Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Unconsoled": An Unforgettable Journey of Self-Discovery

Ana Maria: Ishiguro escreve muito bem, mas esse é o pior livro dele que já li. O tema é chato, os desconsolados, e nada dá certo, tudo se atrasa, todos os personagens ficam dando voltas e não conseguem nada. Se não fosse admiradora dele não teria lido até o fim

Brazil on Sep 23, 2023

harald kjellin: Once you have read the first chapter you can get a thrilling insight when you realize that what is going on in the book is very much the same as what you can experience in a dream where you continuously get lost.
Then the whole book repeats itself chapter after chapter which makes it very boring unless you have an autistic diagnosis. In such a case the book can provide you with a mirror of your own life.

Sweden on Aug 21, 2022

Omer Cust: This is the most extraordinary literature that I have ever read. I should say incomprehensible. It seems as if the author has finished each scene, asking himself “What is the most illogical and ridiculous thing that could happen now?” And then answering himself by putting it to paper. It is a structure that I have never come across before. It must be unique and is obviously meant to be, creating a new “ism”. It will without doubt generate an endless flood of theses in the future and literary circles and university café customers will talk of of nothing else. That said , unless you are a masochist I would hesitate in purchasing it.

France on Apr 04, 2022

Marcus: It is hard to review this book without giving away some of its surprises. You may want to look away now...

Some books are hard to read because the language is difficult or the plot is convoluted. This book has clear language and its episodes are easy to follow. However, the world of the book is strangely different from ours. Clint Eastwood and Yul Brynner star in 2001 A Space Odyssey; nail-bitingly drawn-out distractions seem to have taken no time at all; distant parts of the landscape connect to near parts; cringingly inept social behaviour has positive consequences.

Science fiction and post-modern literature deviate from reality in their own ways, but both generally preserve some aspects of narrative structure -- Gravity's Rainbow has a clear sense of place and time, and its logic follow understandable rules; Lord of the Rings is not about our world, but it is very much about some world. In contrast, The Unconsoled is closer to historical and geographical reality -- characters before around 1900 are all real, but far more disturbing in its logic, spatial and temporal dimensions.

Reading this book is a deeply disturbing experience. Digression nests within...

United Kingdom on Feb 18, 2020

Giovanni Dominoni: Non mi ha annoiato come molti altri romanzi che raccontano storie in modo lineare. Complesso? No, per nulla. Originale. Basta usare la propria testa, invece che sedersi a leggere come se si andasse al cinema a vedere un blockbuster con i popcorn in mano. In realtà questo libro è tale e quale tutti gli altri libri dell'autore, ci sono sempre gli stessi leitmotiv, le stesse pulsioni di fondo. È solo lo stile ad essere più radicale. Ma se non capite questo libro, allora non avete capito nessun altro libro di Ishiguro (anche se pensate di averlo fatto).

Italy on May 19, 2019

supervalu: The Unconsoled tells the story of Ryder, an acclaimed pianist, who comes to play in an European town as part as what looks like a tour.
And that's -or is it???- about the only clear cut fact of the book.

From Ryder's arrival to his hotel, we are -reader and Ryder- embarked in a roller coaster of events, thoughts, interactions, with a narrative following a dream pattern. The sense of time and space are suspended, as are logic and rationality. Streets lead to hotel rooms, minds are read, places magically connect, childhood friends appear, family ties are blurry, to say the least and the anxiety is rising.

The dream quickly turns into nightmare as we are trying to make sense of the what, when, who and where. Many parts reminded me of a When we were orphans gone mad, with common themes and characterization.
Ryder needs to play a huge part in many events leading to a key performance - the famous Thursday night- but has no idea of any of it. He tries to get a sense of his schedule but is always a step behind, pulled out of his unknown main tasks by constant side line emergencies.
Ryder never seems to be acting, but only reacting to external events, pushing him...

United States on Oct 07, 2015

C. Collins: This is an unusual novel, written almost as if it were a dream narrative, with all the frustrations of a bad dream. I would like to discuss three aspects of the novel; the use of a dream narrative to form the basis of the novel, Perl's dream theory, and the modern sense of anxiety and neurosis.

The narrative of this novel is dream-like in many ways. A dream has its own sense of time and space and sequencing of events. Oftehn in a dream the sense of time is distorted and space is bent and shortened. That is certainly the case in this novel. The anxieties of everyday life are taken into the dream and thus the dreamer feels a sense of emergency or urgency around nonsense in a dream. Logic,which follows rules in the real world, no longer follows those rules in the dream world. There were wonderful clues to this process throughout the novel. For example, early in the novel Ryder and Boris try to keep up with Sophia as she walks through a maze of old-town streets. No matter how they try to hurry, she always turns a corner ahead of them and they become anxious trying to catch up to her. In another scene, Ryder goes to a movie but the movie seems to be a conglomeration of several...

United States on Jan 18, 2007