Rating: 
Summary: Subtle, Moving Masterpiece
Review: I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The reviewers below have summarized the basic elements, so let me concentrate on style. If you enjoy books that do not have to be big on plot or action, but are instead beautifully crafted, realistic depictions of the profundities of life, with a strong atmospheric sense, then I am sure you will enjoy this subtle work. It is very short and easy to read, with the terse, clear style that made Ishiguro famous. Japanese readers will find the dialogue and characters and setting to be completely believable -- despite the fact that Ishiguro never went back to Japan before writing this novel (he grew up in England). Yet many people finish this book without really having grasped much of its essence.The difficulty lies in drawing connections between events, characters and symbols. Some of them are interrelated within the work, others draw upon outside references (such as the symbolism of crossing the river being a metaphor for death, like the river Styx). This book is simply written enough to be enjoyed the first time, and yet complex enough to be read another two times. The remarkable thing is that when re-read (or read the first time, with an eye on grasping the symbolism and motifs) this book is actually not only a tragic tale, but a terrifying and disturbing one in its dark images of death, neglect and loss. Readers of Ishiguro's other books may find this closest in style to "Artist of the Floating World", yet farthest from "The Unconsoled". In style, Ishiguro mastered this particular technique in "The Remains of the Day", which is also a book about loss, but with a romantic twist thrown in, and far less troubling that this earlier work. Read this book, and if it doesn't touch something in you - read it again.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling right to the end.
Review: I just finished this wonderful book. I too was confused at the end, thinking that the story was about Sachiko and her daughter, only to discover that it was really about Etsucko and her daughter. This book is moving,disturbing,and wonderfully descriptive. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves the written word. Kazuo Ishiguro is a master story teller.
Rating:
Summary: thought -provoking; multiple messages.
Review: I kept waiting for the part where we would find out what happened to Jiro and how Etsuko met her new husband, but instead was jolted toward the end of the book by Etsuko becoming someone else in my mind. At first, I thought the story was actually about Sachiko and that she had changed the point of view for most of the story to protect herself from the painful memory, however, after much conversation with friends who also read the book, I decided this particular section that seems so out of place, is forward in time and is showing us Etsuko talking to her own daughter just before leaving Nagasaki. The book is an experience in cultual differences, personal tragedy, and community/world tragedy after the dropping of the bomb. Its gentle, yet disturbing tone affect us and lead us to a greater understanding of the time and place
Rating: 
Summary: ishiguro at his best? what a disappointment
Review: i'm quite amazed at the many good reviews this book has received. Finishing this book is like having a nice discussion with a friend who, at the end of the hour, tells you he's dosed your tea with LSD. Is he serious? Why would he possibly do such a thing? This writing is nicely crafted and subtle, the narrative shifts easily between London and flashbacks to postwar Nagasaki, and beautifully skates along the rim of cultural chasm. But the 'surprise twist ending' is silly, amateurish; like mixing coca cola and Bordeaux, the climactic melange of genre falls on its face. For a beautiful cross cultural novel that carries itself through from beginning to end, skip "pale view' and go straight to 'the samarai's garden'.
Rating:
Summary: Another Masterpiece From a Master Writer
Review: In a Pale View of Hills, Kazuo Ishiguro focuses on Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living in rural England. Etsuko, the widow of an Englishman, is now attempting to come to terms with the suicide of her older daughter, Keiko. Etsuko's thoughts and memories take her back to Nagasaki and the summer preceding Keiko's birth. She remembers her friendship with a high-spirited woman named Suchiko and Suchiko's young daughter, Mariko. As this masterpiece of sensitivity and understatement unfolds, we come to learn the reasons for Keiko's suicide and the part Etsuko feel she played in that tragic decision. Athough A Pale View of Hills may seem to be a straightforward tale, it is anything but. It is a complex, multi-layered masterpiece, open to many levels of intepretation. This is an enormously tragic story, but in the hands of a master like Ishiguro there is no trace of feigned melodrama. The book is perfectly structured and perfectly paced; each nuance, each character, each line of dialogue is perfectly placed. I hesitate in using words like "flawless," but in the case of A Pale View of Hills, no other word will really suffice.
