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1lilisin
Seems JD Salinger wasn't too popular but we're now off with our final mini-author theme read featuring Kazuo Ishiguro. This will lead us to the end of the year so enjoy!
I, personally, will be reading A Pale View of Hills.
I, personally, will be reading A Pale View of Hills.
2lilisin
As taken from Kazuo Ishiguro's bio from Wikipedia:
"Kazuo Ishiguro OBE (Japanese: カズオ・イシグロ (Kazuo Ishiguro) or 石黒 一雄 (Ishiguro Kazuo); born November 8, 1954) is a British novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and his family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. He became a British subject in 1982.
Ishiguro was born in Japan and has a Japanese name (the characters in the surname Ishiguro mean 'rock' and 'black' respectively). He set his first two novels in Japan, however in several interviews he has had to clarify to the reading audience that he has little familiarity with Japanese writing and that his works bear little resemblance to Japanese fiction. In a 1990 interview he said, "If I wrote under a pseudonym and got somebody else to pose for my jacket photographs, I'm sure nobody would think of saying, 'This guy reminds me of that Japanese writer.'" Although some Japanese writers have had a distant influence on his writing — Jun'ichirō Tanizaki is the one he most frequently names — Ishiguro has said that Japanese films, especially those of Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse, have been a more significant influence.
Ishiguro left Japan in 1960 at the age of 5 and did not return until 1989, nearly 30 years later, as a participant in the Japan Foundation Short-Term Visitors Program. In an interview with Kenzaburo Oe, Ishiguro acknowledged that the Japanese setting of his first two novels was "imaginary": "I grew up with a very strong image in my head of this other country, a very important other country to which I had a strong emotional tie... in England I was all the time building up this picture in my head, an imaginary Japan.""
As I am a big fan of Japanese fiction I will be interested in identifying the Japanese influence in his first two novels and comparing it to the others if I end up reading more. I read When We Were Orphans a long time ago and although I remembered it being good I can't remember much of the style other than yes, it was not "Japanese" in nature.
I am also curious to identify the Junichiro Tanizaki influence as that is another Japanese author I enjoy. This will be fun!
"Kazuo Ishiguro OBE (Japanese: カズオ・イシグロ (Kazuo Ishiguro) or 石黒 一雄 (Ishiguro Kazuo); born November 8, 1954) is a British novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and his family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing course in 1980. He became a British subject in 1982.
Ishiguro was born in Japan and has a Japanese name (the characters in the surname Ishiguro mean 'rock' and 'black' respectively). He set his first two novels in Japan, however in several interviews he has had to clarify to the reading audience that he has little familiarity with Japanese writing and that his works bear little resemblance to Japanese fiction. In a 1990 interview he said, "If I wrote under a pseudonym and got somebody else to pose for my jacket photographs, I'm sure nobody would think of saying, 'This guy reminds me of that Japanese writer.'" Although some Japanese writers have had a distant influence on his writing — Jun'ichirō Tanizaki is the one he most frequently names — Ishiguro has said that Japanese films, especially those of Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse, have been a more significant influence.
Ishiguro left Japan in 1960 at the age of 5 and did not return until 1989, nearly 30 years later, as a participant in the Japan Foundation Short-Term Visitors Program. In an interview with Kenzaburo Oe, Ishiguro acknowledged that the Japanese setting of his first two novels was "imaginary": "I grew up with a very strong image in my head of this other country, a very important other country to which I had a strong emotional tie... in England I was all the time building up this picture in my head, an imaginary Japan.""
As I am a big fan of Japanese fiction I will be interested in identifying the Japanese influence in his first two novels and comparing it to the others if I end up reading more. I read When We Were Orphans a long time ago and although I remembered it being good I can't remember much of the style other than yes, it was not "Japanese" in nature.
I am also curious to identify the Junichiro Tanizaki influence as that is another Japanese author I enjoy. This will be fun!
