Reviews

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

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rucha_s's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

catrionabruce's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

maddieasy's review against another edition

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3.0

As a fan of Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, I enjoyed reading A Pale View of Hills. Alike his other works, Ishiguro's style of writing is reflective rather than dramatic, focusing on the protagonist Etsuko's musing on how her past in post-war Nagasaki relates to her eldest daughter's recent suicide. Despite this story might lack dynamism to some, the book is powerful on its focus on loss and how the lack of freedom to chose can truly devastate lives.

auroraleighs's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Another great one from Ishiguro. It's a strong, elegant, and sad first novel that showcases his future ability to hit on so many emotional themes with subtlety and grace. Haunting and lovely.

chiaaraa's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5

paigeturner314's review against another edition

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4.0

another kazuo ishiguro w

just so beautiful - hauntingly so.

reminded me a little of [b:Fever Dream|30763882|Fever Dream|Samanta Schweblin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1471279721l/30763882._SX50_.jpg|42701168]
the stories are all told in different intervals and i really liked how it almost followed a thought process - like she was just sitting down and telling us a story. this is how kazuo ishiguro's books normally are, which can make it a little hard to follow at times, but also feel so human. after reading [b:Klara and the Sun|54120408|Klara and the Sun|Kazuo Ishiguro|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1603206535l/54120408._SY75_.jpg|84460796] i appreciated how he makes his main characters almost irrelevant - at times i hated that decision, but over all i respected it.

i thought it was interesting how he decided to

Spoiler

include more about others' stories than keiko's because it was advertised as being about etsuko's grief - but mariko and sachiko were very interesting characters. we never see keiko alive, which i think is an interesting choice.

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sidharthvardhan's review against another edition

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4.0

"Niki, the name we finally gave my younger daughter, is not an abbreviation; it was a compromise I reached with her father. For paradoxically it was he who wanted to give her a Japanese name, and I — perhaps out of some selfish desire not to be reminded of the past — insisted on an English one."

Etsuko doesn't like to talk or even think about her past, the time of world war 2 when she was in Nagasaki. It is the central theme of the book having to deal with gloomy and dark past (the world war and nuclear bombs) while building the future, whether you are talking about Japan or at the individual level:

"That’s no way to bring a child into the world, visiting the cemetery every week."

This is just one of the ways the people in the novel deal with the past - her friend, Sachiko, must keep on reassuring her that she has nothing to feel guilty about in marrying an American man and leaving for States (which she too is doing for her daughter's future). Her father-in-law is troubled by the Japanese adoption of American values. There is that whole generation gap thing - but I guess nothing widens that gap like war, from a generation of old ways (father-in-law) to a generation, lost to war (Etsuko and Sachiko) to the generation that was born in or around war times (Keiko) to the generation that is alien to their parents' sufferings (Nikki).

This is difference between dates of generations is common motif (though not most obvious) in all Ishiguru books I have read but this one also shows characters who have other forms of prejudice then prevalent whether it be Japanese prejudice against women:

"My wife votes for Yoshida just because he looks like her uncle. That’s typical of women. They don’t understand politics. They think they can choose the country’s leaders the same way they choose dresses.”

Or western prejudice against Japanese (arising out of Kamikaze strikes?):

"The English are fond of their idea that our race has an instinct for suicide, as if further explanations are unnecessary; for that was all they reported, that she was Japanese and that she had hung herself in her room."

There are usual 'memory' tricks that only Proust and Ishiguru can pull as far as I am concerned (Banville and Barnes failed to impress).

"Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers, and no doubt this applies to certain of the recollections I have gathered here."

And finally, my favorite quote:

"I have found myself continually bringing to mind that picture — of my daughter hanging in her room for days on end. The horror of that image has never diminished, but it has long ceased to be a morbid matter; as with a wound on one’s own body, it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things."