Why Ishiguro was surprised about getting the Nobel Prize?

                                                           

I am not sure what the answer to this question should be as I just finished his third book When We Were Orphans and I am very, very impressed by the essence of the story, the language, and structure of the book. I find it relevant to my life and the extent of it is almost scary. The messages of the book are universal of course, but I feel like it was about my life and my experiences.

Surely, Kazuo Ishiguro must understand the weight of his own creative talent, even if many consider the 2017 Prize in Literature as controversial. Can such a great talent be so blind to his own greatness? Or is he possibly suspicious that he could not be understood? Or maybe just too modest?

I must say that I heard more negatives about his work than serious positives. One of my authorities declared that Ishiguro writes for women. Well, would it be so that men cannot see the deeper meaning? This is not my observation and most of the men would disagree with such statement. I suspect that this view (writer for women) may be shared by some and I think that this may be due to the very successful film based on The Remains of the Day. I liked the film very much and saw it more than once, but admittingly I did not fully get its deeper meaning after seeing the film. Was it lost in production or was it overshadowed by the brilliant performance of Hopkins and Thompson? I would agree that in the film there was something that women would particularly like. The old British ways attractive and surroundings elegant.

Having read three books of Ishiguro in the last month I am in awe of the writer’s talent. In self-defense (I did not want to get depressed) I decided that I will not read Never Let Me Go, but the three books I have read so far are profoundly sad anyhow. Still, I am glad that I have read them. I understood a few more things about myself and life. Maybe I have now a little more acceptance causing sadness, but it has been a high time to come to certain conclusions even if some innocence of thinking is gone.

The book can be considered a bildungsroman. I seem to have read lately many books belonging to this category and I value the lessons stemming from them. I would divide the book into three parts. The first part of the book is about the innocence of Christopher Banks, the hero of the book.

The second part is the transition from naivety to the point of seeing things we at first do not want and are not able to see. This is a very painful process for anyone. Ishiguro describes it by setting the action in horrific events of the Sino-Japanese war. We enter a nightmare of Christopher Banks. The events do not follow logical rules and are difficult to comprehend, but the emotional impact on the reader is profound. I believe that this was the intention of the Ishiguro and I consider it masterful.

There is hurt on both sides of the front line of fighting, nobody is right or wrong but everybody suffers. The most horrific scenes, for me, are a young girl nursing her dying dog and asking for help for her puppy. She is not getting it of course.  Maybe one could also take the front-line scenes as an expression of pacifism.

When the action moves back to reality, Christopher is able to hear explanations concerning the events of his childhood. The explanations follow logic again and the hero is able to comprehend and accept the difficult truth about losing his parents.

Not to write a spoiler I need to be a bit enigmatic about one story that caught my particular attention and made me ponder on it for a while. The story is about a couple where the man does not think himself worthy of the women he lives with. He feels inadequate and tries to live up to higher standards than his partner represents. This lasts for a while, but it is too much for the man and eventually, he runs away with another woman. The new woman does not set too high standards, so he does not feel challenged. I wonder how often we meet such situations in real life. I suspect that it is quite often.

This is another story of love that could have happened but, similar to one in The Remains of the Day, never did. The reasons for the romantic failure are similar in both of the books. The professional life of the men gets in the way of giving time to love a woman or even realise a possibility of happiness other than work. They both are passionate about their work, we would call them workaholics these days. The result of their priorities is the loss of personal happiness and the realisation of it comes too late.

I sometimes wonder if such things like happy relationships exist beyond the stages of initial infatuation. Hmm… But this is another subject.

The Buried Giant

                                  

I have been reading the book with mixed feelings. The fantasy literature and art in general are not something I enjoy or even understand. A bit of a shortcoming of mine. The practical streak in me is very strong and I think I owe it to my great father. Not that I consider myself great, but this is one thing I must have picked from him.

At school I never warmed up to romanticism, I may have understood some of it, but the form never convinced me or seemed appropriate.  And similarly,  I have a problem with the form of The Buried Giant. The essence of the book is of great interest to me, though. It is about memory of our past and in particular about memory preservation.

