No. 1 by Kazuo Ishiguro

Let’s BE HONEST: WHY ARE WE STILL READING AN ARTIST OF THE FLOATING WORLD IN 2026?

As we navigate an "ever-moving narcissistic world" defined by rapid technological flux, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1986 novel feels like a historical SNOOZFEST that has finally reached its expiration date,.
The narrative is a "desert of demolished rubble"—literally and figuratively. We are forced to follow Masuji Ono, an anachronistic narrator who is "stuck" in a version of Japan that hasn't existed for eighty years. While the modern world moves toward progress and "Americanisation," Ono stays stagnant, moping about a house he bought in an "auction of prestige" that no longer matters. Why should a global audience care about the "melancholy mood" of an old man mourning a "lost position" in a "shattered" world?,
Even the book’s celebrated form is just a frustrating exercise in self-deception. Ishiguro uses a "stream of memories" and fragmented storytelling, but isn't that just a fancy way of saying the protagonist is a liar?, Ono’s unreliable narration isn't some deep "Lacanian exploration"—it’s just the "purposed confabulation" of a man who is too egoistic to admit he was on the wrong side of history,. He spends the entire novel in a "liminal sphere" of his own making, using "strategically ambiguous language" to "dignify his failures" rather than actually taking responsibility,,.
The text claims to offer an "authentic insight into the human condition," but all it really shows us is a man who is "cognitively impotent" in the face of change. He wanders "aimlessly" through a "reception room," avoiding the truth through "Freudian negation",. If the best a "classic" can offer is a manual on how to be a hypocrite who hides behind a "façade of nostalgia," then it’s time to let the "Floating World" float away for good.

Finished the book recently, loved it, still processing it and making connections with The Remains of the Day, also read recently. I love Ishiguro’s way of rationing out little scenes throughout these two books, that feed into and flesh out the bigger ideas being suggested. This scene, though, I’ve been unable to fit into the story. Why is Miss Emily doing this? Did she see Kathy through the window? Was she talking to someone in the room? I just can’t work it out.

I’m trying to understand the political dynamics of the 1923 conference in The Remains of the Day, especially the conflict between Monsieur Dupont and Senator Lewis.

My current understanding is something like this:

Lord Darlington and the “home team” (English gentlemen, plus some sympathetic figures from continental Europe such as Belgium, Italy, and Germany) believe that France has been too harsh on Germany after WWI. They seem to think Germany has been humiliated and not treated with the dignity due to a defeated but still “gentlemanly” nation.

Monsieur Dupont, on the French side, seems to be trying to explain the French position: France fears Germany recovering too much power and becoming a threat again. So, from his perspective, harsh treatment of Germany is not simply vindictiveness, but a security concern.

Then there is Senator Lewis, who seems more complicated. At first, he appears friendly toward Darlington’s circle, but he also seems to understand the French position better than they do. He is more of a realpolitik figure. He also has American interests in mind: Europe’s war debts matter to the US, and since Britain and France depend partly on German reparations to repay those debts, Germany’s economic recovery matters too.

So Lewis seems to occupy an “in-between” position. He is not simply pro-French or pro-German. He seems more pragmatic and suspicious of the amateur diplomacy going on at Darlington Hall. He also warns Monsieur Dupont that Darlington’s group is trying to manipulate him, which to some extent, seems true.

What I do not fully understand is Monsieur Dupont’s final hostile speech against Senator Lewis.

Why does Dupont turn so sharply against Lewis at the end? Is Dupont defending Darlington because he has been persuaded by him? Is he offended by Lewis’s cynicism and interference? Or is Ishiguro showing that Dupont, despite his earlier caution, is also vulnerable to the emotional/gentlemanly idealism of Darlington’s circle?

I’d be interested in hearing how others read the Dupont–Lewis dynamic and the political meaning of that final exchange.

His writing resonates with me in a special way. I want to read more but I’m afraid I won’t find anything as good as Klara and NLMG. Any advice based on. Your experience?

If you'd like to become the moderator and revive r/kazuoishiguro, visit r/redditrequest.

This is the time of year when people are looking ahead to the new year and in some cases, setting goals for themselves.

Do you set reading goals?

How do you keep track of your reading—online (goodreads, for example), in a digital document, or the old fashioned way, with paper and pen?

As for me, I don't set definite goals, but I have general goal of just reading more good books.

I’m rereading Remains of the Day for the third time and I think I may have stumbled across a rather obvious joke in the book. I’m surprised I previously overlooked it.

Regarding Stevens’ stay at the Coach and Horses, I’m now of the assumption that the landlord and his wife making noise “clearing up” in the night is them having sex, and that the reader is to find humour in Stevens’ naivety.

If this is the case it is an ironic humour when I consider that I too had that naivety on my first two readings!

Hi, so I just went to the book fair and thought of reading Ishiguro's work. I just bought his 'the remains of the days' and 'when we were orphans'. Can anyone tell me a little about his writing style...😅

Please send a message to the mod team if you're interested in joining them. Applicants should have karma in this sub or another literary or arts sub, and/or experience in moderating.

just started reading this i admit I was avoiding Japanese themed ones as if stereotypical but his narratives are smooth and yes his genius in storytelling in any genre is only 30% through stands out.

