A review by rainbowalcremie1995
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

 I don’t quite know what to say about this book.  Did I think it was interesting?  Overall, yes, but I don’t think I’d have the patience to read through it again, and I’m still not quite sure what to make of it.  

I think that the book excels in the dream-like atmosphere it sets up.  While I didn’t find the writing in itself overly descriptive, I think that the vagueness and contradictions in the setting did a wonderful job of feeling just like one of those nightmares everyone has where you’re late to an appointment but can never quite figure out how to get there.  The town contorts itself not just in space, but in time, and it left me with so many questions about the nature of the unnamed city, or if what Ryder was seeing was the truth.  Why did
he immediately take on the role of frustrated stepfather with Sophie and Boris despite having met them for the first time?  Does he actually know them, or do they symbolize other people in his life he’s forgotten?
  Or,
the entire concert at the end taking place over an entire night, and the city calmly walking to breakfast after the entire disastrous thing is over
.  Weird details like that were what kept me reading. 

It feels a bit unfair to call the book’s odd pacing out as a weakness, because I feel like the structure of the novel – where each chapter Ryder will end up somewhere he might or might not supposed to be, a character will show up and talk for a good five pages about something that might or might not be plot relevant, he leaves to go to the next place – is intentional.  However, the story drags quite a bit at times, especially since I hadn’t read this book before and didn’t know which characters were actually going to be important later on.  Every single character in this book (besides our first person narrator) behaves in the same way – they’ll say whatever they want to keep Ryder’s interest, while at the same time remaining frustratingly vague about what exactly is going on in the city.  I do acknowledge that this an intentional stylistic choice for this novel, but I feel like this book could have been cut by about a hundred pages and still been lengthy enough.  

I find it a bit difficult to recommend this book, but it was still an interesting read, especially for those who are looking for a surreal, reflective novel.  
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