Rating: 
Summary: YES it's extremely frustrating but...
Review: ...but that's the point. OK, I lie. In all the books I've read, this one seems to be the most difficult one to try and find what "the point" is or what the author could have meant - as it could be soooo many things. However, the frustration certainly does seem intentional and the book has a strand that is a ridiculous, at times funny and at others farcical, mockery of the frustrations of "modern existence" (whatever that means).
Now that I think about it, The Unconsoled is a bit like a philosophico-literary Monty Python sketch stretched out over several hundred pages. In Python, rule 6 is that "there is no rule 6". In The Unconsoled, the plot is that there is no plot. The narrator is a world-famous pianist preparing for a concert (in which he is expected to save the unnamed European city he's in from a cultural disaster) who encounters and influences dozens of seriously weird characters and events.
The book is not realistic. One of the first, amazing scenes is a conversation inside a lift (which goes up two floors) that lasts over 8 pages I think. And for me, the scene where the narrator spends an entire chapter trying to find the most dramatic moment to reveal his identity to come to a friend's aid (but failing, always failing) is the most deliciously frustrating piece I've read.
Is this a saga of man/woman's isolation in the postmodern world? A satire on contemporary high culture with all the psychological attachments? A dream/nightmare with Freudian, Jungian or who-knows-what-else connotations? It's unclear but the book will give everyone much to think about. This is not a forgettable novel.
It is very hard reading because Ishiguro does not aim to please the reader - rather, he fights with the reader, he wrestles for hundreds of pages. But often struggle is very productive - here it produced a book that while many pooh-pooh, I think is at least a contender for a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Ishiguro is a beautiful writer
Review: After enjoying "Remains of the Day" and even "When We Were Orphans", I thought Ishiguro was a sure bet and bought this book. I was wrong. I read for pleasure, but there was none here. The novel is like a nightmare you can't wake up from. The author constantly tricks you into reading more, even after you already realize the joke is on you. Around halfway through this torture, I "pinched" myself by picking up another book, and a couple of days later dumped The Unconsoled in the thrash. Do not punish yourself with this.
Rating: 
Summary: I couldn't get through it. . . .
Review: As one Amazon reviewer said, this book is like the nightmare you can't rouse yourself from. Ryder, the principal character, arrives in a town he recognizes--or maybe doesn't--for an event he can't quite recall having committed to. He meets the butler in the hotel, who is also his father-in-law--or at least the father of the woman who may or may not be his wife. This pattern is repeated over and over, as Ryder constantly finds himself praised for doing nothing, or criticized for breaking commitments he doesn't know he's made. Ishiguro creates an atmosphere of anxiety by drawing on the standard stuff of common dreams--showing up at a public event in pajamas, or driving endlessly along dark roads only to end up where one started.
"When We Were Orphans" had this same surreal quality, but it built up over time until with a start the reader realizes he or she is really in the middle of a nightmare; that novel was also firmly grounded--at least at first--in a time and place. In "Unconsoled" the gloom never lifts.
Readers here praise Ishiguro's portrait of modern man, but it's far too bleak for me. Love and happiness are real, even in the 21st century, but not in Ryder's world. Stylistically the book is compelling, but the story was too tough for me.
Rating:
Summary: A lucid dream - finding personal interpretations
Review: If you're going to read the Unconsoled, you have to be prepared to continuously suspend your confusion and make sense of the story by personally interpreting the characters and events yourself. It is evident that Ishiguro intends to challenge and engage the reader with the same sense of hope, confusion and agony that his protagonist (Ryder) comes to experience. The story (told in the first person) is built around the exceedingly simple premise of a concert pianist's visit to a small city. In the days leading up to his performance he is forced to deal with various city folk in encounters that seem to peel back the layers of his own history. As a result the reader gains a strong sense that beneath his supposed celebrity status is an emotionally scarred and mentally ill individual. Ishiguro does does not offer any clues to help you discern reality from illusion, and a lot of readers will consequently feel deceived or cheated by Ishiguro's style. Mounting plot incongruencies increase with each chapter and the reader must just move on without seeking to assemble any logic or consistency in the details of characters, chronology or setting. Readers should, however, pay close attention to the way Ryder relates to certain characters (Boris, the little boy, Stephan, the young man, and Brodsky, the elderly musician) each of whom serve to reflect the emotional disturbances of Ryder's own past. The main precaution that should be given, is that the novel's plotline is entirely without conclusion or resolve. The obvious event that you anticipate for the climax is painstakingly approached but never reached. I'm certain that many copies of this novel have been thrown at walls, ripped in half etc. Instead, a very close interpretation of the themes and subtext stand to yield the insightful reader a very powerful conclusion: the conclusion is in your own comprehension, not in the story itself. Readers who enjoy The Unconsoled should check out the 1999 film Magnolia, which elicits similar themes of unresolved parent-child / adult-childhood disillusionment. Incidentally, Magnolia also demands a similar style of active-interpretation by the viewer.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoy a challenging read? Funny, profound, difficult.
