Rating: 
Summary: Difficult and Dull
Review: This book is particularly dissapointing if you have read Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, which was such a lovely, perfect understated novel. This novel does employ some similarities of style and Ishiguro's prose is crisp and lyrical. But the book is confusing and unclear. The fewer than 200 pages drag on without drama or motion. At the novel's end the reader can't even feel that he or she has been offered any particular insight into the main character's mind or motivation. Too much is left unsaid or unexplained for the book to be effective. If this book were a person, I'd want to shake it by the shoulders and demand an explanation.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but
Review: This is a good novel. I like Ishiguro's novels but after reading The Remains of the Day - which was so good - let me rephrase that - so excellent that this novel left me deflated. He really reaised my expectations in his writings with Remains of the Day and now they are back down on Earth. This novel is good but if you haven't read Remains then I would try it first. The Unconsoled - is better too - if you can finish it and see the underlying current in the novel.
Rating:
Summary: Good but
Review: This is a good novel. I like Ishiguro's novels but after reading The Remains of the Day - which was so good - let me rephrase that - so excellent that this novel left me deflated. He really reaised my expectations in his writings with Remains of the Day and now they are back down on Earth. This novel is good but if you haven't read Remains then I would try it first. The Unconsoled - is better too - if you can finish it and see the underlying current in the novel.
Rating:
Summary: Choosing to Tell
Review: This is an amazing first novel and it is a good introduction to Ishiguro for readers who haven't read his books before. It is so delicately told from the point of view of a woman who has survived WWII. You are given only brief personal glimpses of her life, yet those glimpses spark an enormous amount of questions revealing her to be a woman of deep complexity. You would expect her to be pondering the life of her daughter Keiko, but she spends most of her time remembering the mysterious woman Sachiko who she knew briefly in Nagasaki. Over the course of reading the novel you begin to understand that this is a way for her to process her emotions over her daughter's death. Pondering the mysteries of a woman she can never understand is preferable to admitting the responsibility for her daughter's suicide. Perhaps she contributed in some way to her death? From her obsession with Sachiko and Sachiko's daughter Mariko we understand that she is possibly drawing parallels between the girls. While this mystery looms in the background you are brought deeply into her observations of Sachiko and her story of a single woman trying to survive independently. Through the entire time Ishiguro is very careful about what is and is not given away. He is a master at telling and not telling. The selection that goes into telling has an impact on the way we interpret what is told. In this way he explores human complexities that few other writers are able to dig into. Our view of Etsuko, like our view of Nagasaki, is blurred and from this not quite clear view we understand that this Japanese woman still has a lot more to tell.
Rating:
Summary: Etsuko ... Sachiko ... Unsettling!
Review: This is the first book I have read by Kazuo Ishiguro. Wow -- what an introduction! This is a story set in Japan after World War II. The subject matter is dark and it can be difficult to sort through. It is rife with symbolism -- the water imagery throughout the story seems to speak to death and suffering, danger, and even escape. This is a story with a lot of tension --past and present confuse, connections between events are tenuous, and the climax is almost too startling (there seems to be more to tell). That said, I think Ishiguro meant to leave room for speculation. He meant for it to be a haunting read. And, he was able to write this book without once mentioning the atomic bomb. Not once.