Rating:
Summary: The beauty of restraint
Review: Ishiguro achieved this incredible debut novel by holding in the reins and managing to tell only what he felt necessary. The story tells of a Japanese lady, Etsuko, now living in England. Her first daughter, Keiko, has committed suicide by hanging herself, alone, in a flat in Manchester. It is the story of Etsuko looking back through her memories, trying to make sense of what happened, trying to pull some ends together. But we, just like she, are left unsure. She finds some answers but even more questions. Ishiguro has brilliantly transported us into the world of memory, dream, illusion. In her search for answers, Etsuko looks back at her life in Nagasaki less than a decade after the devastation of the atomic bomb. Typically, Ishiguro chooses not to look at this event directly. Instead he presents us with the disturbed and confused lives of those who survived. There is Mrs Fujiwara, bravely running a noodle shop, trying to be positive even though her husband and nearly all her children were killed. There is Etsuko's father-in-law, a teacher before and during the war who is struggling to come to terms with living in a society where everything he lived for is written off as evil brainwashing. Japan is trying to wash its hands clean of his type, and yet he appears such a decent and fair person. These characters are just the background to the main story but they are so brilliantly drawn. I shall not even try to clarify Etsuko's search for reasons. Let yourself be taken into her elegaic but ultimately futile look at her life in Japan before she left. The main issue underlying this story is the question of searching for self-fulfilment or submitting oneself to the restrictions of the society in which one lives. This is a dark novel, and I felt the pain in this novel so much more on a second reading. This should however by no means deter you from reading it. The language is so beautiful and delicate that it will carry you through. It is not a novel to try to solve, instead it is one to submit yourself to, and let it work its wonders on you. Like me, you may well find yourself returning to it a second time. I'm very sure I will be returning to it again, and I'm also sure there will be yet more there for me next time.
Rating: 
Summary: More than meets the eye
Review: Kazuo Ishiguro is a literary master; there's no doubt about that. A Pale View of Hills is somewhat slow moving, but there's more than meets the eye. Lovers of literary analysis and interpretation will love all of Ishiguro's writing, including this novel. Hidden meaning is everywhere. A Pale View of Hills is about a Japanese woman, Etsuko, now living in England dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. As she recounts her life, a reader may note striking parallels with her memories and her present suffering; is it possible reality and imagination have faded? An interesting aspect of the novel is its theme of intergenerational conflict. Set partly in post-WW2 Japan, conflict develops between the old generation, whose regressive ideals are now socially unacceptable, and the new generation, who look toward a future of Americanization. (For all you English buffs out there, Ishiguro is not a bad choice for a research paper, provided you have access to critical analysis. My local library was able to get books on Ishiguro's writing--which are rare--from university libraries in the state. The internet was also useful.) For the casual reader, while A Pale View isn't a bad book by any means (it is very readable), perhaps Remains of the Day would be more engaging.
Rating:
Summary: a landscape and a portrait
Review: Most of this fine novel takes place against the harsh backdrop of an atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki where the American occupation of Japan is at its peak. Within the overall harshness of the national and world moment, life struggles along at the individual level. Day to day personal decisions have to be made even as history has defined the basic choices. A Pale View of the Hills deals with the day to day business of surviving, particularly psychologically, within such a profoundly modified world. In a positivistic sense, the book honors the resiliency and flexibility of its main heroes; and yet a deeper sense of sadness over their various displacements and uprootings was overwhelming to me.
Rating:
Summary: Memories of a sinister nature
Review: On a rainy afternoon in England, Etsuko recalls a distant and brief friendship of many summers ago. As the reader begins to travel down the road of memories, they are transported to a world and life long ago. As a housewife in post World War II Japan, Etsuko leads a content and stabile life. Until she meets Suchiko and her enigmatic daughter. As their friendship progresses, readers become wrapped up in a cocoon of mysteries and unanswered question.
The memories take on an almost dreamlike quality and the reader is present with bits of the puzzle slowly but steadily. The end is a surprise and does leave room for speculation, which some readers may not like. However, this is truly a memorable book and one of the best debut novels I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Ishiguro at his delicate best.
Review: One can't help but be amazed by the subtlety with which Ishiguro has tackled a tale about Japan post-World War II. In various sub-themes, he tells of how residents of Nagasaki deal with the aftermath of the war in their own, yet different ways. A widow who'd lost almost her entire family rebuilds her life by running a humble noodle shop and putting all her hopes and optimism on her only surviving son. The retired father-in-law of the central character (Etsuko) deals with the widening rift between him and his son, and a past that has lost its relevance in modern day Japan. The central tale is one of loss and regret as Etsuko grapples with the suicide of her eldest daughter and the futility of her lonely life in England. All these subjects are told in Ishiguro's very delicate and sensitive rendering that can only be achieved by one who's a master of his craft. Although one could complain about an excessive use of subtlety, all the more does one appreciate Ishiguro's achievement of producing a work of art that does not at once suggest what the reader should make of it. I am sure re-reading the book would unveil more surprising nuances and advance the pleasure of this remarkable work of fiction. He is one of my favourite authors and although, in my opinion, "The Artist of the Floating World" remains his best book, this comes closest to it than his more popular Remains of the Day.
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