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michael5000 's review for:
The Unconsoled
by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Unconsoled is a remarkable creation in so many ways, not least in the technical feat of setting such an odd mood and pursuing it with theme and variations at such great length, never straying into straight-out Monty Python style absurdity, but always remaining within hailing distance. It is, I think, more "Kafkaesque" and more successfully Kafkaesque than anything I have read in Kafka.
It is also spectacularly successful surrealism. Ishiguro willfully breaks rules of verisimilitude that are so deeply engrained as to be obeyed unquestioningly by much more overtly experimental writers, few of whom would dare to have a conversation of at least fifteen minutes take place during an elevator journey from the first floor to the second floor, which is virtually the first scene here. Indeed, a fun student exercise would just be to list the spatial, temporal, and architectural impossibilities in the book, as well as the overt absurdities of personal behavior and relationships. It would be a very long list. But despite this, The Unconsoled is not only coherent but true-to-life. Indeed, it may be the most "realistic" book I have ever read about how intention, action, and memory really work in human life.
Like anything exceptionally beautiful, it is of course not going to be to everyone's taste.
It is also spectacularly successful surrealism. Ishiguro willfully breaks rules of verisimilitude that are so deeply engrained as to be obeyed unquestioningly by much more overtly experimental writers, few of whom would dare to have a conversation of at least fifteen minutes take place during an elevator journey from the first floor to the second floor, which is virtually the first scene here. Indeed, a fun student exercise would just be to list the spatial, temporal, and architectural impossibilities in the book, as well as the overt absurdities of personal behavior and relationships. It would be a very long list. But despite this, The Unconsoled is not only coherent but true-to-life. Indeed, it may be the most "realistic" book I have ever read about how intention, action, and memory really work in human life.
Like anything exceptionally beautiful, it is of course not going to be to everyone's taste.