These are five lovely stories which all deal with very vulnerable individuals and the critical role of music in their lives. Ishiguro’s tales embrace a wide range of life’s challenges, from loss and loneliness to romance and recovery, to friendship and fulfillment. The recurrence of certain characters from one story to another lends a hint of continuity, almost like a piece of music with five movements and an occasionally recurrent theme. In one story, an aging singing legend takes his beloved on a final trip […]
Bittersweet, Melancholy, and Haunting
There are only a handful of novels that have made me want to cry in order to purge myself of the myriad emotions upon reaching the conclusion. I’m not a crier. Unless it’s weddings, graduations, and sports events. But after reading this book I really envy my wife who can cry for five minutes wipe her eyes and move on with life. Not so with me. After shutting the book, or most likely tossing it across the room out of sheer madness for making me […]
Maybe someday…
I am WAY in the minority with this one, I know, but it is not for me. I hesitated before writing anything about it, because I didn’t even finish it. I was fairly involved for about 50 pages, less so for maybe 50 more, and finally gave up about 3/4 in when I realized not only did I not care what happened, but also didn’t even find it particularly interesting. Probably, if I owned this, it would sit on the nightstand for a few weeks, […]
Kazuo Ishiguro wades into the fantasy genre, but it’s not the fantasy that’s the problem.
Well. This was a book. No, just kidding. Sort of. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Honestly, I subtracted almost a whole star just because Axl kept calling his wife “princess” every other sentence. (That’s not an exaggeration. Every other sentence. Sometimes EVERY sentence.) For context, you should know that I’ve read three previous Ishiguro novels: The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and We Were Orphans. I disliked We Were Orphans pretty strongly, and liked Never Let Me Go (probably not as […]