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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
I have to admit to not finishing this book. I picked it up with more and more chagrin every time I tried to give it another chance. The dream concept was interesting but the writing and characters were not compelling enough to make it worth the effort.
I enjoy Ishiguro’s writing but am feeling a huge wave of relief after completing this novel. The Unconsoled reads like a long stress dream where the protagonist, Ryder, gets caught by request after confusing request on his way to complete his own tasks (that are never quite made clear). There are themes of estrangement, dysfunctional familial relationships, and misunderstandings fueled by lack of direct communication. Through all of it, it’s hard to determine what’s wrong with Ryder — does he have amnesia? dementia? Is he just a self-important ass pretending to not remember? — and what exactly he’s doing on his tour?
This tome of a book follows Ryder, a master pianist about to give a recital in a city he knows and doesn't, with a cast of characters he sometimes remembers but vaguely, from a past that looms and recedes in his possibly brain damaged mind. I think he's dreaming, which would account for the impossible passage of time, and his conversations, the lengths and omniscience of which are impossible, unless you (he) (everyone) were on an acid trip.
The unnamed Eastern European city setting is vivid in my mind, along with its myriad of hapless, desperately unhappy (and spiraling) citizens. But then again, if you have 552 pages to work with, perhaps you could do the same. I'm being unfair. Mr. Ishiguro manages a unusual readability, even when everything is repeated and roundabout and relentlessly detailed. But I can't say I was taken with any one character's plight, and it was rather like watching a train wreck, but without the heart and feeling of "A Fine Balance" (another train wreck and tome of a book). While the characters themselves were distinct, they all had the exact same way of speaking, and each caught up in small tragedies and unreasonable expectations. Like in the horror movies where you want to yell, turn around! Run faster! For god's sake, don't draw that pentagram! I kept wanting to say, Just say what you think. Do what you wish. Leave town. Don't look back. You have everything you need within you.
I know this is the way of the world, but the people of "The Unconsoled" weren't especially interesting to me. It's also my bias - as someone who hates being late, or forgetting an appointment - it was unbearably stressful to watch Ryder do this over and over again, with ever more critical consequences. After a while, I had to stop caring or stop reading. I did the former, but only because it was a fiction exploring memory and reality. If I weren't writing about these themes, I'm not sure I'd have finished it.
The unnamed Eastern European city setting is vivid in my mind, along with its myriad of hapless, desperately unhappy (and spiraling) citizens. But then again, if you have 552 pages to work with, perhaps you could do the same. I'm being unfair. Mr. Ishiguro manages a unusual readability, even when everything is repeated and roundabout and relentlessly detailed. But I can't say I was taken with any one character's plight, and it was rather like watching a train wreck, but without the heart and feeling of "A Fine Balance" (another train wreck and tome of a book). While the characters themselves were distinct, they all had the exact same way of speaking, and each caught up in small tragedies and unreasonable expectations. Like in the horror movies where you want to yell, turn around! Run faster! For god's sake, don't draw that pentagram! I kept wanting to say, Just say what you think. Do what you wish. Leave town. Don't look back. You have everything you need within you.
I know this is the way of the world, but the people of "The Unconsoled" weren't especially interesting to me. It's also my bias - as someone who hates being late, or forgetting an appointment - it was unbearably stressful to watch Ryder do this over and over again, with ever more critical consequences. After a while, I had to stop caring or stop reading. I did the former, but only because it was a fiction exploring memory and reality. If I weren't writing about these themes, I'm not sure I'd have finished it.
Unenomainen, erikoinen, välillä hauska, toisinaan tylsä, osin tuskastuttava.
Kirjan päähenkilö löytää itsensä pienestä nimettömästä keskieurooppalaisesta standardikaupungista, jolla on pienen kaupungin pienet ongelmat ja erikoiset asukkaat. Häneltä vaaditaan paljon, mutta silti niin vähän, hän lupaa paljon, mutta mitään ei koskaan viedä loppuun. Vieraat ja tutut ihmiset sulautuvat toisiinsa, ja tutut maisemat ovat täysin vieraita. Kaikki ovat kiinnostuneita päähenkilöstä, onhan hän kuuluisa pianisti.
Kirja on pitkälti ajalehtimista päähenkilön mukana. Tapahtumat ovat omituisia, monologit pitkiä, kukaan ei käyttäydy kuin oikea ihminen käyttäytyisi, ja lukija jää pohtimaan kirjan merkitystä ja symboliikkaa pitkäksi aikaa.
Hyvää iltalukemista.
