Kazuo Ishiguro

Anyone read the new one, The Buried Giant?

― kinder, Thursday, 5 March 2015 09:06 (seven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

A mere eight years later (almost to the day! Waht!) I am beginning this, having forgotten it existed. I think I am not going to like it very much, but at least it's easy to read.

I found the Buried Giant a bit of a slog, in terms of the constant amnesia making my brain feel like it was walking through treacle. The setting/style felt quite off for KI, not a great fit imo. I kind of shrugged when I finished it and was glad to be free of the 'mist'. I think some of the magic things like the elves or whatever they were had a nice bit of understated horror.

Anyway, I thought I was probably done with Ishiguro then I picked up Klara and the Sun not knowing anything about it. Would be interested to hear others' thoughts?

I felt it was probably the most 'Kazuo Ishiguro' book yet (or since the early ones) or maybe a 'greatest hits' tour - it hit all the Ishiguro notes - naive yet intelligent outsider learning about human nature, society and love; some slightly melancholy future setting where humans can be a bit different in ways we have to figure out; trying to piece together a history from what the adults say and how the kids react; like Never Let Me Go the latching on to the idea of real true love being a reason people shouldn't get hurt; sacrifice, etc. Not to mention the naive (or is it) certainty of the 'scheme' reminding my of WWWO (not that I can remember much about that book).

I enjoyed it so much more yet it left me with the usual annoyances, contradictions and feeling of unfinished business.
I LOVED the visual perception breaking down, and how that was described.

I read a bit of theory that Josie did die and Klara became the replacement - he makes it very clear that Klara is an unreliable narrator by the end, with the explanation of her memories overlapping, and the stuff with the coffee cup shelves in the shed being unquestioned . I'm not sure this really works but it's fun to think about.

I love THE BURIED GIANT. I still want to get round to reading KLARA.

Haven't read but good to hear, I was also underwhelmed by the Buried Giant, Zelda vibes aside.

xpost

And I only counted 2 or 3 "as I say"s - as opposed to its driving me to distraction in NLMG.

Klara and the Sun - it has the uncanny valley feeling present in almost all of his works, where the world is almost but not entirely the same as ours and the difference is discomfiting. It doesn't have the emotional impact of his best stuff though. There was one bit that approached The Unconsoled, where two people have an argument in a cafe. They don't hold anything back - not in the sense of screaming at each other, but in the way they say absolutely everything that is on their minds, not devoid of bitterness or enmity but unafraid of judgement, not entirely free from petty point scoring but also wanting to be seen, to have their pain recognised. Somewhere between a row and a couples therapy session. There's an emotional depth and honesty there which when he pulls it off (once or twice here, throughout The Unconsoled) is breathtaking. It's a shame the narrator here is such a cipher.

― Scheming politicians are captivating, and it hurts (ledge), Wednesday, 21 April 2021 07:51 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is so true re really nailing people and their POVs here that it seems so much more "affected" that the narrator is so "reasonable" and observant yet not - but I think that's the point, again, the negative space in Klara of what humanity is and why she can only come so close.

Yes maybe that's the point but I couldn't get over the flatness and shallowness of Klara - (or the couple in TBG). As the narrator she is very much the heart of the book and she's just not a real person!

Also the way everyone accepted Klara's fatuous idea about going to the setting sun was ridiculous. You'd think an AI (proper artificial general intelligence, not a chatbot) would have the basic facts of astronomy in its coding. I accept this second point may be akin to complaining about the donor system in NLMG - it's just the world he's set up and you take it or leave it. The first point seems more critically unrealistic about human behaviour.

I don't think she told them exactly what she was doing but there was a bit of 'well you're a super intelligent AI so why not'. With Rick it seemed fine. With the dad I guess they set him up to be a renegade-action kind of guy so it sort of fits, but is forced. But then chasing the Mcguffin WORKED! I was so PISSED OFF. But then that left me with Questions so, good job, I guess, KI

And I hate to say it but I do feel like Klara sometimes. Like I know intellectually why people might be doing something but I'm not always sure how to handle it or can't quite grasp subtleties - I think I am a bit neurodivergent so I kind of like the matter-of-fact character and seeing how she interprets things (some things. Some are left completely opaque - I think that's one of the more annoying/glaring contradictions, that she understands physics and human interaction to the point of being able to correctly judge why people are doing things, but completely idiotic about other things.).

Just finished Artist of the Floating World. Admired the elegance of the sentences, control of mood, etc, but overall it felt a bit threadbare, like an overextended short story. Perhaps, having only read one of his novels, I'm mistaking his strengths for weaknesses?

threadbare, overextended as actual strengths??
Seems like would take a miracle, like the "fantasy" I mentioned on WAYR?

Just now made it almost all the way through Klara and the Sun before echoing another ilxor's recent cry re another offering, "What the Hell, Ishiguro?!" Because of a spot of fantasy appearing in the swirl and clank of fairly rigorous, or at least committed, faith-keeping science fiction, the kind with nuances of individual characters, in context of small group and societal dynamics, influenced by technological options and some related shades and spaces back there (a lot of detail, but gaps for readers to fill as well, agreeable balance, I think).
So better to think of it the way Wells labelled his most popular novels as "scientific romance," like, don't expect total rigor, and know that this sweetened spot (though not "sweet spot," in terms of ideal balance) of authorial convenience leads around and back into the overall cadence, groove of involving elements

lots of expository conversations, but also hearing yourself say that, and how verbalization x thought loops, plans, decisions snowball that way, re diff ideas and "Oh it wasn't even really an idea...(later, re same conversation)Mom just had this shitty idea..." as everything keeps moving along.

The plot's pretty tight, so hard to highlight w/o indicating spoilers, but, re xpost Klara and the Sun as scientific romance, I now notice that Library of Congress data has it classified as Science Fiction and Love Stories, which is right: these are the love stories, as told by Klara, AF (Artificial Friend) series B2, of her and her chosen child owner,Josie, of Josie and her longtime best friend, Rick, as they now struggle with new roles of boyfriend and girlfriend, also stories of love of children and parents, incl. more struggles of course.
Model B2, state of the art/being superseded by new B3, but perhaps compensating for relatively limited features, is here especially challenged tune into and understand humans, sometimes remixing on the fly, as do the humans--because Josie is one of those lucky children, not just gifted, but lifted, genetically edited, which is risky, expensive in a lot of ways, but worth it, if you want your child to have a chance at anything in this world, which is strange and getting stranger, also more familiar, just up the road a little way (copyright 2021, but no pandemic culture; he probably wrote it before we were assured of the probably lingering elements of that, but isolation is a way of life in this story, though Josie and her privileged peers are now reaching the age, as part of college prep, when they must have meetings, which means learning how to be with people outside of the immediate family and household---and that's enough for this month, kids).

― dow, Wednesday, January 26, 2022 3:15 PM