Synopsis
Kazuo Ishiguro's THE UNCONSOLED (1995) is the story of a famous pianist named Ryder, who visits an unnamed European city to give a recital. Ryder, who is suffering from a kind of amnesia, seems to be well known in the city, and in fact discovers that a woman and a young boy living there may be his wife and son--but he has no memory of either of them or of ever being there before. And, though he seems to be somewhere in Central Europe, surreal glimmers of English settings and of Ryder's life there haunt him as he travels around the city. In the course of his visit, he meets many people who want his help with various problems, and he begins to think he remembers these people from somewhere--or does he? The day is unusually long, and night seems never to arrive, as--in a book that resonates with wit, humanity, and elements of Kafkaesque satire--Ishiguro explores the nature of memory and of fame.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-01-01 | | Edition Description: | Reprint |
| Size | | Height: | 8.3 in | | Width: | 5.3 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 14.4 oz |
Publisher's Note
Only the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day could have created this daring and stunningly inventive new novel. The Unconsoled gives readers what is at once a riveting psychological mystery, an acute satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study of a man whose public self has taken on a life of its own. "Ishiguro writes with his characteristic grace and off-beat pungency".--Los Angeles Times.
The Unconsoled is at once a gripping psychological mystery, a wicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study of a man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control. The setting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renowned pianist, has come to give the most important performance of his life. Instead, he finds himself diverted on a series of cryptic and infuriating errands that nevertheless provide him with vital clues to his own past. In The Unconsoled Ishiguro creates a work that is itself a virtuoso performance, strange, haunting, and resonant with humanity and wit."A work of great interest and originality.... Ishiguro has mapped out an aesthetic territory that is all his own...frankly fantastic [and] fiercer and funnier than before."--The New Yorker
Industry Reviews
"[Ishiguro] is an original and remarkable genius, and although he will write greater books, 'The Unconsoled' is the most original and remarkable one he has so far produced....Mr. Ishiguro's indifference to conventional notions of literary excellence is so thorough that it becomes a kind of excellence itself....'The Unconsoled' is, in short, a cross between 'The Twilight Zone' and 'The Hobbit', and Mr. Ishiguro's achievement is to have made this world as palpable and inevitable to us as it is to its narrator."
New York Times Book Review - Louis Menand (10/15/1995)
"This is a searching book, engaged in a passionate, elaborate exploration of painful questions. It offers no concessions to those who are faint of heart or short of time. But readers will come away with admiration for a writer who uncompromisingly follows a rather frightening vision."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Monua Janah (10/08/1995)
"A brilliant novel that will almost certainly be remembered as one of the best of the decade."
Britell
"A work of great interest and originality....Ishiguro has mapped out an aesthetic territory that is all his own...frankly fantastic [and] fiercer and funnier than before."
Lehmann-Haupt
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