Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant. Kazuo Ishiguro - The Buried Giant Ishiguro his best novels by rating
Kazuo Ishiguro (November 8, 1954, Nagasaki, Japan) is a British writer of Japanese origin, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Born in the family of oceanographer Shizuo Ishiguro. In 1960, the Ishiguro family moved to the British city of Guilford, the administrative center of Surrey, where Kazuo's father was invited to research at the National Institute of Oceanography. Kazuo enrolled at a primary school in Stufton and then continued his studies at the Surrey Grammar School. After graduation, he took a one-year sabbatical and traveled around the US and Canada. He dreamed of becoming a musician, played in clubs, sent demos to producers, but without further success.
Kazuo entered the University of Kent in 1974, where he received a BA in English and Philosophy in 1978. Was a social worker in London. In 1980 he received his Master of Arts degree from the University of East Anglia. One of the seminars that Kazuo attended at the University of East Anglia was led by Malcolm Bradbury, and Ishiguro was mentored by the famous writer Angela Carter. In 1983, Ishiguro received British citizenship.
Ishiguro co-wrote several songs on American jazz singer Stacey Kent's albums "Breakfast On the Morning Tram" in 2007 and "The Changing Lights" in 2013 ("The Changing Lights"). Ishiguro said about his lyrics for songs “...intimate, confidential, very personal, their meaning should not be clearly visible. It has to be vague, you have to read between the lines."
Ishiguro has been married to Lorna McDougall since 1986. They met while working as social workers at a London homeless shelter in Notting Hill. Lives in London with his wife and daughter Naomi.
Books (8)
Inconsolable
Did Kafka assume that his artistic method could be carried to its logical conclusion?
Possibly the best English-language writer of the present time, the winner of numerous literary awards, Kazuo Ishiguro, in his novel The Discouraged, made Kafkaesque scenery the backdrop for the depiction of the personality of the artist, unable to separate his private and social life.
This is both a farce and a nightmare, a study of the cruelty inherent in society as a whole and in an individual family, and all this against the backdrop of a fictional city, on the verge of reality ...
When we were orphans
From a Japanese-born, literary seminar alumnus Malcolm Bradbury, winner of the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day, this is an exquisite novel that paradoxically combines the traditions of the "black detective" of the 1930s and the "cultural prose" of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
The most famous detective, intellectual Christopher Banks has been dreaming since childhood to solve the mystery of the disappearance of his parents - and finally he has the opportunity to do this, in a very turbulent time, going on the London-Shanghai route. However, Christopher's investigation and his exotic journey gradually turn into a journey from the Present to the Past, from the world of illusions to the world of cruel reality.
Do not let me go
Thirty-year-old Kathy reminisces about her childhood at the privileged Hailsham School, full of strange omissions, half-hearted revelations and hidden threats.
This is a novel-parable, it is a story of love, friendship and memory, it is the ultimate embodiment of the metaphor “to serve all life”.
Nocturnes: five stories about music and twilight
From Japanese-born Literary Seminar graduate Malcolm Bradbury, winner of the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day, the first collection of short stories in his illustrious track record.
These five amazing stories about the magical power of music and the gathering twilight are united not only thematically and metaphorically, but also by common characters, forming an exquisite large-scale canvas. Here, an unsuccessful saxophonist undergoes plastic surgery in the hope that this will move his career off the ground, a pop star sings serenades in Venice to his wife, with whom he has lived for decades, and a young cellist finds himself a highly original mentor...
The rest of the day
An English servant (in our case, a butler), strictly speaking, is neither a rank nor a profession. This is a vocation, a mission, an unbearable (but honorable!) Cross, which the protagonist Stevens takes upon himself and carries with dignity through life.
True, at the end of this very life, something makes you turn back to the past, and it turns out that the world is more complicated than the butler's subordinate household. That dignity can be preserved for no clear reason, and the cult of a gentleman can be used by cunning pragmatists for not the best purposes.