Kirjan päähenkilö löytää itsensä pienestä nimettömästä keskieurooppalaisesta standardikaupungista, jolla on pienen kaupungin pienet ongelmat ja erikoiset asukkaat. Häneltä vaaditaan paljon, mutta silti niin vähän, hän lupaa paljon, mutta mitään ei koskaan viedä loppuun. Vieraat ja tutut ihmiset sulautuvat toisiinsa, ja tutut maisemat ovat täysin vieraita. Kaikki ovat kiinnostuneita päähenkilöstä, onhan hän kuuluisa pianisti.
Kirja on pitkälti ajalehtimista päähenkilön mukana. Tapahtumat ovat omituisia, monologit pitkiä, kukaan ei käyttäydy kuin oikea ihminen käyttäytyisi, ja lukija jää pohtimaan kirjan merkitystä ja symboliikkaa pitkäksi aikaa.
Hyvää iltalukemista.
DNF: 50%
Perhaps I'll come back to it, but what would be the point?
Absolutely, I enjoyed what I read. I loved how Ishiguro captured so many aspects of dreaming that I haven't seen depicted so accurately before. Dream-logic, dream-anxiety, dream-tasks. So a reader can slowly form a portrait of the life of the dreamer, even though we never encounter him (Ryder, the narrator, is surely the dreamer, but is he even a famous musician in real life?)
But, like apparently many other readers, the relentless, interminable dream-story just becomes too much. A 340 page book of this makes sense, but baffled why Ishiguro (and presumably his editors) signed off on such a lengthy tome.
Perhaps I'll come back to it, but what would be the point?
Absolutely, I enjoyed what I read. I loved how Ishiguro captured so many aspects of dreaming that I haven't seen depicted so accurately before. Dream-logic, dream-anxiety, dream-tasks. So a reader can slowly form a portrait of the life of the dreamer, even though we never encounter him (Ryder, the narrator, is surely the dreamer, but is he even a famous musician in real life?)
But, like apparently many other readers, the relentless, interminable dream-story just becomes too much. A 340 page book of this makes sense, but baffled why Ishiguro (and presumably his editors) signed off on such a lengthy tome.
You know the feeling: there's something else I should be doing, something I'm supposed to be preparing for but its details are just outside my reach. And each step I take forward in time muddles all the more this abstract thing I know looms before me. Maybe it's a test you forgot to study for, or an important professional or familial event that's coming up, and everything goes wrong leading up to it; time is frantic and inconstant, and everything and everyone around you seems to be working towards making your goal all the harder to accomplish until the event either passes or you wake up right before you reach it.
I just described a very common type of dream in the human experience. You're probably quite familiar with it. And this feeling is how all 535 pages of this novel reads. It's really quite impressive how the writing kept this consistent movement of dream-like dread throughout. It was also quite frustrating at times, because at no point in the story does one feel like he or she actually understands why certain things are happening. But perhaps that's the point. Ishiguro has us dreaming alongside Mr Ryder, whose experience unfolds before him as overlapping curtains without an end, or perhaps Daedalus' labyrinth at Knossos. I'll go with that.
It feels like the story is rising to a crescendo, to some great bang, the way our intuition tells us the universe should probably come to an end. But in reality this story, as may be true of the actual fate of the universe, and as T.S. Eliot once wrote, "ends not with a bang but a whimper."
I just described a very common type of dream in the human experience. You're probably quite familiar with it. And this feeling is how all 535 pages of this novel reads. It's really quite impressive how the writing kept this consistent movement of dream-like dread throughout. It was also quite frustrating at times, because at no point in the story does one feel like he or she actually understands why certain things are happening. But perhaps that's the point. Ishiguro has us dreaming alongside Mr Ryder, whose experience unfolds before him as overlapping curtains without an end, or perhaps Daedalus' labyrinth at Knossos. I'll go with that.
It feels like the story is rising to a crescendo, to some great bang, the way our intuition tells us the universe should probably come to an end. But in reality this story, as may be true of the actual fate of the universe, and as T.S. Eliot once wrote, "ends not with a bang but a whimper."
slow-paced
A faithful commitment to dream logic, alas I’m not a big fan of reading about other people’s dreams.
This book sat on my shelf for ages before I finally read it. It had a remarkable commitment to dream logic, which made it frustrating, the way dreams often are. The protagonist was led from place to place seemingly without agency, and the revelations and resolutions were absurd.
supremely irritating at times and i truly did not know what was going on. waiting for the penny to drop? maybe worth it. still deciding.
This took me a long time to read, in fact I dropped it and came back later. I love everything I've read by Ishiguro, each one is unique. This one is by far the most difficult, since it is one vignette after another where the protagonist seems to be progressing through a dreamlike state. It was a bit irritating at times, until I decided to read each vignette as its own short story and stop trying to make it all make sense together on a superficial level. That all said, I loved being challenged, I loved the writing and glad I stuck with it. Overall I was very happy in my discomfiture.