Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
bombmagazine.org
Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#2Commenting here mainly as I don't want this to drop off. It's a good interview with a really very wonderful writer.
HN'ers unfamiliar with his work might really enjoy Never Let Me Go, a very affecting novel which you could plausibly call sci-fi.
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#3I feel like a change. There’s another side of my writing self that I need to explore: the messy, chaotic, undisciplined side. The undignified side.
His next book was The Unconsoled, which is on the way to my mailbox. I'm a bit scared of it. It's supposed to be a glorious mess and impossible to enjoy if you try to make the wrong kind of sense out of it. I'm extra nervous (and also excited) because I didn't get much out of The Buried Giant (or haven't yet, anyway.)
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#4Commenting here mainly as I don't want this to drop off. It's a good interview with a really very wonderful writer. HN'ers unfamiliar with his work might really enjoy Never Let Me Go, a very affecting novel which you could plausibly call sci-fi.
On another recent HN thread someone also gave a glowing impression of the film adaptation of this work.
I went ahead and rented out the movie and I have to say, for me personally, I really wish I could get back the time wasted.
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#5Commenting here mainly as I don't want this to drop off. It's a good interview with a really very wonderful writer. HN'ers unfamiliar with his work might really enjoy Never Let Me Go, a very affecting novel which you could plausibly call sci-fi.
On another recent HN thread someone also gave a glowing impression of the film adaptation of this work. I went ahead and rented out the movie and I have to say, for me personally, I really wish I could get back the time wasted.
I thought the movie was okay, but I suspect it worked for me by evoking the experience of reading the book. Maybe it doesn't have much to offer on its own. I would recommend giving yourself a year to forget the movie and then trying the book. You'll know within the first hundred pages if you're going to like it or not.
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#6Commenting here mainly as I don't want this to drop off. It's a good interview with a really very wonderful writer. HN'ers unfamiliar with his work might really enjoy Never Let Me Go, a very affecting novel which you could plausibly call sci-fi.
On another recent HN thread someone also gave a glowing impression of the film adaptation of this work. I went ahead and rented out the movie and I have to say, for me personally, I really wish I could get back the time wasted.
Wasn't aware there was a movie. I'd have thought it'd have been a tough adaptation. To me it's quite an impressionistic piece of writing, not something that would easily translate well to cinema.
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#7Commenting here mainly as I don't want this to drop off. It's a good interview with a really very wonderful writer. HN'ers unfamiliar with his work might really enjoy Never Let Me Go, a very affecting novel which you could plausibly call sci-fi.
I've read "The Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go". Enjoyed the former.
I found the latter irritating to read -- roughly, many of the characters are "not in a great situation" when it comes to the role society has assigned them -- yet they are all accepting (perhaps that is too strong) or passive. No volition to change the status quo.
That doesn't mean it is a bad book, or bad literature, but reading pages and pages of characters focusing on interpersonal drama when they are trapped in this hideous situation pissed me off!
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#8Commenting here mainly as I don't want this to drop off. It's a good interview with a really very wonderful writer. HN'ers unfamiliar with his work might really enjoy Never Let Me Go, a very affecting novel which you could plausibly call sci-fi.
I've read "The Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go". Enjoyed the former. I found the latter irritating to read -- roughly, many of the characters are "not in a great situation" when it comes to the role society has assigned them -- yet they are all accepting (perhaps that is too strong) or passive. No volition to change the status quo. That doesn't mean it is a bad book, or bad literature, but reading pages and…
> That doesn't mean it is a bad book, or bad literature, but reading pages and pages of characters focusing on interpersonal drama when they are trapped in this hideous situation pissed me off!
I haven't read anything of his work beyond a bit of The Buried Giant, but this sentence makes me want to read "Never Let Me Go". I think it's easy to focus on the immediate or even use it to distract yourself from big picture problems that might not even have solutions.
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#9Commenting here mainly as I don't want this to drop off. It's a good interview with a really very wonderful writer. HN'ers unfamiliar with his work might really enjoy Never Let Me Go, a very affecting novel which you could plausibly call sci-fi.
I've read "The Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go". Enjoyed the former. I found the latter irritating to read -- roughly, many of the characters are "not in a great situation" when it comes to the role society has assigned them -- yet they are all accepting (perhaps that is too strong) or passive. No volition to change the status quo. That doesn't mean it is a bad book, or bad literature, but reading pages and…
One of the major themes of the book is how easy it is to accept gross injustice when it’s presented as foundational reality, as prosaic as the “who’s sleeping with whom” that the children do take so seriously.
Re: Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
#10Commenting here mainly as I don't want this to drop off. It's a good interview with a really very wonderful writer. HN'ers unfamiliar with his work might really enjoy Never Let Me Go, a very affecting novel which you could plausibly call sci-fi.
I've read "The Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go". Enjoyed the former. I found the latter irritating to read -- roughly, many of the characters are "not in a great situation" when it comes to the role society has assigned them -- yet they are all accepting (perhaps that is too strong) or passive. No volition to change the status quo. That doesn't mean it is a bad book, or bad literature, but reading pages and…
This is a major reason I so love Never Let Me Go. So much of our dystopian fiction chronicles characters that heroically resist the terrors thrust upon them.
But Never Let Me Go tells a much more human story: these characters, like so many of us, are swept up helplessly in the torrents and terrors of their world. And it's not that they're _unable_ to change the tide -- they don't even know that it's an option.
It is, for certain, quite frustrating -- just as it is in the world outside the book's covers.