Buried Giant
Each work of Kazuo Ishiguro is an event in world literature. His novels have been translated into over forty languages. The circulation of the books "The Rest of the Day" and "Don't Let Me Go" amounted to over a million copies.
The Buried Giant is an unusual, bewitching novel.
Kazuo Ishiguro
Buried Giant
Deborah Rogers
1938–2014
Part one
The winding path or sleepy meadow for which England later became famous, you would have to look further. Instead, for miles around, the lands were deserted and uncultivated, occasionally punctuated by unbroken paths through rocky mountains or gloomy swampy wastelands. The roads that remained from the Romans, by that time, had mostly either turned into solid potholes or overgrown with grass, often leading into the wilderness and breaking off there. An icy fog hung over the rivers and swamps - a great refuge for the ogres, who in those days felt at home in these parts. People who lived in the neighborhood - one can only guess what desperation drove them to settle in such gloomy places - must have been afraid of these creatures, whose heavy breathing was heard from the mists long before the appearance of their ugly bodies. But these monsters did not cause shocks. It was considered quite common to stumble upon an ogre, since in those days there were many other reasons for unrest: how to extract food from stony soil, how not to be left without firewood for the hearth, how to stop an ailment that could kill a dozen pigs in just one day or paint children's cheeks with a greenish rash.
In general, the ogres did not cause much trouble, unless, of course, they were disturbed. We had to put up with the fact that from time to time, perhaps after some mysterious feud with relatives, an angry monster would tumble into the village and, no matter how much you shout and shake your weapons, raged, maiming anyone who did not have time to get out of his way. Sometimes the ogre dragged a child into the darkness. In those days, one had to be philosophical about such atrocities.
In one such place - on the edge of a huge swamp in the shadow of peaked mountains - lived the elderly spouses Axel and Beatrice. Perhaps they were not called exactly that, or the names were not complete, but there is no need to complicate things, and that is how we will call them. I could say that these spouses led a solitary life, but in those days, few managed to live "solitary" in one way or another familiar to us. In search of warmth and protection, the peasants lived in shelters, many of which were dug into the hillside, connected to each other by deep underground passages and covered corridors. Our elderly couple lived in one of these sprawling burrows—to call it a home would be too much of an exaggeration—along with about sixty other inhabitants. If you left the hole and walked around the hill for twenty minutes, you could reach the next settlement, and, in your opinion, it would be no different from the previous one. But the inhabitants themselves would point out many differences that served as a reason for their pride or shame. I don’t want to give you the impression that there was nothing else in Britain in those days, that in an era when magnificent civilizations flourished in the world, we had just emerged from the Iron Age. If you could move around the country in the blink of an eye, you would certainly find castles with music, gourmet food, sports, or monasteries whose inhabitants are immersed in science. But nothing can be done. Even on a strong horse in good weather, one could ride for days on end and not see either a castle or a monastery in the green expanses. In most cases, you would find settlements like the one above, and unless you had extra food or clothing to donate, or were armed to the teeth, you could hardly expect a warm welcome. It's a pity to paint our country so ugly, but that's how things were.
But back to Axel and Beatrice. As I have already said, the elderly couple lived on the very edge of the hole, where their shelter was little protected from the weather and where almost no heat came from the fire in the large hall, where all the inhabitants gathered in the evenings. Perhaps there was a time when they lived closer to the fire - a time when they lived with their children. In fact, this was exactly what Axel thought about when, in the vague pre-dawn hour, he lay in bed with his wife fast asleep next to him, and his heart sank from an inexplicable feeling of loss, preventing him from returning to sleep.
Perhaps that was the reason why Axl finally got out of bed that morning and quietly slipped out to sit on an old rickety bench that stood at the entrance to the hole, waiting for the first rays of the sun. Spring had already come, but the air was still stinging with frost, even Beatrice's cloak, which Axel threw on along the way, did not help. However, he was so immersed in his thoughts that when he realized how much he was frozen, the stars had already gone out, dawn was breaking on the horizon, and the first sounds of bird trills were heard from the dusk.