Review: In The Remains of the Day Ishiguro perfected the writing style he had begun in his first two books, and after its success he proclaimed his desire to write something different, 'rougher'. The Unconsoled is the product of five years' work by this acclaimed writer, and 'rough' -- as in difficult -- is indeed a word that might be used to describe it. First of all, it is a massive book. Secondly, it has no plot. Thirdly, it doesn't make any sense. Huh? If you've read Kafka (especially The Castle) the solution to this riddle will be easy to explain: The Unconsoled is a modern-day Kafka-esque dream-world social commentary on the individual and society. As with Kafka, the theme is alientation of the individual from society, others, and himself. Ishiguro delves into the question of why we are often so incapable when it comes to interacting with the people we care most about. In the words of a song from the musical Chess the theme is: 'How can I love you so much, yet make no move?' Ishiguro's cast is comprised of parents and children, husbands and wives, who because of their own human weakness find it almost impossible to say the simplest of things, or make the simplest of actions, and thereby allow their relationships to deteriorate -- slowly, frustratingly, continuously. The setting is an unspecified central European city in decline, whose citizens view the protagonist, the famous pianist Charles Ryder, as a kind of saviour who will revive their city's fortunes. But of course, no external solution is possible, and Ryder must fail, even as he watches his own personal life crumbling before his inactivity. Neglecting his wife and son, he is mindlessly self-centred, interested only in achieving self-validation by having his parents attend one of his concerts so they can see him perform before he loses his skills. Despite the fact that they never come, he makes preparations for their arrival and retains a futile hope that can only be called pathetic. Fortunately (since there is no plot), Ishiguro combines his powerful message with stunning dream-like imagery and a good dose of side-splitting humour. Ishiguro has an incredible sense of the absurd (as readers of The Remains of the Day will well know) and he places Ryder in the most agonizing and embarassing of situations, to which we all can easily relate. This humour is welcome in what is a hard and rather depressing, yet immensely well-written and powerful, book. If you can handle a struggle, or (better yet) enjoy being challenged, The Unconsoled is masterful modern literature, well worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: The best work of literature I've read by any living author
Review: Ishiguro is a master of getting inside the headspace of powerfully affected characters. The 'old-school', powerfully reserved butler in Remains of the Day, for instance, made for what should have been a very dull read but nonetheless propelled the reader unstoppably through the book... The sheer monstrosity of the man's self-control made it impossible to disengage from his story. In The Unconsoled, Ishiguro stepped forward an order of magnitude, getting inside the headspace of an affected WORLD. This is an Escher landscape peopled by Magritte characters on Dali time... a wife-who-is-not-a-wife, a grandfather/butler/fool/hero. Nothing in this world is quite predictable, except for the driving force of our protagonist's (a concert-pianist-who-is-never-a-concert-pianist) constantly being late for something or other... and constantly being on the verge letting somebody down... setting a stressful tone and pace I've seen noted in reviews here but was not at all bothered by myself. I have read many reviews about this book, and I've had endless conversations with readers who were sophisticated enough to appreciate it in some way or other. And I think it's safe to say I simply DON'T know what this book is all about. It could be about the 'end of art'. It could be about the disintegration of society and subsequent disenfranchisement and fragmentation of the people and their relationships and roles therein. It could be a simple outlet for an ongoing, haunting dream Ishiguro needed to exorcise. I suspect it is all these things and a great deal more. My latest view (my opinion having morphed over several years now) is that this novel is nothing short of an encapsulated rendering of the entire modern world, what some call the post-natural world. Ishiguro has held up an only slightly imperfect mirror to a world going through tremendously imperfect change. He reflects the leveling of art (literature included, I would argue), the perversion (or erosion) of culture, the buckling of stable societies and the twisting of ourselves as individuals with roles to play within it. I suspect that as we, the human race, accelerate the uncertainty of how our future will pan out, fans of literature will be among the best equipped to look back on our long history and vaguely recognize some greatness in what is being lost. On the other hand we have this unimaginably dynamic present and future... is that any consolation? Some obvious relatives of this work might include Kafka (strange worlds), Dostoevsky (plumbing the human condition), and Beckett (disenfranchisement), but The Unconsoled is an entirely unique work. If you are a thinker and a reader of sophisticated literature, then I recommend this book to you highly. Even if you do not connect to it as I have, I can guarantee a surreal, entertaining and thought-provoking journey. Not entirely satisfying, perhaps... but isn't that the point?
