Kazuo Ishiguro

by

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

IshiguroI find Kazuo Ishiguro unpredictable, which could be why I am always intrigued to read his work, I loved his recent collection of short stories Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, yet I could not finish and had to abandon The Unconsoled and sadly I feel ambivalent about Never Let Me Go, though I do want to see how it was put to film.

It is not a book to share much about the plot, as virtually anything said might spoil the reading experience, but it is effectively a coming of age story centred around the character of Kathy, from her teenage into young adult years, from the last year she and others lived in a boarding school until the early days of her first job as a carer.  She looks back and analyses that time in an effort to understand the significance of minor details and events in their lives and her friendships with Ruth and Tommy.

I think my ambivalence stems from what seemed like restraint from delving into the depths of the characters, which could be a consequence of both the plot and the narrative form, however in my opinion, this constituted a weakness and I remained far too conscious of this lack all the way through reading. The repetitive nature of the narrative style also contributed to this and I found it annoying, it was a tool that could have intrigued, but when it didn’t succeed to do that for this reader, it became frustrating.

It is telling that I did not highlight any paragraphs or phrases as I read and that it took two weeks to read it. As you can see from the photo above, taken at the airport in Marseille, I finally finished it during a two-hour flight!

Just Dive In - My early morning dip at Sausset-les-Pins this summer

Just Dive In – My early morning dip at Sausset-les-Pins this summer

However, do not let me put you off. I recommend if you are a fan of Ishiguro that you just dive in and read it without referring to any reviews and remember that the majority of readers who have already read this book, rate it highly. I am an anomaly. I am looking forward to his next work and still have fond memories of that short story collection and am reassured in the knowledge that he is capable of work that is much more my kind of thing.

by

A Quiet Obsession

Rain in AixIt’s Saturday in Provence and my elderly neighbour in the apartment downstairs is leaning over her balcony telling me she is depressed and waving her hand skywards. It is spring and it has been raining for a couple of days every week consistently since the end of February.

With a smile I can’t suppress, I tell her it feels like home to me, the home I knew as a child anyway, that country down under where it rains every week but where there is sun every week too, and everything looks clean and green and grows constantly. But our residents in Aix-en-Provence aren’t used to it and the grey skies reflect their mood.

Aix sous la pluie by the artist Barbarion

Aix sous la pluie by the artist Barbarion

But not me.

Today is the English Book Sale, a rare event that I have missed on the last two occasions and I know I don’t need any more books, but I have to go just to see what is on offer and to hang about in the presence of other souls quietly obsessed with books.  You know, that old-fashioned kind, hardcover, softcover, some with post it notes and book marks, one with an attractive business card inside, I left that mystery for the next person to find. And the rain is not keeping people away here; I find the last space left in the car park and join the growing crowd of ex-pats and Anglophones scouting for book treasure.

One of the first books I find is a Virginia Woolf biography by Quentin Bell, and so soon after reading Susan Hill’s Howard’s End is on the Landing, and remembering Valerie’s comment about regretting having released all her Bloomsbury books to a sale, I rescue this volume from its fate and bring it home in readiness for its mate, the diary I will be picking up from Persephone Books on my next London visit.

The next book I purchase for my Dad, whom I will be seeing in exactly one month, in Istanbul. My father is a retired farmer who had a love of horses all his life, they were the main mode of transport around the farm and at the weekends, we would pile into his converted furniture removals truck, horses in the back, to watch him play an unsophisticated, remote countryside, farming people’s style polo. He will enjoy this true story of an equine beauty by Laura Hillenbrand I am sure.

My Booksale Haul

My Booksale Haul

I am detecting a bit of a theme here, I buy this Rose Tremain novel The Colour, because it is set in New Zealand and it has been recommended numerous times and though I have picked it up and even taken it from the library once, I have never read it – and there is something about the cover on this version that makes me want to own it.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go I pick up without hesitation, I loved his recent collection of short stories and this one has slipped by unread thus far.

I see a fellow book loving friend who thrusts Lisa Scottoline’s book Look Again into my hands and tells me she stayed up all night last night reading it. It’s disturbing but unputdownable she says. Ok, always room on the shelf for a book that grips one from the first page and perfect holiday reading material, though perhaps not the upcoming Turkish holiday, I don’t want to read about lost children before taking mine to a large unknown city.

The cute little Julie Otsuka novel When the Emperor was Divine, I can’t resist. I want to read The Buddha in the Attic, but this is the book that presents itself first, it’s more of a novella and the seductive testimonial on the front cover is enough to tempt me, one who rarely buys into contrived book cover descriptions, but mesmerising, lyric gifts, narrative poise, a heat-seeking eye for detail, there are enough enticing adjectives in that one blurb for me to appreciate, living in an era of twitter fiction, so I take it.

A Political Tragedy in Six Acts

A Political Tragedy in Six Acts

And the pièce de résistance, a hardback, first edition of John Keane’s biography of Václav Havel A Political Tragedy in Six Acts. I don’t know a lot about Havel, he was a renowned playwright turned President of the Czech Republic and a daring dissident in his youth, yet the little I do know of him, makes we want to know a lot more. He died in Dec 2011 but I believe that there are lessons to be learned from the life he lived.

And so, with my arms straining under the load of seven books, I look up to the balcony of my neighbour and tell her to do what I would do if I felt that way about the day, find a good book and escape into it for the afternoon, and don’t worry, the forecast is for sun tomorrow.

At last she smiles, ‘Yes, that I can do’, she says and ‘Bon Livre’ as I disappear inside with my stash of books, a hot roasted chicken, 2 fresh baguettes and 3 chocolate éclairs. Life is good!