The corridors inside the burrow were still completely dark, and Axel had to grope the short distance to the door to his room. The doors in the hole were often arches that separated the rooms from the corridor. The openness of such an arrangement did not at all seem to the inhabitants an encroachment on their personal space, because thanks to this, heat entered the rooms, diverging along the corridors from a large fire or smaller fires, which were allowed to burn in a hole. However, since Axel and Beatrice's room was too far from any kind of fire, there was something that we could recognize as a real door - a large wooden frame with branches tied crosswise to it, climbing vines and thistles, which every time, entering or leaving, it was necessary to throw it aside, but which did not let in cold drafts. Axel would have been happy to do without this door, but over time it became a matter of special pride for Beatrice. Upon his return, he often found his wife pulling out withered shoots from this structure and replacing them with fresh ones collected the day before.
Nobel Prize in Literature to the 62-year-old British writer of Japanese origin Kazuo Ishiguro "for novels of great emotional power that opened up the abyss behind our illusory sense of connection with the world around us.”
“If you mix Jane Austen and Franz Kafka, you get Kazuo Ishiguro. True, we still have to add a little Marcel Proust. Then all this needs to be shaken up a little - and you will get his works, ”said permanent secretary of the academy Sara Danius.
Let's figure out which books to start with the Nobel laureate, who created his own separate artistic reality. A nice bonus is that you can read them both in the original in English and in translation into Russian.
Where there are hills in the haze (1982)
The debut novel of the British writer, although it was not nominated for any literary awards, is no worse than the rest. In addition, the book is not very large and is great for getting to know Ishiguro's style.
The game is not won or lost when the king is cornered. The outcome is a foregone conclusion as soon as the player abandons any strategic plan.
This is the story of the widow Etsuko, who lives in the English countryside. After the suicide of her eldest daughter, she plunges into memories of her youth. The action in the novel takes place in two planes at once - post-war Nagasaki and modern England. The central theme in the novel is memory - about the tragedy of an entire country or a tragedy in the life of an individual.
The Wandering World Artist (1986)
Ishiguro's second novel focuses on Japan after World War II. The protagonist, artist Matsui Ohno, recalls his military past and former glory, when he supported ultra-nationalist sentiments with his work during the war. However, now he looks at the past in a completely different way, and is also trying to get used to the new conditions of life and responsibility for his actions.
In youth, many things seem boring and lifeless. But then, as you get older, you suddenly discover that these are the things that are most important to you.
This is one of the best books of the writer, which tells about the attitude of the Japanese to the Second World War. For this novel, Ishiguro received a nomination for the Booker Prize. "The Artist of the Unsteady World" was also the British Book of the Year in 1986.
Rest of the Day (1989)
One of the most famous works of the author, which brought him the Booker Prize. In 1993, James Ivory directed the film At the End of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Later, the book was included in the ratings of the best English-language novels of the 20th century, works without which it is impossible to live and which everyone should read.
You can’t think all your life only about what could have been. It's time to understand that your life is no worse than that of others, and maybe even better, and say thank you.
The narration in the novel is in the first person - the butler Stevens in one of the English mansions. In the course of the story, he recalls his past and present, and also pays a lot of attention not only to professional relationships, but also personal ones - with his former housekeeper colleague Miss Kenton.
Don't Let Me Go (2005)
The dystopian novel, which brought the writer a fourth nomination for the Booker Prize and in 2005 was included by Time in the list of the best books since 1923. In 2010, the book received a film adaptation - the film of the same name by Mark Romanek with Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley in the lead roles, and in 2016 a Japanese TV series was released.
Don't forget: you were better than many before you. And who knows what awaits those who come after you.