Lately I've been seeking new books from the NYT Best 100 Books of the 21st Century list. (There are actually two lists, one reader-derived and one writer-derived.) TL;DR at bottom.

I selected Wolf Hall due to its highly-lauded status and popularity. Conveniently, I'm able to stream the series on PBS at the same time. So I'm reading the book and watching the series both. And really enjoying it.

Reading the book is interesting (I'm doing an audiobook). There are passages which seem duller than dishwater to me-sometimes due to confusion over who this minor character is, or which Thomas it is (so many Thomases!) or even who is speaking. (The narrator is pretty good, but it's a very demanding job, with many different voices to portray.)

Other passages are gripping and compelling. I'm not above dropping a book if I'm not interested, but I'm sticking with this one.

The story is really amazing. First, I have to give props to Hilary Mantel, who tackled a subject/time period (Henry VIII ) that many others have written about previously. I love the way she enters this through the experience of Thomas Cromwell, whom I didn't know much about before and is a fascinating character. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but I get the impression that it's fairly faithful to the known facts. Obviously, it's fictional, as no one could know what was said exactly in the many conversations and interactions portrayed.

Watching the series while reading is also a lot of fun. The series is following quite closely to the text and I find that each form serves to illuminate the other- that is, reading fills in gaps from the series, the series fills in some things I missed while reading.

Regarding the writing itself- I've heard some say that the writing is nothing special, pedestrian even. Perhaps so. I think this might be one of those books in which the writing takes a back seat to the plot and characters.

TL;DR

I'm enjoying reading Wolf Hall while watching the series. The story is character and history-driven, fascinating and compelling. Have you read it, and if so, what did you think?

EDIT to add gift links to both versions of NYT lists ( no account required to read)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/books/best-books-21st-century.html?unlocked_article_code=1.608.6k58.2EbM0GFjsNoZ&smid=url-share

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/books/reader-best-books-21st-century.html?unlocked_article_code=1.608.G_2o.u2ic-AZt1hAs&smid=url-share

If you read the works of Kazuo Ishiguro, you undoubtedly read the works of other great literary authors. I know I do.

Because the works of Kazuo Ishiguro are naturally limited, and no one reads him alone, I've decide to expand the sub.

I'm inviting all members to makes posts about not only the works of Ishiguro, but also the works of other great literary writers.

What's a great literary writer, you might ask? It's somewhat subjective, but let's say, any writer whose work is studied academically, or whose work has been recognized by awards or inclusion on juried lists such as the NYT "Greatest Books of the 21st Century."

Some examples from my own recent reading: Hemingway, Franzen, Tartt, Munro.

This piece is inspired by The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.

To make this piece, I re-read the novel, jotted down what I felt were the most pivotal moments, sketched character designs and landscapes for weeks, and pieced it all together so each scene played smoothly into the next. I spent almost 100 hours carving, then sat on the finished block for a few months before I finally had the opportunity to print.

So often when I describe my process, people suggest different ways I could speed things up--mechanize certain steps, make it "quicker" and "easier." But it's the slow, meticulous task of completing each step by hand that I would never give up. All the hours poured into each block makes pulling that first print off the press so rewarding.

Thanks for watching :)

So I haven't read all of Kazuo Ishiguro yet. Life gets in the way and there are other authors to read. Of course I intend to read them all. Here's my list, roughly (but not rigidly) in order of preference.

• The Unconsoled
• Klara and the Sun
• The Buried Giant
• Never Let Me Go

What's your list? Are there any you haven't read yet?

Much as I love the works of Kazuo Ishiguro, I also love to read other great literature. Currently I'm reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and loving it. Other great books I have read recently include A Farewell to Arms, The Great Gatsby, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What are you reading?

I was in Stockholm yesterday and visited the Nobel Prize Museum. This is their display for Kazuo Ishiguro, a flying/falling Klara over a Jenny Holzer-ish digital screen. The blue light line under her top flickers and flows. The museum is kind of a Hard Rock Cafe for Nobel Prize winners with, say, Dalai Lama’s glasses or different sets of lab equipment, journals and even team tee shirts. This was the only display that felt fabricated for the museum. The space is small, with a great, book-filled gift shop, and nothing about Bob Dylan besides the postcards they sell. I was amused at how Swedish Klara is! She looks like Pippi Longstocking!

He's my favorite author but I'm likely never going to talk to him in real life, so I created a chatbot version of him. Sure it's an approximation of him but it's fun to play with it (IMO). :)

To train the AI, I used the transcripts of his interviews including the one he did for the Nobel Prize he was awarded.

https://character.ai/chat/dE5D9YYQedMtVKqFp3kNitzVvZxPReTGRgWDj6mu2LY

You'll need an account for Character.Ai. You can use your Google or Apple account if you like.

Hey, people. I've read about the first two thirds of Klara and the Sun and so far don't get it/am not enjoying it. I read Never Let Me Go and it instantly became one of my favorite books of all time, but so far I don't like KATS. Does it get better? Should I finish it? It only took about 5 pages of NLMG for me to instantly fall in love with it. I'm admittedly thinking of DNF-ing KATS, because there's so many books I wanna read and I'm having to force myself to read 20 pages of KATS.

