Wednesday, May 29, 2019

May:~ Kazuo Ishiguro


Kazuo Ishiguro (born 8 November 1954) is an English novelist, screenwriter, and short-story writer. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, but his family moved to the UK in 1960 when he was five.
His books have received four Man Booker Prize nominations, and he won the award in 1989 for his novel The Remains of the Day. He has won many other awards including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017. In 2018 he was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Never Let Me Go (2005)

Connie:                             
Having read other books by him, she had great expectations but didn’t enjoy this one. She couldn’t see the point of it all, being confused in the beginning and still confused by the end.
She couldn’t believe the same person wrote Remains of the Day.

Anne:
Not being a fan of Science Fiction or Dystopia novels, she didn’t really enjoy it. But the writing was so good she got caught up in trying to work out what the ‘donors’ were all about.
She thought the whole premise of the book was bizarre.

Tam:
She didn’t think the author was trying to raise the ethical argument about cloning.
Reading from a review, she thought it was more a parable about dying. We are all going to die, but we don’t understand it.

Rosemary:
Having recently watched the movie version, she thought it portrayed a love story between 2 of the clones. The idea was to save people from serious disease. They would die waiting to help others!
 
Wendy:
Wendy enjoyed the book although she found the first person narrative sometimes confusing and didn’t really work.
The children were brainwashed, compliant and went along with what their purpose was – clones to donate organs to cure diseases.

The Unconsoled (1995)

Lesley:
The main character, Ryder, a highly acclaimed pianist, arrives in a town, with no name, in a country with no name to give a performance to which he has no recollection of being invited.
Time is very fluid, there are many unexplained events and situations and relationships are confusing. She found it rather tedious to read and managed only about half the book. That was more than enough.

Diane:
She found it a strange book, even the written blurb was of little help to understanding the book. There didn’t seem to be a straight theme through the book.
Maybe it was about a man whose life had accelerated beyond his control!

When We Were Orphans (2000)
Jo:
An Englishman, who is now a successful private investigator, goes back to Shanghai where he was born and to find out more about his parents who disappeared when he was a young child.
Jo found it very confusing although he eventually does learn more about what had happened.

The Buried Giant (2015)

Pat:
After reading 2/3 of When We Were Orphans and enjoying it, Pat listened to The Buried Giant as an Audio Book and loved it. It was a very different story, but both books had the common theme of people and memories.

Judy A:
This is a fantasy set in early Britain, 6th – 7th century. An elderly couple set off to look for their lost son. A mist/spell has been cast over the land by a she dragon. Everyone is losing their memory. Along the way the couple meet many characters.
Judy thought it was hugely disappointing and the language was simplistic. She had loved his other books.

Joan:
Joan loved the book and found it absorbing. She commented that we all need a bit of fantasy. She appreciated the simple language, the unfussy general nature of loving and caring on their journey.

The Remains of the Day (1989)

Prue:
Prue described the book as a very English story: the language, the descriptions, the class, the pomp and ceremony.
The writing is beautiful, easy to read and the memories are fantastic. It was a sad but true record of what England was like in the 1950s.
The title comes from the last few pages when the talk is about evening being the best time of the day.

Judy J:
In an interview the author indicated that he chose a butler as the main character, knowing that people were familiar with the general stereo type of an English butler, stoic and with a stiff upper lip.
He then could also be a figure who was afraid of emotion and hides behind his professional role, like many of us. A butler is also someone who would not question some of the things he would be asked to do. The power is in the hands of those above us.

Kris:
Kris loved the book, commenting that the road trip was such an unusual way to tell his story. By the end of it, he had come to terms with his situation.
 She thought it meditative, slow but it flowed beautifully.

Pamela:
Pamela thought that Stephens (the butler) was strongly influenced by his father, so much so that he didn’t even reveal his first name. She found him an unreliable narrator, he lied to himself and minimalized things.
Later in the book he had a gradual awakening.

Val:
Val thought that the writing was so beautiful and moving. It was easy to visualize where he was and what was happening.
She felt that towards the end he was tying to find out about a world he had had nothing to do with.

Judy D:
Judy also loved the book. It was beautifully written; she could understand the main character but became frustrated with him for example when he couldn’t or wouldn’t react to his father dying.
But there were many funny little bits through the book.

Charis:
The book tells in the first person the story of a butler who worked in one of the best houses in Britain between the first and second wars. Following the death of the Lord, the butler stayed on in the mansion and was taken into the employ of an American, the new owner. It is a very stiff and formal account of a butler’s attitude towards his employer and how he sees his duties under both men.

Julia:
Like most other members, Julia really enjoyed the book, even though she normally doesn’t like books in the 1st person.


JUNE: our topic for June is Comedy.
Please choose your own book.


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