Kazuo Ishiguro, The Unconsoled

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro is truly an amazing book from beginning to end!

The Unconsoled is an odd one from the author of Remains of the Day. The story centres round a piano virtuoso arriving in a European city to perform a major concert. It's quite a tough read and it's also a big book but it's compelling with it. The main character can't remember what he's performing or who he is supposed to meet on arrival. As the book develops you realise the poor man really is extremely confused. Often people talk to him as if they've known him for years but he can't place them at all. Most of them are asking for something from him (i.e. help with a relationship, constructive criticism of their son's piano skills)and in each case he tries to help. The problem is that he is constantly side-tracked by someone else who wants a piece of him and so he lets people down repeatedly. He then can't understand why they are cross with him. It sounds like a recipe for farce but this is far from funny. You begin to really feel for the man. You also begin to experience the fog of confusion that is with him every second of the day. (I had to put the book down for a couple of days at one point because it was doing my head in!) As I understood the book it was attempting to make the reader understand what it was like to be on the verge of sanity and barely coping with life. But it seems like it is all in the eye of the beholder (so to speak) because I have since read a review that not only didn't mention mental illness but gave explanations of the book's hidden meaning that I could never have dreamt up. In fact I didn't even understand what the reviewer was getting at. Still, that's probably why I'm tapping away on this web-site and not for the Times Literary Review!