⋙ Read The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro 9780571225392 Books

The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro 9780571225392 Books

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The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro 9780571225392 Books

This is a very hard read, long, eerie, with no concrete plot, disturbing, off-putting at times. I have read a few other Ishiguro's books and have always been highly impressed with his writing, so I kept reading in the hope that something will actually happen, that things that sounded simply absurd would suddenly make sense, that open questions would be answered. I thought that maybe there would be a "Never let me go" kind of "twist"...? But no: it took me to the end of the book to realize this is what this book is all about, exploiting the absurd. Once I accepted it, I found the whole thing brilliant - but what a fight it was!


Tags : The Unconsoled [Kazuo Ishiguro] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Ryder, a renowned pianist, arrives in a Central European city he cannot identify for a concert he cannot remember agreeing to give. But then as he traverses a landscape by turns eerie and comical - and always strangely malleable,Kazuo Ishiguro,The Unconsoled,Gardners Books,057122539X,Modern fiction,Fiction

The Unconsoled Kazuo Ishiguro 9780571225392 Books Reviews

There are some dead-on reviews of THE UNCONSOLED on . These point out that Ishiguro has "written a book with the tone and [strange] action of a dream" that nonetheless moves Ryder, its protagonist, toward a momentous event that elicits "anxious and neurotic" feelings. At the same time, all the characters and their varied concerns form a tapestry where there are "irrational shifts in time, logic, and perspectives" and where all its players and events are "a part or an aspect of the dreamer." While this reader did not wish THE UNCONSOLED to be any longer, I did find this to be a peculiar and involving page-turner that is often quite funny. It's also a tour d force by Ishiguro who showed in this, his third, novel, that his subject was bigger than apprenticeship gone awry.

Ultimately, the characters and events in this dreamlike narrative do lead to a psychological profile for Ryder that pulls all the weirdness together. Among the most important characters are Boris, a 12 year-old boy with a heightened sense of responsibility; Stephan, a talented-twenty something pianist who decides to test his ability in the wide world; and Brodsky, an elderly and once famous conductor whose achievement is unrecognized in his community. For each of these characters, Ishiguro creates moments of odd emotional rejection and unappeasable expectations. The meaning of these experiences, as well as similar moments in the lives of other "unconsoled" characters, then clarifies when Ishiguro finally delves into Ryder's relationship with his own parents. This concludes in a eureka-moment and helped this reader "get" the narrative, as well as pity Ryder for the strange emotional warmth he finds at the novel's end.

THE UNCONSOLED is not for everybody. But it's a major book and is highly recommended.
My favorite of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels and that's saying something. This novel is a masterpiece. I think of it often, even long after the last time I read it. Highly recommended.
Nearly 20 years after its first publication, this book continues to infuriate, mystify and beguile readers. Some claim to have explained it, and to have found out what it is all about. I am not one of them. Others have described it as utterly unintelligible. I am not one of those, either.

I do, however, immensely admire Ishiguro as a writer with a singular brilliance at capturing the enigmatic. In that, he can be compared to the greatest writers in English. He does not write novels which have easy explanations. Rather, he addresses the aspects of life that can't be explained.

"The Unconsoled" does have a storyline, and a central character, a renowned concert pianist named Ryder, who somehow finds himself in a city at once strange and familiar, peopled with figures from his past, ruled by rituals he half-understands, split by fierce rivalries that he gropes to decipher.

It appears that he is being asked to give the performance of a lifetime in a short while. But the day lengthens as the hour of the concert approaches, and Ryder moves through a world that is sometimes countryside, sometimes cityscape, associating with strangers who seem to know him, including a woman who seems to be his wife and a boy who seems to be his own child, and hearing about tumultuous events which are never explained.

Many readers, unable to bear a novel with so many uncertainties, give up in frustration, and you will see that fully half of the reviews here are four stars or less.

Among the highest praise given this novel came from Anita Brookner 'Almost certainly a masterpiece.' That 'almost certainly' is amusing, a bit of insurance in case the critic is making a fool of herself.

What is the book about? Is it the landscape of a man's unconscious mind? Is it about psychological disintegration? Is it actually a metaphor for Life itself, with a capital L?

I have no hesitation in recommending this book very highly to all readers. Give it a go, see if you think it's a masterpiece, or 'impenetrable,' as one reviewer has decided. You may find, as I did, that this novel is one of the easiest to read, and most difficult to explain, of all 20th Century novels in English. But I hope you will also find that it is deeply rewarding.
This is a very hard read, long, eerie, with no concrete plot, disturbing, off-putting at times. I have read a few other Ishiguro's books and have always been highly impressed with his writing, so I kept reading in the hope that something will actually happen, that things that sounded simply absurd would suddenly make sense, that open questions would be answered. I thought that maybe there would be a "Never let me go" kind of "twist"...? But no it took me to the end of the book to realize this is what this book is all about, exploiting the absurd. Once I accepted it, I found the whole thing brilliant - but what a fight it was!