Rating: 
Summary: Oriental art for those who want more sadness in their lives
Review: This is the first novel by the Japanese-born Englishman, and shows his lyrical prose style to excellent advantage. In a manner that is typical of Oriental art, the story is exquisitely simple and understated - too understated for Western tastes, perhaps. Etsuko is a mother who left Nagasaki not long after the war, and settled in England. Of her two daughters, one, Niki, is only half Japanese, and now, years later, goes to school in London. A very modern and thoroughly Westernized woman, she is not interested in having children, or even a husband, and has still less interest in the Japanese traditions that her mother grew up with. The other daughter, Keiko, a full-bred Japanese, has committed suicide some years earlier. In a way that is at once very confusing and very revealing, the book switches back and forth between the present, when Niki comes home for a visit, and Etsuko's memories of another mother, Mariko, and her damaged daughter, whom she briefly knew in Nagasaki. Even more so than in the excellent Remains of the Day, the story and characters in this book work better as allegory than they do as portraits of reality. Ogata, Etsuko's father-in-law, represents the old guard whose belief in Japanese tradition is so strong that even the cataclysm of WWII has not shaken it. Niki is the younger generation - the new Japan - only half Japanese actually, who has repudiated her Japanese roots altogether. Meanwhile Keiko, the future of the Old Japan, has destroyed herself. In between we have the two mothers, Etsuko and Mariko. Mariko repeatedly expresses her unbounded confidence in others: in her uncle, in her American "friend", and in her daughter's mental state. Nothing is a problem to her; all setbacks are only temporary, she'll be fine, thank you very much anyway. Many of the characters repeat the same phrases over and over as though the magnitude of the disaster has left them unable to move forward. For example, Etsuko's father-in-law, a retired school teacher very attached to the old ways, has been publicly insulted and keeps asking his son to do something about it. His son keeps complaining how busy and tired he is. The mother Mariko and her daughter are two more broken records. With all this repetition, there's no real character development, and blessed little plot. Instead, the book is like a certain style of Japanese painting, with one or two broad, bold dark strokes surrounded by a handful of delicate details. As one continues to stare at the painting, one appreciates its harmony, its simplicity, its unity. Another good metaphor for this novel is the onion; although we never get past the first couple of layers, we can see that there's a lot inside. And of course you can't peel those layers without a few tears. This is a beautifully written story with a quiet intensity about it that defies easy analysis. The reader keeps waiting for something "big" to happen, but of course the calamity that struck before the book's opening overpowers everything else in it. The sadness that pervades the whole novel is so overwhelming that it leaves this reviewer disinclined to recommend the book despite its many wonderful qualities. It seems likely that Ishiguro wrote this book as a sort of therapy; the pain and anguish and horror and sense of loss and hopelessness must have stayed with the survivors of Nagasaki for the rest of their lives (as it does for the families of suicides), yet somehow they found the strength to go on anyway. If there's any real upside to this novel, it's that time heals all wounds, and life goes on no matter how bad things might get, but that optimistic message is limited to the last couple of pages. Fine as this book is, it's recommended only for literary scholars, and for those readers who don't already have enough sadness in their lives.
Rating:
Summary: Oriental art for those who want more sadness in their lives
Review: This is the first novel by the Japanese-born Englishman, and shows his lyrical prose style to excellent advantage. In a manner that is typical of Oriental art, the story is exquisitely simple and understated - too understated for Western tastes, perhaps. Etsuko is a mother who left Nagasaki not long after the war, and settled in England. Of her two daughters, one, Niki, is only half Japanese, and now, years later, goes to school in London. A very modern and thoroughly Westernized woman, she is not interested in having children, or even a husband, and has still less interest in the Japanese traditions that her mother grew up with. The other daughter, Keiko, a full-bred Japanese, has committed suicide some years earlier. In a way that is at once very confusing and very revealing, the book switches back and forth between the present, when Niki comes home for a visit, and Etsuko's memories of another mother, Mariko, and her damaged daughter, whom she briefly knew in Nagasaki. Even more so than in the excellent Remains of the Day, the story and characters in this book work better as allegory than they do as portraits of reality. Ogata, Etsuko's father-in-law, represents the old guard whose belief in Japanese tradition is so strong that even the cataclysm of WWII has not shaken it. Niki is the younger generation - the new Japan - only half