A Pale View of Hills: Kazuo Ishiguro

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After a while it becomes clear the story isn’t as simple as it seemed at first sight. The daughter of Etsuko appears to have committed suicide, and her other daughter is only the half-sister of the deceased one, from a later marriage of Etsuko with an Englishman. In the Japanese scenes Etsuko has an uncouth husband and a brilliant father-in-law who represents pre-war Japan and is at war with the far-reaching changes in his country. But especially the relation with the woman at the river is remarkable, because she lives a very unconventional life, neglecting her daughter. E tipic pentru femei. Nu inteleg politica. Ele cred ca pot sa-i aleaga pe conducatorii tarii la fel cum isi aleg rochiile." As she describes it, she and her Japanese husband, Jiro, had a daughter together, and a few years later Etsuko met a British man and moved with him to England.

I thought about this while reading the last part when Mariko asks Etsuko why she is carrying something and she says it was caught in her sandal. I thought "hey, didn't I read this before?" and it's very simmilar to other part earlier in the story. So, could it be that the memories are also disorganised? (like what Julio Cortázar does in "Hopscotch", where one story, when re-arranged makes two different readings). Educated: 1966-73 Woking County Grammar School; '74-79 University of Kent; '79-80 University of East Anglia. Etsuko remembers a woman she met at that time called Sachiko who had a little daughter called Mariko. The most of her recollection of the past involves her time with Sachiko. Sachiko was in a relationship with an American man who kept promising her to take her with him to America, but never actually keeping the promise. Etsuko remembers that Mariko was a strange girl, who talked very little and hated Frank. Mariko also kept mentioning a woman she keeps seeing and who wants to take her away. Sachiko explains to Etsuko that they knew a woman who died from the Nagasaki bombing, and alludes to that being the cause. Etsuko also remembers her father-in-law whom she was very fond of, and her husband who was very strict and cold. I have finished reading the book today and, like you, was quite puzzled in the end. I have read all of Kazuo Ishiguro's books, somehow this first one was the last for me.

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Either way, Etsuko’s identification with Sachiko is evident because the two women and their respective daughters share many similarities. Both women decide (have decided) to leave Japan for a western country, taking their daughters with them, hoping that this decision will be best for their daughters, but, probably knowing in their hearts that it will not be. In the end, Etsuko’s daughter Keiko never managed to become happy in the UK and committed suicide. Thus, to probably redeem herself in her own mind, Etsuko openly disapproves of Sachiko’s thoughtless care of her daughter Mariko. Like her future daughter Keiko, Mariko is a very troubled child and often runs away, with Sachiko hardly being concerned about her. In fact, Etsuko seems more concerned about Mariko’s wellbeing than her own mother. Relying on the theory of dissociation, it becomes convenient for Etsuko to blame another person for what has happened, and now show compassion for the little girl of Sachiko. In real life, she may never have done that regarding her own daughter. When you look out and can't see clearly, it's disorienting. By day, the sun burns red through the haze. Nighttime doesn't settle into darkness. It's eerie. The world isn't as it should be. Mysterious. Whatever is beautiful is hidden. Almost forgotten.