3kidzdoc
I'll definitely participate in this read. I'll probably also start with A Pale View of Hills, his first book. I also have An Artist of the Floating World and Never Let Me Go, and I've read The Remains of the Day, When We Were Orphans and Nocturnes. The only book I don't yet have is The Unconsoled, which I've heard mixed things about from other LTers, so I might skip that one.
4lilisin
Great kidzdoc! I'm happy to see such enthusiasm! You've already mentioned most of his works but I shall summarize again so people can see the order in which they were written.
Novels:
* A Pale View of Hills (1982)
* An Artist of the Floating World (1986)
* The Remains of the Day (1989)
* The Unconsoled (1995)
* When We Were Orphans (2000)
* Never Let Me Go (2005)
Short stories:
* Three short stories in Introduction 7: Stories by New Writers (1981): 'A Strange and Sometimes Sadness’, ‘Waiting for J’ and ‘Getting Poisoned’
* A Family Supper - short story first published in 1982
* Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall (2009)
Kazuo Ishiguro has received much recognition for his works. Once again, from wikipedia:
He was featured in the first two Granta Best of Young British Novelists: 1983 and 1993. He won the Whitbread Prize in 1986 for his second novel, An Artist of the Floating World. He won the Booker Prize in 1989 for his third novel, The Remains of the Day. An Artist of the Floating World, When We Were Orphans and his most recent novel, Never Let Me Go, were all short-listed for the Booker Prize. A leaked account of a judging committee's meeting revealed that the committee found itself deciding between Never Let Me Go and John Banville's "The Sea" before awarding the prize to the latter.citation needed He was appointed OBE for services to literature in 1995, and was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 1998. On Time magazine's 2005 list of the 100 greatest English language books since the magazine formed in 1923, Never Let Me Go was the most recently published book on the list.
For those who follow the 1001 books list Never let me go, The Unconsoled, Remains of the Day, An Artist of the Floating World and A Pale View of Hills are on the list!
Novels:
* A Pale View of Hills (1982)
* An Artist of the Floating World (1986)
* The Remains of the Day (1989)
* The Unconsoled (1995)
* When We Were Orphans (2000)
* Never Let Me Go (2005)
Short stories:
* Three short stories in Introduction 7: Stories by New Writers (1981): 'A Strange and Sometimes Sadness’, ‘Waiting for J’ and ‘Getting Poisoned’
* A Family Supper - short story first published in 1982
* Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall (2009)
Kazuo Ishiguro has received much recognition for his works. Once again, from wikipedia:
He was featured in the first two Granta Best of Young British Novelists: 1983 and 1993. He won the Whitbread Prize in 1986 for his second novel, An Artist of the Floating World. He won the Booker Prize in 1989 for his third novel, The Remains of the Day. An Artist of the Floating World, When We Were Orphans and his most recent novel, Never Let Me Go, were all short-listed for the Booker Prize. A leaked account of a judging committee's meeting revealed that the committee found itself deciding between Never Let Me Go and John Banville's "The Sea" before awarding the prize to the latter.citation needed He was appointed OBE for services to literature in 1995, and was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 1998. On Time magazine's 2005 list of the 100 greatest English language books since the magazine formed in 1923, Never Let Me Go was the most recently published book on the list.
For those who follow the 1001 books list Never let me go, The Unconsoled, Remains of the Day, An Artist of the Floating World and A Pale View of Hills are on the list!
5kidzdoc
The Spring 2008 edition of The Paris Review has an extended interview of Ishiguro, as part of "The Art of Fiction" series. An excerpt from the article is here; I don't know if the full article is available without a subscription, though. I'll read the article soon...once I find my copy.
Found it. It's a long article (pp 23-54 in the journal), and it looks very good on a quick scan. He mentions that he is a fan of Dostoevsky, "...Dickens, Austen, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Wilkie Collins--that full-blooded nineteenth-century fiction I first read in university." And Plato.
Found it. It's a long article (pp 23-54 in the journal), and it looks very good on a quick scan. He mentions that he is a fan of Dostoevsky, "...Dickens, Austen, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Wilkie Collins--that full-blooded nineteenth-century fiction I first read in university." And Plato.