Hi everyone, it's a pleasure to participate in this sub with you all!

I've been a fan of Never Let Me Go since I've read it, especially in hindsight. It was the first book I'd read for a while, so I found myself being challenged by its length and even sometimes found it a slog. However, when the scene in Miss Emily's house came around, towards the end of the novel, I felt so gripped and awed in a way fiction has rarely made me feel. By situating Hailsham in the wider world in which it existed, so many of the themes lingering beneath the surface became clear to me. It was as if I could see more than just the tip of the iceberg, beyond what I could only see through Kathy's eyes. Whether it was the stark utilitarian logic of the world or the bioethical nightmare the use of clones raises, the depth of the story suddenly all made sense.

After completing (😭) the novel I started devouring discussion around it, whether it was interviews with Ishiguro, lectures or explainers. I started realising that the dominant reading seemed to be the one which Ishiguro often centres, the story of Kathy and her friends as a metaphor for the human condition, a universal exploration of what we value in our own short lifespans. There seemed to also be an undercurrent of political discussion, often pointing to parallels with stories about the slave trade and more broader human exploitation.

It was only a few weeks ago, though, when I was listening to the New Statesman podcast do a feature on the 20th anniversary of Never Let Me Go that I had somewhat of an epiphany. For the record, the expert guest dismissed reading it as political and once again centred its more universal humanism, but the discussion mentioned that the timeline of the novel is approximately between the 1970s-90s. It was a lightbulb moment for me as my mind immediately matched it up to events in our world, where that same time period marked the UK and wider west's significant political and economic transition to the "neoliberal" politics of Thatcher and Reagan. My mind then went back to that scene, where Miss Emily describes the history and fate of Hailsham. Frankly, she describes the creation and destruction of a humanising institution (Hailsham), a change in public regard for the clones and an undermining of their perceived humanity. Critics of Thatcher in the UK focus on her premiership's role in shifting attitudes towards the working class, dismantling the welfare state and damaging notions of community and collective responsibility. I then remembered the fact that Ishiguro lived through this period, working as a social worker with the homeless and coming into contact with the worst consequences of this period. I also came across this article he wrote for The Guardian, where he mentions the overhaul this period brought and his opposition to it. However, despite what seemed to me to be a clear parallel (where the years the novel supposedly takes place in line up directly with those events in our world) I realised I'd never come across the comparison in political or even broader online discourse around the novel. After doing a bit of digging I found it touched on in some academic journal articles (which made me feel a little less confused but also like a little less of a trailblazer).

It really perplexes me that there's lack of a wider prominence of this sort of reading of the novel, especially because political discussion of the other of Ishiguro's novels I've read (and adore even more), The Remains of the Day, seems to be far more active. My instinct, as someone who is more or less completely new to literary discourse, is that there might be a premium when it comes to the regard people have for stories which capture universal truths and the essence of human life (perhaps reflecting the concerns and tastes of the those engaged in such discussions).

So after undergoing this thought process I'm extremely curious about the opinions of you lot, my fellow readers. I'm open to any thoughts whatsoever, but offer two questions which I'm really interested in:

1. What do you think of the validity of the political parallels I've raised with respect to Thatcher and neoliberalism? Are they in any way convincing or resonant and did any of you have similar thoughts?
2. What do you think about the prominence, or lack thereof, of political discussion surrounding the novel? Do you find it takes up an appropriate amount of discussion or could there be a bigger role for it?

I'm so sorry for not being more brief in all of this, but I'm really looking forward to any responses from you all. Like I say, I'm new to this sort of discussion so please feel free to show me any warranted generosity but also don't pull any punches!!

I know the ethics of cloning and “a metaphor for the human existence of human condition” is central to the text. But I would like to talk about why the text stuck with me. The paradox is that the more we see of the world, the more lonely we grow. Ishiguro studies the mortality of the human condition in this novel. Yes, love and friendship can be antidotes. But what happens when you are the one who survives and have to remember a loved one. That is a pain fueled by absurdity. We run into the limitedness of our time everywhere.

I ordered Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and it arrived yesterday. I loved the book and was so engrossed in it that I was done reading it a couple hours later. Somehow I feel I didnt enjoy it as long as I should have and now I've got another book gathering dust on the shelf that I don't feel earned it's place there. Have you ever regretted buying a book and reading it too fast?

Just finished Never Let Me Go. It's not my favorite Ishiguro work, but as with all of his works, it's rich with meaning and sub meaning.

One striking aspect of Never Let Me Go is the lack of resistance to their fate shown by Kathy, Tommy, Ruth and the other "clones." Or, I should say, lack of overt resistance. There is that sad storyline of potential "deferrals" which is of course untrue. Beyond that, none of them ever verbalizes the unfairness of it all or wonders if they can escape their fate.

How do you interpret this this? Is it an unusual twist on the classic loss of innocence story? Is it a parable for the knowledge of death that we all live with?