This supports the theory that they are not the same person at different points in that person’s life, but that there are parallels between the two people’s stories, parallels so strong that Etsuko can use Sachikos story to tell her own. In doing so, Etsuko ends up mixing up the two stories, which is why we have some of her memories muddled or combined with others. But they are still two different women with their own lives and stories. Like mentioned above, the inconsistencies are too many and too irreconcilable for them to be the same person. For instance, Mariko was clearly born before the war, while Etsukos first pregnancy with Keiko was years after the war. Likewise Sachikos husband died during the war, but Jiro and Etsuko separated much later and Jiro did not die, but they separated due to unnamed irreconcilable differences. The neighbor was preoccupied with her relationship with an American soldier A man with a fancy car, a member of the occupying forces, who promised to take her to the USA. (Shades of the main character marrying and going to England.) Her young girl was also solitary and growing up anti-social. I just realized that what we don't know about Etsuko is what we know about Sachiko, and that what we don't know about Sachiko is what we know about Etsuko. Then suddenly, the pronoun shift at the end introduces the possibility that not only did the narrator perhaps get some details wrong, leave some things out, change some names, be not as innocent as she seems, but maybe these omissions and alterations weren't accidental and we've been led to believe her a good person when perhaps she was lying about those details because she wasn't such a nice person after all, in fact, maybe she was a really nasty person. Drowning cats or caring for them, a dilemma for Sachiko at the end of the book, was another scene which was acutely emotionally scarring and carried real emotional weight.Ca cititorul sa isi dea seama si mai bine de suferintele japonezilor si de imensa prapastie care s-a cascat intre generatia noua, adepta a noutatilor aduse de americani si cea veche, care incearca sa pastreze valorile si credintele traditionaliste ale Japoniei, autorul il introduce pe Ogata-san, socrul eroinei. Acesta are tot felul de discutii cu fiul lui si nu intelege schimbarile prin care a trecut, considerandu-l nesabuit si lipsit de respect. O scena socanta pentru batran are loc atunci cand doi colegi de-ai fiului sau il viziteaza acasa si ii povestesc despre o cunostinta de-a lor care s-a confruntat cu o problema inedita. Sotia lui refuzase sa voteze cu acelasi partid cu care a votat el, in ciuda faptului ca acesta o batuse. Batranului i se pare inadmisibil ca o femeie sa nu-si urmeze sotul in alegerile lui. This is a deeply moving novel, and Ishiguro creates the nostalgic and poignant atmosphere of remorse, sorrow, and love without ever explicitly writing about feelings, which makes him a master of his craft, with a minimalist, almost restrained approach achieving maximum emotional impact, as listening to a melody that brings you up memories. With a simplistic style, Ishiguro portrays complex and layered things, which shows how great a writer he is.

Niki’s visit to Etsuko is intertwined with Etsuko’s reminiscence of her life in Japan. While in Nagasaki, Etsuko meets Sachiko and her daughter, who live in the unelectrified cottage near the Etsuko’s apartment. The reader learns that Sachiko’s husband has died in the World War II. Sachiko is proud that she comes from a distinguished family, even though the distinguishedness can be only seen in her old and delicate teapot. Kazuo Ishiguro’s debut novel is quite a puzzle. In the story, we first meet Etsuko, a middle-aged woman from Japan who is now residing in the English countryside, while her younger daughter Niki lives in London. As Niki comes from London to visit her mother, Etsuko starts to reminisce about her previous life in Nagasaki, Japan. We eventually start to guess that Etsuko’s memory of the suicide of her older daughter Keiko in England is somehow linked to Etsuko’s recollections of her friendship with a strange woman Sachiko and her daughter Mariko at the time that she lived in Nagasaki. This short novel is an easy and, at times, intriguing read, with Ishiguro sometimes making insightful points about Japanese culture and the effect of the passage of time on his characters. However, it seems that this subtle novel also asks too much from its reader. If there was a mystery somewhere in the novel’s midst, then it was not sufficiently elaborated upon or given sufficient space to breathe for the reader to really care; and, if there was no real mystery, then the point of the novel is partly lost. Ishiguro seems to have wrapped his story in too many layers of subtlety, thereby forcing his readers to make a giant leap forward in terms of imagination so that they finally decide to start unwrapping the unwrappable. It is unlikely that there will be a satisfactory meaning or explanation found by the novel’s end. Besides, while the reader may want to delve into possible interpretations of what he or she has just read, there is also the possibility that the interest will be lost half-way through. For me, Kazuo Ishiguro, unfortunately, is not among them. This book, A Pale View of the Hills, in my opinion, is not at par as his more famous works. The only reason why I am not rating this with 1 star is that some of my friends (who still admire Ishiguro) will definitely find my above reason flimsy and I don't want to lose them. However, I know what I feel as a reader and I am entitled to my own opinion and they are my friends and true friendship is not measured by how many books they both liked or disliked. A Pale View of Hills is the story of Etsuko, a middle-aged Japanese woman living alone in England, and opens with discussion between Etsuko and her younger daughter, Niki, about the recent suicide of Etsuko's older daughter, Keiko.An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale. Etsuko and her new husband wanted for Keiko to be happy in England, but she recalls that she always isolated herself in her room, and barely communicated with anyone. The novel ends with Niki leaving to London, and Etsuko watching her leave the gate of her home. An Artist of the Floating World (1986) reinforced Ishiguro's reputation and was shortlisted for the Booker, as well as winning the Whitbread. His account of a Japanese artist reassessing his responsibility for promoting pre-war militarism further cemented the impression that he was somehow explaining the Japanese mind to the west. Although with The Remains of the Day he radically changed location, his English country house was no more an attempt at social realism than had been his Japan of the 30s and 40s. It was the characters' management of their actions and memories that interested him and his first three books are closely related in terms of style, theme and technique.