6jfetting
I'm almost 2/3 of the way through The Unconsoled, and when I've finished it I'll have read all of the novels. kidzdoc - it is definitely different from the rest of his novels!
7socialpages
#5 Kidzdoc - thanks for the article. It went a long way to explaining the ending of A Pale View of Hills which had me puzzled.
I have When We Were Orphans on my tbr shelf, so that's what I'll be reading. And maybe, if I get time, I'll read The Unconsoled though that looks like a pretty chunky read.
I have When We Were Orphans on my tbr shelf, so that's what I'll be reading. And maybe, if I get time, I'll read The Unconsoled though that looks like a pretty chunky read.
8lilisin
The 1001 group will be reading The Remains of the Day as a group read so we should be able to double dip with the threads. :)
9lilisin
I finished reading A Pale View of Hills and wrote my thoughts in the corresponding thread. If anybody ends up reading the same book, please stop by and share your thoughts. :)
10wandering_star
I find it interesting that Ishiguro has distanced himself from Japanese traditions in his interview, and yet he chose to give his first two books a Japanese setting. I wonder if there was some agent's marketing advice at the back of this? Which Ishiguro then felt freer to move away from once his reputation was established. I haven't read either of them, so not really in a position to comment, but it would be interesting to hear from people that have - do they feel like stories which had to take place in Japan? How foregrounded is the Japanese setting?
I am 2/3 of the way through When We Were Orphans - still figuring out my reaction but will post when I'm done.
I am 2/3 of the way through When We Were Orphans - still figuring out my reaction but will post when I'm done.
11lilisin
When reading A Pale View of Hills which was one of the two books with a Japanese setting, there was an undertone which I felt was Ishiguro's discomfort with writing such a setting. The Japanese setting was required in this book but there is most certainly a different feeling when the plot shifts back to England. As this actual book tells, I think Ishiguro's memory of Japan is just too distant to really be able to relate.
12lilisin
From post 2, the wikipedia article on Ishiguro:
Although some Japanese writers have had a distant influence on his writing — Jun'ichirō Tanizaki is the one he most frequently names
I just read Junichiro Tanizaki's Le meurtre d'O-Tsuya (The murder of O'tsuya).
The plot is as such:
Shinsuke works as an apprentice in O'Tsuya's father's store but has developed feelings for O'Tsuya. She persuades him to run off together when one man, Seiji, offers to help negotiate terms between their parents. However, things change when one night during their fugue, O'Tsuya is taken away and Shinsuke is attacked. Shinsuke is forced to make dire choices to find her again.
In it we are confronted with a great topic for Tanizaki, human nature. In this novel it revolves more around a destructive relationship but I did see this same theme with A Pale View of Hills. Tanizaki has also played with the idea of Western traditions versus Japanese (very apparent in his In Praise of Shadows) which Ishiguro also confronts in his novel.
So yes, I can definitely see the influence of Tanizaki on Ishiguro's earlier Japanese-related works.
Although some Japanese writers have had a distant influence on his writing — Jun'ichirō Tanizaki is the one he most frequently names
I just read Junichiro Tanizaki's Le meurtre d'O-Tsuya (The murder of O'tsuya).
The plot is as such:
Shinsuke works as an apprentice in O'Tsuya's father's store but has developed feelings for O'Tsuya. She persuades him to run off together when one man, Seiji, offers to help negotiate terms between their parents. However, things change when one night during their fugue, O'Tsuya is taken away and Shinsuke is attacked. Shinsuke is forced to make dire choices to find her again.
In it we are confronted with a great topic for Tanizaki, human nature. In this novel it revolves more around a destructive relationship but I did see this same theme with A Pale View of Hills. Tanizaki has also played with the idea of Western traditions versus Japanese (very apparent in his In Praise of Shadows) which Ishiguro also confronts in his novel.
So yes, I can definitely see the influence of Tanizaki on Ishiguro's earlier Japanese-related works.
