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A review by softrosemint
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
5.0
What an absolute joy of a novel. Masterfully written and entirely intriguing, though I understand why it might not be everyone's cup of tea.
It is the kind of novel that you have to trust and just follow along - much like you would a dream. This is, in fact, the stylistic structure the novel purposefully follows and perhaps the sense of confusion it creates within many a reader is on its own a testament to its success. But in short, if you are the kind of person who wondered at the end of "Inception" whether it was all real or just Cobb's imagination, rather than focus on the thematic resolution and conclusion of the narrative, you would not enjoy this.
Personally, this was my favourite aspect of the novel and what made it an exceptional reading experience for me. It took some time getting used to but once I understood where it was purposeful, it was something I could trust would take me where I needed to be.
It is fascinating to me how excellently Ishiguro achieves the precise sense of confusion yet absolute resolution in confidence in one's dreams in literary form. From the way it makes perfect sense for Ryder to have once seen his schedule and to have completely missed it in the next paragraph, to the way he cannot help himself from reacting and acting a certain why, out of nowhere, to the confidence with which he goes from a room that was at the other end of town straight back into the hotel without question (he once even remarks it was just "one of those buildings"), to the humour in the absurdity of it all. In my mind, it also played strongly on several cultural references - Escher's work, a perhaps less lyrical Borges, and the structure of Dante's "Inferno" (almost every Canto ending with Dante passing out due to the untenable horror of Hell compared to Ryder's falling asleep at the end of each section), in particular come to mind.
And like any dream, it is our (Ryder's) subconscious trying to put our (Ryder's) life into order and unburden the mind from the matters that torture us (Ryder) during our waking hours. In that sense, the novel can be read Ryder encountering different versions of himself from different periods of his life (I believe this is something that Ishiguro himself has suggested; it comes off clearly in my opinion and it is the way I feel I understood it for the majority of my reading time). It is an exploration of what has been and what could have been.
Regardless, "The Unconsoled" is the kind of the novel of which any reader could find their own interpretation should they only allow it to speak, trust and listen.
It is the kind of novel that you have to trust and just follow along - much like you would a dream. This is, in fact, the stylistic structure the novel purposefully follows and perhaps the sense of confusion it creates within many a reader is on its own a testament to its success. But in short, if you are the kind of person who wondered at the end of "Inception" whether it was all real or just Cobb's imagination, rather than focus on the thematic resolution and conclusion of the narrative, you would not enjoy this.
Personally, this was my favourite aspect of the novel and what made it an exceptional reading experience for me. It took some time getting used to but once I understood where it was purposeful, it was something I could trust would take me where I needed to be.
It is fascinating to me how excellently Ishiguro achieves the precise sense of confusion yet absolute resolution in confidence in one's dreams in literary form. From the way it makes perfect sense for Ryder to have once seen his schedule and to have completely missed it in the next paragraph, to the way he cannot help himself from reacting and acting a certain why, out of nowhere, to the confidence with which he goes from a room that was at the other end of town straight back into the hotel without question (he once even remarks it was just "one of those buildings"), to the humour in the absurdity of it all. In my mind, it also played strongly on several cultural references - Escher's work, a perhaps less lyrical Borges, and the structure of Dante's "Inferno" (almost every Canto ending with Dante passing out due to the untenable horror of Hell compared to Ryder's falling asleep at the end of each section), in particular come to mind.
And like any dream, it is our (Ryder's) subconscious trying to put our (Ryder's) life into order and unburden the mind from the matters that torture us (Ryder) during our waking hours. In that sense, the novel can be read Ryder encountering different versions of himself from different periods of his life (I believe this is something that Ishiguro himself has suggested; it comes off clearly in my opinion and it is the way I feel I understood it for the majority of my reading time). It is an exploration of what has been and what could have been.
Regardless, "The Unconsoled" is the kind of the novel of which any reader could find their own interpretation should they only allow it to speak, trust and listen.