Kazuo Ishiguro, as per his own explanation, knows what his future book will be all about before he decides on the story setting. Sometimes it takes a long time to find a right setting. In case of The Buried Giant, it took some years and the book was published nine years after his previous one. He decided to place his story in King Arthur’s times. It is a fantasy with ogres, demons, dragons and real people as well. I had a problem with the story setting and this must have influenced my general impression on the book.

               

The main question the book asks of us, the readers, is: are we better off to have memories of the past events buried or remembered. We all have in our lives passages that were unfortunate and even harmful or painful. Do we want to live with the memory of them?  Or do we want to forget them. It we do not look at those painful memories that touched our lives, and they must have left a mark on us, aren’t we basing our current life on something phony? 

The memory question can be directed to individuals as well as and nations.

On individual basis one can ask a question: would our love to other people survive if we remember all the wrong doings? Is true forgiveness possible if we remember past hurts? The answer given on the last page of the book is – NO. Looking at my own life and some of its hurts I would have to, with some chagrin, agree with the book view. All hurts may be forgiven, some totally and some only to a certain level. Some of them once forgiven may allow us to go back to the old relationship but some even if forgiven change the fabric of the relationship forever and the good emotions cannot be rekindled.  This is how I understand the end of the book and the main character choosing to take the last boat passage without her husband. She does it with love for him, but she decides to do it on her own.

I think that Ishiguro writes books with depressing messages. The stories make you think, and the conclusions  ”uncover the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.

The same question of preserving memories or not applies to nations. Remembering the old harms leads to wars or prolonged partisan violence. There are too many examples of it in the recent years and in more distant history. Often, one would like to put the end to the remembrance, but in many situations, it seems impossible. So people hate each other and kill each other.

Ishiguro gives, in his interviews, example of the French history related to the World War II. Collaboration with Nazis was a hard memory to cope with. It was difficult after the war to consider France victorious remembering role of many Frenchmen being on the wrong side during the occupation of France. It was the deliberate politics of Charles de Gaulle to create propaganda focusing on heroes of anti-Hitler underground ignoring the other side of activities of the French population. This kept the spirit of the country up and helped in rebuilding the country after the war. I feel uncomfortable to quote this example as collaboration with Nazis was present in all of the occupied countries. In Poland as well. This is still being processed and often denied as the burden of such memories is too high to carry. Does the book offer a solution? No, it does not, but I do not think there is one. This is the matter of choice, strengths and courage of a person or a nation. I must admire Germans for their apology to the nations they hurt so badly. Sure, they did not have very much of an option, but still they were able to do it convincingly and with dignity.

I am sorry, that some Poles so strongly deny some events leading to loss of lives during the II World War. It did happen, but in exceptional situations and only minority of Poles were involved.  Strong denials of wrong doings make me feel very uncomfortable and ashamed.

I would say that The Buried Giant is a really good book stirring emotions and posing important existential questions.  

P.S. Writing the post and my comments about France and French resistance in the World War II, I felt uncomfortable even if I was repeating what I had heard. I know that France was criticised by some nations for not participating in the war strongly enough and early enough.  But a couple of days ago the world celebrated The Remembrance Day. This made me think that France had a very strong involvement then and paid great price losing too many of their young men. It was perhaps the country that suffered the biggest loses in this war. Some reluctance in starting another tragic chapter in the country history is fully understandable to me. 

Literature Nobel Prize 2017 and The Remains of the Day

                                            

Having some old sentiments for Scandinavia and feeling European I particularly respect the Nobel Prize awards. The one that commands most of my attention is the Literature Prize. There is usually some controversy regarded the Nobel Foundation choices and that how it is this year as well.

                                 

It has been only two or three weeks ago that the Nobel prize was awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro. It was given to the person "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world".