Japanese actually, who has repudiated her Japanese roots altogether. Meanwhile Keiko, the future of the Old Japan, has destroyed herself. In between we have the two mothers, Etsuko and Mariko. Mariko repeatedly expresses her unbounded confidence in others: in her uncle, in her American "friend", and in her daughter's mental state. Nothing is a problem to her; all setbacks are only temporary, she'll be fine, thank you very much anyway. Many of the characters repeat the same phrases over and over as though the magnitude of the disaster has left them unable to move forward. For example, Etsuko's father-in-law, a retired school teacher very attached to the old ways, has been publicly insulted and keeps asking his son to do something about it. His son keeps complaining how busy and tired he is. The mother Mariko and her daughter are two more broken records. With all this repetition, there's no real character development, and blessed little plot. Instead, the book is like a certain style of Japanese painting, with one or two broad, bold dark strokes surrounded by a handful of delicate details. As one continues to stare at the painting, one appreciates its harmony, its simplicity, its unity. Another good metaphor for this novel is the onion; although we never get past the first couple of layers, we can see that there's a lot inside. And of course you can't peel those layers without a few tears. This is a beautifully written story with a quiet intensity about it that defies easy analysis. The reader keeps waiting for something "big" to happen, but of course the calamity that struck before the book's opening overpowers everything else in it. The sadness that pervades the whole novel is so overwhelming that it leaves this reviewer disinclined to recommend the book despite its many wonderful qualities. It seems likely that Ishiguro wrote this book as a sort of therapy; the pain and anguish and horror and sense of loss and hopelessness must have stayed with the survivors of Nagasaki for the rest of their lives (as it does for the families of suicides), yet somehow they found the strength to go on anyway. If there's any real upside to this novel, it's that time heals all wounds, and life goes on no matter how bad things might get, but that optimistic message is limited to the last couple of pages. Fine as this book is, it's recommended only for literary scholars, and for those readers who don't already have enough sadness in their lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Seminal work!
Review: This novel is classic-Ishiguro; subtle yet powerful in its depiction of loss and sadness across time. In the end Etsuko becomes Sachiko, and Keiko becomes Mariko. The reader is startled by fate's cruelty and mischief.
Rating:
Summary: Could have been better
Review: This was the first Ishiguro book I have read, and so far I an not all that impressed, but of course i also know that this is his first novel, and i have not read his better loved books such as the remains of the day.
The book is about a woman named Etsuko who moved from Japan to England with the man who was to be her second husband. The book starts off in England. Etsuko's daughter from her first marriage has just commited suicide and soon aftyer the funeral her younger daughter Niki arrives. During the time Niki is there, Etsuko remembers her past in Nagasaki and the woman that lived in a shack near her apartment building named Sachiko. It is hard to say what kind of relationship Etsoko and Sachiko have. To me they don't seem mucjh of friends because although they do go places together Sachiko seems to do most of the talking while Etsuko just listens. The there is Sachiko's daughter Mariko a strange little girl who has the very annoying habit of repeating the same thing over and over again. Although several characters in this book seem to have the same habit. It gets quite old after awhile. Sachiko tells Etsko often of her background of the grandness which she once lived and how dreadful it is how she is living at the present moment, and how she plans to move away with an American named Frank. Etsuko just seems to sit back and listen. This seems to be the majority of the book, not much really happens and every thing seems to have a grey overcast to it. Not much else to say. I will read more Ishiguro novels., but i hope they are much better than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Eh?
Review: Well. It's a little slip of a book, really. And nothing happens in it. Rather, it does happen, but it isn't stated. Everything important that does happen isn't mentioned or even hinted at, and you're left to form your own picture. All that happens is a bit of dialogue between people. For the most part, the people seem wooden and unrealistic, though as the book goes on this misgiving remains only concerning Sachiko. Her condescending mannerisms start out irritating and only get more so. It's hard to give this book a particularly good score seeing as all of it is locked away beneath the surface. We should all be given huge critical acclaim for writing our own "A Pale View of the Hills" to explain the bits Ishiguro sees fit to provide us. You might like this exercise in minimalism, or you might not, but I personally do not find it awe-inspiring.
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