
Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) - ycombinete
https://bombmagazine.org/articles/kazuo-ishiguro/
======
cauthon
The Remains of the Day might be my favorite book. It does have my favorite
quote, which I won’t spoil for anyone who hasn’t read the book as I think the
emotional impact is lessened out of context.

This book gave me the sense that the author once felt an emotion so deeply
that he needed to write an entire novel in order to convey it.

~~~
ycombinete
It's been on my list for years now. I just haven't got around to reading it.
Once I have I'll have to ask you about the quote.

~~~
kyberias
I think you should drop everything else and run to the bookstore, buy the book
and read it. Come to think of it, I'm going to do it myself right now.

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run2arun
No one has talked about An Artist of the Floating World here. I'll try without
giving too much away and taking away the potential enjoyment of someone who
could read it in future.

So much of what we read, fact and fiction, stands on the foundation of an
omniscient first- or third-person narrator. We do not even think of
questioning what the narrator tells us. Even mystery or suspense stories only
hide a secret with the protagonist "peeling an onion" to find answers
progressively. Deceptive incidents, the doubts of the detective,
inconsequential objects, descriptions of crime scenes serve to distract us and
we know we are being distracted and it is part of the game.

But unreliable narrators are a different beast altogether. As the story
progresses, there are hints of doubt created in our minds regarding
description of events, feelings of characters, gaps in some story lines which
we hope will be reconciled later (and which are). A great author can do this
so subtly that if you do not follow along closely it is easy to miss or,
worse, mistake this to be a problem with the author's storytelling.

Fight Club is one such story. It is non-linear which serves to disorient the
reader and at the end we realize the narrator was also unreliable. There are
sentences like "Today I almost ate Marla's mother" and we are left wondering
what that means until a few paragraphs later it is revealed. The non-linearity
masks the narrator's reliability. The book is well-done even though the story-
telling is . But you have to read An Artist of the Floating World to see what
a master can do with ordinary events, conversations, descriptions of places by
(someone who we will later in the story consider as) an unreliable narrator.
Stories like these serve as a reminder that every one sees the world
differently. We consider others unreliable while forgetting that everyone sees
what they want to.

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niklasd
I‘m a huge fan of Ishiguro. I find it fascinating that through most if his
books he stays very close to his main themes – memory, introspection, self-
deception – while playing with and exploring various different genres:
historical, dystopia, detective, fantasy... The Buried Giant for example is a
quite unsual fantasy novel, one that really moved me.

~~~
ycombinete
Have you read _A Sense of an Ending_ , by Julian Barnes? It's a stunning
exploration of those same themes: memory, introspection, self-deception.

~~~
niklasd
Yes, I have, and I enjoyed it! Thanks for the tip.

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dang
If curious see also these threads from 2017:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15428846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15428846)

cool article, not much discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15408463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15408463)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15408194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15408194)

~~~
ycombinete
Thanks, dang. I've been checking for reposts, before posting lately, but
forgot with this one.

~~~
dang
Reposts aren't a problem after a year or so! See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html).
The reason I post links to previous discussions is just because they're
interesting sometimes.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
I think it would be an interesting feature of HN to allow you to see some
reports when you are actually posting something; it is just quite time-
consuming to do that check manually every single time.

------
simonebrunozzi
I've heard that "Remains of the day" is Jeff Bezos' favorite book of all time.
Some reference here: [0].

[0]: [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-jeff-bezos-was-
ecstati...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-jeff-bezos-was-ecstatic-
over-todays-nobel-prize-announcement-2017-10-05)

------
nfg
Not to go off on a tangent but this really struck me:

“ KI

There is a big difference between someone in my position and someone who has
come from one of the countries that belonged to the British Empire. There is a
very special and very potent relationship between someone brought up in India,
with a very powerful notion of Britain as the mother country, and the source
of modernity and culture and education.”

Perhaps someone from India could give their opinion but as someone from
another country that was made part of the British empire this strikes me as
nonsense - of course there are some small circles in my country where the idea
might persist in some attenuated form but in general the above would
considered utterly offensive and - more importantly - just plain wrong.

~~~
agakshat
Definitely so. Indian children are always taught about our glorious freedom
movement in detail, glorifying leaders like Gandhi and Bhagat Singh. There are
sadly still remnants of British culture throughout, like statues or names of
streets or buildings, but I don’t think anyone looks at British rule as
anything but a dark age where India went from one of the most prosperous
nations in the world to.. very much not so.

~~~
mangamadaiyan
Well, there really wasn't an Indian nation before the Brits sailed in and did
their thing; India was a loosely-knit (if at all) bunch of "kingdoms". In
addition, you don't have to look further than the transformer at the end of
your street, or the nearest Railway line, (or the language in which you wrote
your post) for a remnant of British culture.

~~~
mangamadaiyan
BTW -- being a fully resident citizen of said nation who was born a few
decades after 1947 -- I personally do have an ambivalent attitude towards the
British Raj. I guess not all of the administrators were merciless tyrants and
scoundrels, and neither were all of them benevolent angels. I don't subscribe
to Ishiguro's views expressed in the quote under discussion, either.

That said, one cannot wish the facts away, which is what I was trying to put
across, albeit ham-handedly, in my earlier comment.

~~~
agakshat
Any development which the British did was purely to serve their own purposes
and improve the efficiency and speed of their looting the country. Why should
we be grateful for that? The opportunity cost there for the Indian
subcontinent (if not India as a nation) was massive, and the British took it
from us.

I’m proud to say I’m not ambivalent about it in the least.

~~~
mangamadaiyan
I think what you're missing is that the distribution of wealth was probably
just as uneven - if not worse than it is now. Most of it was concentrated in
the hands of a few. So what was looted wasn't going to be used for the good of
the common folk anyway. The ruling royals (most of them; there were a few
exceptions like Mysore and a few of the Holkars) were worse governments than
the Brits ever were.

You're free to believe whatever you want to, and feel pride in whatever makes
you feel good. That is your prerogative - but do mind the facts!

Edit: To be clear, I'm _not_ trying to justify what the Brits did. Bear in
mind though, the royals that they replaced were in many cases much worse
administrators - so the argument about the opportunity cost holds little
water.

