An Artist of the Floating World (1986) reinforced Ishiguro's reputation and was shortlisted for the Booker, as well as winning the Whitbread. His account of a Japanese artist reassessing his responsibility for promoting pre-war militarism further cemented the impression that he was somehow explaining the Japanese mind to the west. Although with The Remains of the Day he radically changed location, his English country house was no more an attempt at social realism than had been his Japan of the 30s and 40s. It was the characters' management of their actions and memories that interested him and his first three books are closely related in terms of style, theme and technique. A Pale View of Hills is the story of Etsuko, a middle-aged Japanese woman living alone in England, and opens with discussion between Etsuko and her younger daughter, Niki, about the recent suicide of Etsuko's older daughter, Keiko. Having this information on mind, we may conclude that Sachiko and Etsuko are quite similar. We may conclude that Etsuko does not have enough strength to talk about her guilt openly. She needs another story to face the guilt more easily. Ishiguro explains, “ it’s really Etsuko talking about herself, the meanings that Etsuko imputes to the life of Sachiko are obviously the meanings that are relevant to Etsuko’s own life. Whatever the facts were about what happened to Sachiko and her daughter, they are of interest to Etsuko now because she can use them to talk about herself.” Furthermore, he adds, The year after publication, in the last piece of journalism he wrote, Ishiguro assessed the impact of setting his book in Nagasaki. He felt the shadow of the bomb induced respectfulness in reviewers and "even gaps in my imagination of knowledge were taken for commendable restraint in the handling of potentially sensational material". But the story was never "about" the bomb or Japan and he was more concerned that the ending, where the narrator conflates her story with that of another woman from her own past, was "a little too baffling. People seem to spend too much energy working on it as if it was a crossword puzzle and that wasn't my intention. But I don't regret it as it was the best I could do at the time." Each scene is laced with tension, whether it's an impending argument, or long held resentment rising to the surface, or physical danger threatening. All of it is contained within the constricts of social niceties - which makes for some delicately painful dialogue - but it is there all the same.

The two women’s histories are intertwined. Etsuko/Sachiko lost a boyfriend and her family in the war. Etsuko married a man in a caretaking role. A distant, controlling husband who didn’t seem to care or notice when Etsuko, several months pregnant, left their apartment many a night to hang out with Sachiko. Not likely. Sachiko briefly lived with an uncle after the war. After moving out, he asked her to return but she didn’t want to. Her feelings toward the uncle are likely the same as Etsuko felt about her first husband: “It was nice of him to have invited me into his household. But I’m afraid I’ve made other plans now. “ “There’s nothing for me at my Uncle’s house. Just a few empty rooms, that’s all. I could sit there in a room and grow old.“ Kasuo Ishiguro bilindiği üzere Japon kökenli olmasına rağmen; İngilizce yazan, İngiltere'de yaşayan ve İngiliz vatandaşı olarak hayatını sürdüren bir yazar. Haliyle bu durumda aslında İngiliz Edebiyatı yapması beklenebilir. Ancak İngiltere'nin, malum tarihi politikalarından dolayı, eskiden beri sahip olduğu çok İngiliz olmayan gayrikökenli yazarları mevcut. Bu yazarlarda ilginç bir şekilde, İngiltere'de başarılı olma yolunun, farklılığını kullanmak bundan beslenmek olduğunu düşünüyor sanırım. Bu çerçevede Kasuo Ishiguro'nun eline aldığı konu ve işleme şekli bir Japon yazarınkinden çok farklı değil.This book was so creepy and confusing that I opted to read it again. Not just because it is short, but because it is well written and it weaves a very intriguing mystery. He says the fact that great writers are often revered and rewarded with prizes in old age only masks the reality that time is running out. "There was this idea, which felt almost like a conspiracy, that a writer in his 30s was early in a writing life. But I realised you should think more in terms of the length and timing of a footballer's career. Your best chance of producing a decent book comes somewhere between 30 and 45 and I suddenly saw my life as a finite number of books."

Holy shit what an ending and what a shift in perspective is implied by only a few paragraphs! I really needed to wrap my head around this and felt quite uncomfortable in my bed after finishing this book. The novel even does a very good job of replicating the varying syntax between English and Japanese - in the reminiscences, the dialogue does not flow as it would in English, and the translation is in some cases very literal, which makes the dialogue reflect the difference in thought patterns that speaking (and thinking) in another language requires.

Abstract

Ishiguro likes fantasy. It’s in almost all his novels that I’ve read. So what’s going on with all this symmetry of the main character and her Japanese neighbor? And the symmetry of the little neighbor girl in Japan and of her first-born daughter? Maybe a reincarnation thing? Or something more practical? Same father?