This is the story of memories of 30-year-old Katie, whose childhood was spent in an unusual British boarding school where people were cloned. to create living organ donors for transplantation. The novel is divided into 3 parts, raises such important topics as free will and duty to society, and will definitely not leave you indifferent.
Buried Giant (2015)
So far, the last novel by Ishiguro, the writing of which was delayed for 10 years. The Nobel Committee noted this book, because in it the author explores how memory is connected with oblivion, history - with the present, and fantasy - with reality. And critics called it the most unusual and risky for all the work of the writer.
Format: FB2, eBook (originally computer)
Kazuo Ishiguro
Year: 2000-2011
Genre: modern prose
Publisher: Eksmo, Domino, Symposium
Russian language
Number of books: 7
Description: Kazuo Ishiguro (カズオ・イシグロ; born November 8, 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan) is a British writer of Japanese origin. Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1989). Ishiguro was awarded the Whitbread Award for his second novel, The Artist of the Fluctuating World, and the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day. In addition, "When We Were Orphans" and "Don't Let Me Go" were nominated for the Booker Prize.
In 1960, the Ishiguro family emigrated to Britain - Kazuo's father began research at the National Institute of Oceanography. Kazuo was educated at a boys' gymnasium. He dreamed of becoming a musician, played in clubs, sent demos to producers, but without success. Kazuo received his bachelor's degree from the University of Kent in 1978. Was a social worker in London. In 1980, he received an MA from the University of East Anglia. Graduate of the Literary Seminar directed by Malcolm Bradbury. At the start of his 30th birthday, Ishiguro writes lyrics for an album by jazz singer Stacey Kent called "Breakfast On the Morning Tram". Kazuo Ishiguro's literary career began in 1981 with the publication of three short stories in the anthology Introduction 7: Stories by New Writers. In 1983, shortly after the publication of his first novel, he was nominated for a grant as one of the "Best Young British Writers". He received the same encouragement for the same achievements in 1993. The first novel, Where the Hills Are in the Haze (1982), is about Etsuko, a Japanese widow living in England. After her daughter's suicide, she is haunted by memories of the destruction and rebuilding of Nagasaki. The second novel was The Artist of the Unsteady World, which, through the story of the artist Matsuji, burdened by his own military past, explores the attitude of the Japanese to the Second World War. This novel became the book of the year in the UK. Ishiguro's third novel, The Rest of the Day (1989), tells the story of an elderly English butler. This is a monologue-remembrance against the backdrop of the fading of traditions, the approaching world war and the rise of fascism. The novel was awarded the Booker Prize. At the same time, the members of the Booker Committee voted for the novel unanimously, which happens infrequently. Critics noted that the Japanese wrote "one of the most English novels of the 20th century."
He has been compared to Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov, who also managed to create classics in a language other than their own. The Remains of the Day was made into a highly successful film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. The film in the Russian box office was called "At the end of the day." In 1995, Ishiguro's most complex stylistically novel, The Inconsolables, was published. It is filled with numerous literary and musical allusions. The action of this novel takes place in an unnamed Central European country and in our time, while all the previous works of Ishiguro were filled with reminiscences of the past. The action of the novel When We Were Orphans (2000) is set in Shanghai in the first half of the 20th century. This is the story of a private detective's investigation into the mysterious disappearance of his parents 20 years ago. Here Ishiguro returned to his favorite wandering technique in the past. Ishiguro is the author of two original films for television. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature. His works have been translated into more than 30 languages of the world, including Russian (“The rest of the day”, “When we were orphans”, “Don't let me go”, “Where the hills are in the haze”). Kazuo Ishiguro lives in London with his wife Lorna MacDougal and their daughter. His latest novel is called Don't Let Me Go (2005). It is included in Time magazine's list of the 100 best English novels of all time.
It's already February. At the school where I studied and from which I graduated not so long ago, traditionally for this month there will be an alumni meeting.