Is the author worthy the honour that was bestowed on him? Apparently, he himself, at first, could not believe the news about this year’s literary verdict. It may only mean that he is a modest man. This is what I have assumed and decided to find out by myself what kind of a writer Ishiguro is. Frankly, this is the time that I heard his name for the first time. I decided it is the time to catch up and educate myself. Going through Wikipedia, I relised that I actually know and like the film based on one of his novels – The Remains of the Day. However, it did not seem like a Nobel Prize candidate or even the Man Booker Prize winner the book actually received many years ago. I knew the story pretty well, but film versions and originals very a lot, so I was happy to read the book. It is a smooth book, one could say an old-fashioned kind of a book. It could not be anything else as it is written in the first person and the narrator is a model English butler.  Very proper language without any colloquialisms and with good vocabulary the narrator is very proud of. Reading the pages, I almost heard a well measured voice of a traditionalist. A bit toffee-nosed, but in an endearing way. I like the language, even if I realise that it may be considered too proper and as such criticised as not literary enough. I read some critical comments regarding the form of Ishiguro books not being experimental enough. I am not quite sure why it has to be.

Yesterday, I heard that the film The Remains of the Day is a “girls film”. This stirred some feelings in me I did not like.  I typically respect the judgement of the person who expressed this view, so it was disturbing. For some reason a girl’s kind of film seems to me to be a put down. Maybe it is not? Maybe my sensitivity uncovers things I have not been aware of?

Having seen the film and then reading the book, I consider them both very good. I also consider the film faithful to the book story. If I remember the film correctly the emphasis on assessment of Mr. Steven’s life did not come that strongly as it is presented in the book. For me the book is all about Mr. Stevens retrospection and final realisation that his earlier values lead him to missing the point of what the life could have been.   Everything else including Miss Kenton is only necessary to make the point.

The story is about a middle age butler who realises that due to his values and upbringing, he lost the most important thing in life and this is love of a person he admired. This realisation becomes obvious as we read the book. The reader knows first what is going on in emotional lives of Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton. Miss Kenton also soon knows, but not so Mr. Stevens. When he eventually understands his emotions it is too late, all he is left only with is continued service to his American employer. The service may not be that perfect as it used to be, but the perfection is no longer required. The addition to the master and his butler relationship is bantering, something Mr. Stevens has still to learn. For him it is a big challenge but it promises possibility of adding warm accents to the life of this exceptional butler. This is very little to be content with at “the remains of the day” of Mr. Stevens. Towards the end of the book Mr. Stevens knows it as well as we, the readers, do. And this a hard thing to face up to.

                             

Even if the book is about an English butler and it is a good story in itself, it is also a metaphor on more than one level. What resonated with me is the issue of dedication to one’s occupation often extended to blind loyalty towards the employers. Mr. Stevens dedicated his professional life to the man whose motives and deeds he never questioned. He even derived the sense of personal dignity from serving the man who was not worthy his admiration and obedience. He did not know it at the time (or maybe did not want to know?). 

It was one time in my life when it struck me that I may be wasting my life staying in my job. I was working on my mission statement and I could not link anything worthwhile to the job I was actually in. I was working diligently and successfully at a bank. Was my mission to make the successful bank even richer? Nothing wrong with that, but definitely not enough as a life purpose. There many people who work in industries that harm societies and they do not question it as the money is good. Maybe be The Remains of the Day is a good wake up call for all of us who work diligently for our employers without questioning what is behind the scenes.

Another issue that made me ponder was the question of dignity. This is what Mr. Stevens deliberates on from the first pages of the book. His definition is never too clear and never final. It is adjusted as the journey of our hero progresses. Reading the book, I have realised that dignity is important in my life as well and that I am not clear on my definition either.

There are many definitions of dignity as we look up various dictionaries. I selected the two:

1. Bearing, conduct, or speech indicative of self-respect or appreciation of the formality or gravity of an occasion or situation.
2. Nobility or elevation of character; worthiness: dignity of sentiments 

To me  me the second point is the more relevant one, but first of all courage of living in accordance with one's convictions and values is the basis of dignity for me.

Do I agree with the Nobel Foundation verdict? Not sure yet. I am reading The Buried Giant and I am struggling with the fantasy form of the book. Not my cup of tea.