allusions to Amerika but i wouldn't call it a failed experiment. Can you elaborate?

I feel that it could be viewed critically as a very important allegorical tool to represent "the web of unknowing" we've entered as a post post modern society and the very real return to barbaric times or "modern barbarism" that we will probably see in the not too distant future. It's not perfect but I think it really works in the book.

How would you define this? I think that people have struggled throughout history with the fear of not knowing something important when that knowledge would make a difference. But as sources of information have grown, so has disinformation. I could see the book then being like a refutation of the argument that the world has only grown more knowledgeable as time passes, but maybe then the book just doesn't have much value to me.

I'm not sure I would look at it as Ishiguro making any sort of specific refutation or any specific argument for that sake. What interested me was the way the fog acted as a means of political power employed by the Britons and also as a sort of repression or antidote for the barbaric wars and fighting that plagued the land but also gave the land and people an intense meaning and a sort of primitive motion of creation and destruction. So it kind of examines the small scale side effects of this large scale political tool that infects the very air the people are breathing. And the tools use might be in the interest of peace and self preservation but it's never that simple. The fog brings relative peace but also a gnawing sense of loss and confusion that impacts the people on a more individual level. If you're so inclined you could view capitalism/globalization or any ideology that is employed in the name of self preservation as the fog and work down from that. I don't know how to express it very well but I read it at a time when I was thinking about some writings on Adorno's ideas of modern barbarism and the phrase "web of unknowing" was in my head from that. I'm not saying Ishiguro had any intent in this direction but if I was asked to write an essay on it, that's the direction i would take. If this sounds like pure bullshit please let me know haha.

bump

Actual Ishiguro ranking:

1. Remains of the Day - best Ishiguro work by a country mile. Literally a perfect short novel without a single misplaced word. Funny, profound, and ultimately devastating.

2. An Artist of the Floating World - Excellent, a bit too understated in parts but still very good; better than almost everything else that passes as realist literary fiction these days.

3. The Unconsoled - Could move higher or lower. It's the least Ishiguro-an of his works. More opaque and more digressions; requires significantly more effort on the reader's part than anything else he has written. The most 'patrician' of his books in that it isn't immediately approachable.

4. Never Let Me Go - Most approachable of his works, and will appeal to younger readers, especially those still in school. Its characters encounter tragedy, but lack any real agency or even the repressed self-awareness that the characters in the above three works have.

5. A Pale View of the Hills - Ishiguro still finding his footing. Nothing tremendous, but nothing too out of place.

6. The Buried Giant - Parts are quite good, but writing a memorable novel about collective amnesia may be impossible. It's a relatively effective deconstruction of fantasy stories, but past that it doesn't really work.

7. Nocturnes - Hit and miss. Some are good, some are awful.

8. When We Were Orphans - A misfire that even Ishiguro himself admits didn't work.

Not Rated: lyrics for Stacey Kent jazz songs. These are fun and playful (especially "Ice Hotel") but not serious.

I had an amazing English teacher in tenth grade who made us read A Pale View of Hills, bless her.

I understand your point about NLMG.

Personally, I don't think the point was the twist though. The book doesn't really try to be subtle about what is really happening, and when the "twist" occurs near the end you realize that the characters already knew their purpose and are acquiescent to it. I wanted them to fight back, to yell and scream, to do react in some small defiant way, and yet they did nothing because they couldn't conceive of doing anything.

That being said, The Remains of The Day hits the same note and more, and does it more elegantly.

I'd argue that TBG is about uncertainty:

Axl and Beatrice are uncertain about leaving their town to find their son that might be dead, or estranged, and then they are uncertain about their relationship and then the book ends on Axl's uncertainty about the island.

Gawain is uncertain about killing Querig - he knows she will die soon but still holds on to 'keeping the peace' which is really wiping the memories of a bloody massacre so war stops.

Going off on that, Wistan uses that uncertain peace to wake up the buried giant (that is - the Saxons) and start a new war.

The boy (I forget his name is uncertain whether he'll be an ogre, then what a dragon bite will do and ends with being unsure whether to love Axl and Beatrice - something Wistan discourages.

To conclude my long winded response, TBG could be about not knowing who and what you are and having to decide whether it is better to live in ignorance or knowledge. Either way, you attempt to stay who you are whether that means dying (Gawain) or accepting your mistakes (Axl+Beatrice).

>disagreeing with ishiguroposter

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