A Pale View by Kazuo Ishiguro

This little gem was Ishiguro’s first foray into the overcrowded world of publishing, and the editor blessed with picking up this particular manuscript must have felt like all his Christmases and birthdays had come at once (with red-coated cavalry guards trumpeting a fanfare) as this package of perfection floated onto his desk (I realise that the first draft may have required a few tweaks here and there, but let’s not spoil the illusion).


I have read all of Ishiguro’s books and on reading this one it had me thinking what it is I like so much about his writing, and therefore, of course, why you, fellow reader, might be tempted to read one too. Ishiguro loves to play games with his reader, be it mind or plot games. What often starts off as a seemingly ‘normal’, almost benign story, slowly unravels before the reader’s eyes into something much more sinister and engrossing. Ishiguro is a master literary magician using various narrative tricks to confuse and unbalance the reader at each stage of the tale. Reading one of his books is somewhat like traversing a high, narrow mountain trail, the wind buffeting you, your feet slipping on the uneven, scree-strewn path as you peer over the side to the valley far below. It’s heady stuff.

A Pale View of Hills doesn’t disappoint on that front. For a novel it’s short in length at 183 pages, but Ishiguro makes every word count. It tells the story of a Japanese woman living in England who is looking back on her life in Japan in the aftermath of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Ishiguro gently takes the reader by the hand and then leads them slowly but inexorably into the very dark world, and mind, of the protagonist and her increasingly disturbing relationships with her family and friends, now and in her past. The plot of the novel is subtle and not where the writer places his emphasis; this is much more about drilling down into a protagonist’s psychology and coming up with oil.

There is an indefinable disturbance at the heart of the narrative, an unsettling and unrealised tremor that feels like it is ready to explode. The denouement is equally disquieting and perplexing and, wondering if somehow I had overlooked something important, I found myself rereading a section just to make sure. One sentence and the whole story is turned on its head. This is not a twist as such, just a cryptic character revelation, as if Ishiguro is saying with a wry smile, you decide.


The greatest compliment I can pay to Ishiguro is to say that in many decades to come future generations of readers will be browsing their online libraries and their figuratiive fingers will alight on an Ishiguro novel, and they will say to themselves, I have been meaning to read this author, maybe now is the time. Maybe now it’s yours too. My book review, an I-am-not-worthy 9.5/10.


Thank you for reading my book review. Your book buddy, Charles Whitmore.