But I won't be there.
Although I really miss, but ... I hardly miss school. Rather, according to the past, according to your school years, which you will never return, according to yourself then and according to your classmates - exactly according to what they were then. Now everything is different, everything has changed, and now we are somewhat different. And I keep living in the past. All my thoughts remained in it, and every day I go through my memories like beads in a multi-colored necklace.
When I was choosing what to read in the middle of winter (in this rather sad time, when the joy of the holidays is already behind us, and cloudy everyday life does not even think of receding), there were many options. And one of the many collections of stories by Ray Bradbury, and Salinger's "Franny and Zooey", and something from the adult and philosophical by Exupery, and "Bread and Ham" by Bukowski ... But I settled on a book not at all from this initial list of options . I chose something else. Recent Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro. Not so long ago I bought all of his books published in Russian, and now I decided that his book "Don't Let Me Go" would suit my sad-nostalgic mood.
Starting to read, I thought that this novel was exclusively about the secrets of the past. The abstract promised me "pain that will heal, but will remain ... for a long time." And mentally I was ready for it.
The book turned out to be not so simple at all and even more complex and multifaceted than I imagined it to be. It is not so much about the past, but about the inevitable, to some extent ruthless future, in which things are completely inhumane and in many ways inhuman. In Ishiguro's novel, the history of the world and science after the Second World War receives a somewhat alternative development, which becomes clear not immediately, but towards the end of the book. In the fifties of the twentieth century, humanity achieves a huge breakthrough in science - it becomes available and almost immediately widespread human cloning.
Who are clones for people? Bio-garbage, material, "trembling creatures". No feelings and no soul. Attitude towards them is changing somewhat only thanks to Hailsham and other similar closed schools that raise clones almost like ordinary children, taking care of their health and education. In Hailsham, no one calls children clones or donors, they are called pupils, but they, in turn, already have a premonition of their fate: for them, donation (and, as a result, early death) is in the order of things, a certain mission for which they were born - they say, there is no other. And this is the worst.
It seems strange and even frightening that in those days while I was reading this book, the news appeared on the Internet that the other day, Chinese scientists were the first in the world to clone macaques. What does it mean? Now the barrier is broken. The human cloning that Ishiguro writes about is closer than ever.
But enough about cloning and donation. After all, the psychological component of the novel is important, its characters themselves, their images, characters. The three main characters are all completely different. I felt incredibly close to Katie. She, like me, lives in memories, constantly analyzes the past, thinks about what should be done / said in situations that have long passed, have passed and are now far behind. Hence, it is not surprising that the novel is written precisely from her perspective, since her best friends, Ruth and Tommy, are not so prone to reflection.
Now about the pain. The one that I was promised after reading. I don't know if I experienced it, but the book has been haunting me for three days now. Doesn't let go. Every now and then I think about her, I think, the other day I even had one dream with a small reference to the book. And I just can not start reading something else, move on to another book. Does not work. I'm still in it for now.
She surprisingly suited my condition, mood and left a lot behind. I will definitely continue reading Ishiguro. Still a strong writer.
A little about translation. On the whole, I liked it, but there are complaints about the translator - he did not cope with his task everywhere. So, for example, the fact that the name of the main character (Kathy H.) Motylev translates as "Kathy Sh." raises some doubts about his professionalism, the question arises of what he was guided by in this case. The same problem with the name - it is not translated correctly. Literally it should have been - "Never let me go." I was also embarrassed by the somewhat crooked phrases that are found every now and then in the book. But all this didn’t really interfere with reading and didn’t distract me much - that’s why I liked the translation as a whole.
And yet strange. The genre of this novel can not be determined immediately. It seems to be a sci-fi trail, somewhat dystopian and at the same time - this is a story about the past, school years, relationships, love and friendship. You read, you understand how everything will end - and at the same time, turning the last page, it becomes so sad from the surging doom and hopelessness ...