Rating:
Summary: The best work of literature I've read by any living author
Review: Ishiguro is a master of getting inside the headspace of powerfully affected characters. The 'old-school', powerfully reserved butler in Remains of the Day, for instance, made for what should have been a very dull read but nonetheless propelled the reader unstoppably through the book... The sheer monstrosity of the man's self-control made it impossible to disengage from his story. In The Unconsoled, Ishiguro stepped forward an order of magnitude, getting inside the headspace of an affected WORLD. This is an Escher landscape peopled by Magritte characters on Dali time... a wife-who-is-not-a-wife, a grandfather/butler/fool/hero. Nothing in this world is quite predictable, except for the driving force of our protagonist's (a concert-pianist-who-is-never-a-concert-pianist) constantly being late for something or other... and constantly being on the verge letting somebody down... setting a stressful tone and pace I've seen noted in reviews here but was not at all bothered by myself. I have read many reviews about this book, and I've had endless conversations with readers who were sophisticated enough to appreciate it in some way or other. And I think it's safe to say I simply DON'T know what this book is all about. It could be about the 'end of art'. It could be about the disintegration of society and subsequent disenfranchisement and fragmentation of the people and their relationships and roles therein. It could be a simple outlet for an ongoing, haunting dream Ishiguro needed to exorcise. I suspect it is all these things and a great deal more. My latest view (my opinion having morphed over several years now) is that this novel is nothing short of an encapsulated rendering of the entire modern world, what some call the post-natural world. Ishiguro has held up an only slightly imperfect mirror to a world going through tremendously imperfect change. He reflects the leveling of art (literature included, I would argue), the perversion (or erosion) of culture, the buckling of stable societies and the twisting of ourselves as individuals with roles to play within it. I suspect that as we, the human race, accelerate the uncertainty of how our future will pan out, fans of literature will be among the best equipped to look back on our long history and vaguely recognize some greatness in what is being lost. On the other hand we have this unimaginably dynamic present and future... is that any consolation? Some obvious relatives of this work might include Kafka (strange worlds), Dostoevsky (plumbing the human condition), and Beckett (disenfranchisement), but The Unconsoled is an entirely unique work. If you are a thinker and a reader of sophisticated literature, then I recommend this book to you highly. Even if you do not connect to it as I have, I can guarantee a surreal, entertaining and thought-provoking journey. Not entirely satisfying, perhaps... but isn't that the point?
Rating:
Summary: A modern masterpiece
Review: Let me be brief: this book is, without a doubt, one of the finest works of fiction ever written.
I won't attempt to describe the style, but encourage you to read the first few pages to see for yourself, as its quality is quite evident from the very first; as, I also feel safe in saying, is the fact that this book will be read by classes and citizens 500 years from now.
Rating:
Summary: A modern masterpiece
Review: Let me be brief: this book is, without a doubt, one of the finest works of fiction ever written.
I won't attempt to describe the style, but encourage you to read the first few pages to see for yourself, as its quality is quite evident from the very first; as, I also feel safe in saying, is the fact that this book will be read by classes and citizens 500 years from now.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: Not your typical novel, but well worth the effort. I've read all of his books, and though some are better than others, he hasn't written a bad book yet.
|
