Tag Archives: Ishiguro

There’s something that Ishiguro does in this novel that’s either brilliant or terribly annoying. While it likely comes under the category of changing point of view–to first person omniscient no less–it is in keeping with the surreal plotting of events … Continue reading →

Haven’t given up on this book, but it’s clearly not a favorite. There seems to be “much ado about nothing” and yet I’m sure that if I could just reach that level of understanding the story would be more meaningful … Continue reading →

It’s really embarrassing to me how slow I’m reading this book. While I’ve been involved in hypertext writing and coding for same, that’s really not an excuse for not allowing some reading time, and this story just hasn’t kept me … Continue reading →

This is sort of Twilight Zone-ish in that something’s going on that the town all knows about and is plotting for while the narrator is rather oblvious to the situation. Even before Jakob Kanitz had finished speaking, a low assenting … Continue reading →

From dreamlike we go into surreal, as Ryder accompanies the hotel manager Hoffman into a dinner party dressed in his jammies. No one bats an eye. Well folks, this isn’t realism here even by Hollywood standards. We are given clues … Continue reading →

The differences in time as judged by the narrator versus the actual time as placed by the other characters  was touched upon very lightly by Ishiguro, explainable by a longer than expected nap or some such detail, but it is … Continue reading →

At last, a slightly more accurate pinpointing of the time setting of this novel: When the main feature finally started we had been seated for at least half an hour, and I saw with some relief it was to be … Continue reading →

There has to be something I simply haven’t caught onto yet in this novel, as the inconsistencies mount and are far beneath a prizewinning author unless they are planned and point to a reasonable cause. Sophie grasped my arm. ‘If … Continue reading →

To quote Elmer Fudd, ” There’s something vewwy scwewwy going on awound here.” While I realize that my reading in spurts of this novel (busy on other stuff like writing and learning web setups) is partly to blame for my … Continue reading →

I’m beginning to get a sense that the main character of Mr. Ryder is a metaphor for a part of our minds, whether it be memory or regret or conscience or such. In another small episode, we get the inner … Continue reading →

Relevant to my prior post about ‘something funny going on’ here, Ishiguro is slowly unraveling his world and evidently, the characters understand the rules. The rain continued to fall steadily as we travelled through the night-time streets. The young man … Continue reading →

I’m beginning to suspect that the dreamlike events and particularly the protagonist’s somewhat unusual reaction to them may be a bit of unreality thrown into the reality, or perhaps a play on time. While Ryder appears to slowly remember Boris … Continue reading →

Now I can accept life on Mars and apocalypse on Earth in fiction. I can see The Invisible Man and believe that kryptonite can kill Superman. It’s getting hard however to swallow Ishiguro’s Mr. Ryder’s reaction to his circumstances in … Continue reading →

As the narrator, Mr. Ryder, settles into his surroundings at the hotel, we see a recurring theme of a near adulation from the hotel employees. Yet each finds a way to spend enough time with him in order to seek … Continue reading →

Old-fashioned and slow. But that’s harsh, since the writing style is indeed wonderfully proper prose and as the story opens with a first person narrator, a concert pianist named Mr. Ryder, arriving at a hotel and being somewhat taken aback … Continue reading →