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The best age for Kazuo Ishiguro (4) From "Never Let Me Go" to "The Buried Giant", on common and continuous themes.

Masaki Hara May 8, 2020 02:41

　Today is the last installment, and this installment is what I really, really wanted to write. So, even if you find the previous installments boring or difficult, or if you're not interested in discussing a novel you've never read, my sincere hope is that you'll read this installment at least.

　First of all, "Never let me go" has a shocking revelation in the middle of the story, so if you are worried about "spoilers", you have to discuss it without revealing that, but to be honest, it is impossible. However, since the film was a hit and was made into a serial drama in Japan with Japanese actors and actresses, I will discuss it without worrying about spoilers.

I'm also going to discuss "The Buried Giant" in depth, with spoilers. So, I'm writing this preface to explain my intentions and to warn you that there are spoilers.

　If you're planning to read both of these books, and you don't want to be spoiled, please stop reading here and get on with the novel.

　Many of my friends say that they have read "Never Let Me Go" , or that they saw it in a movie or a drama and were moved to tears. My impression is that the film of "The Remains of the Day" is famous and many people have seen it, but not many people say that they were moved, or even that they cried. It is a prestigious literary work, and it is easy to say, "I saw a literary film," as if you were appreciating a work of art.

　In contrast, "Never Let Me Go" has provoked an emotional response of "I was moved, I cried". It is a work that, like Haruki Murakami's “Norwegian Woods”, attracts a large number of people who are not fans of pure literature. To put it simply, it is the only Ishiguro novel to have the basic elements of the old social boom hit: a tragic love story between a young man and woman, one of whom dies of an incurable disease.

　For those of us who have read both “Norwegian Woods” and "Never Let Me Go" ,there is a continuity of theme, and the setting is deliberate or inevitable. It's not a novel like "one of the couples dies because of an incurable disease or suicide, and the young lover is so cute, it makes me cry". Yeah.

　(The peculiarity of "Norwegian Woods" among Haruki Murakami's novels is one of the themes I'm pursuing, so I'll get to it in earnest after I finish this series. Neither of these novels is a simple "tragic love story between a young man and a woman, it made me cry" kind of story. They are dark and heavy novels that lead to a deep awareness of the writer's problems, to the extent that you can't cry at all).

　However, when I read his next novel, "The Buried Giant", expecting "a tragic love story between a young man and a young woman, I was moved, I cried", I was surprised to find that it is a fantasy about a dragon slayer, set in England in the Middle Ages, in the age of the Knights of the Round Table, by a senile old couple who are dying and cannot remember anything. It was a disappointment.

　So, a good percentage of the people who said "I became an Ishiguro fan" after "Never let me go" must have been disappointed and thrown the book away after reading 10 pages of "The Buried Giant". At least, that's how it was with a lot of people I know.

　However, I found the two novels to be surprisingly similar in their pursuit of the same theme. And when I said that, these friends all responded with a suspicious "Well, what?”

　In the meantime, there were reports that Ishiguro had been awarded the Nobel Prize for his latest novel, and that the reason for the award was, apparently, in large part due to the profound and weighty themes of political conflict and strife in “The Buried Giant”. The two novels were treated as examples of "Ishiguro's wide range of styles", with "Never Let Me Go" being a near-future science fiction novel about a young man and woman who fall in love and even deals with the issue of cloning, and "The Buried Giant" being a fantasy set in the Middle Ages and a political novel about forgetting the memory of war and ethnic conflict. The two novels are treated as examples of "Ishiguro's broad style".

　Even if we talk about the commonality, it seems that a vague and superficial evaluation such as "the theme of vague memories" has become the established theory.

　My motivation for writing this essay was that such a ridiculous theory should be destroyed as soon as possible. You may think that the three articles I have written so far have been a kind of preparation for this article.

Let us begin.

"Never Let Me Go"

　Quote from the Amazon blurb: "Cathy H., a brilliant carer, looks after people called 'donors'. Her best friends, Tommy and Ruth, were donors at Hailsham, the home where she grew up. Kathy thinks back to her strange days at the home. She recalls the emphasis on arts and crafts, the weekly medical check-ups, the awkwardness of the teachers, who were known as guardians. Her recollections reveal the brutal truth about Hailsham - a new masterpiece from the Booker Prize-winning author that will stir the soul of all readers."

　In this work of near-future science fiction and, again, Ishiguro makes a major move in "setting and stage". The protagonists are young cloned men and women, artificially created solely for the purpose of organ transplantation and donation. The protagonist, a young woman who reminisces about her childhood at a mysterious boarding school, is still young, but she has already reached the "irreversible end of her life" because of the short lifespan of cloned humans for transplantation.

At this point, I can say with certainty. It is clear that Ishiguro is pursuing a consistent and continuous theme. With each novel, the theme deepens, complicates and changes a little, but the consistency of the theme is stronger than the change. In order not to let the thematic continuity and consistency fall into a "literary stagnation and rut", he deliberately and strategically makes as many bold changes and new challenges as possible in the "setting and novelistic style".

　The novelty of this setting is a bold remedy to the problem of the protagonist becoming an old man as long as he deals with the issue of "regret at the end of life". The protagonists are destined to die young for an organ transplant. This setting succeeds in introducing a new dimension to the "problem of the last stages of life", from the point of view of the young lovers, immature and young, destined to face death, as evidenced by the unprecedented success of the film adaptation of the tragic love story of the young lovers. The film adaptation was the most successful ever made about the tragic love of young lovers.

　Whenever I post my thoughts on the novel on social networking sites, I get a lot of feedback from friends who tell me that they liked the film and that it made them cry.

　By setting up such a protagonist, the theme weakens the aspect of "political responsibility" and becomes more purely radicalized by the issue of "love and memory". Some have described it as a novel about "science and bioethics", about the issue of human cloning and organ transplantation itself, but I disagree.

　If we divide the novel into "setting" and "theme", "SF clone, organ transplant" is a variation of the setting, and the "theme" is about "regret at the end of life" which we have been following continuously. In my opinion, the main theme of this work is sharpened by the setting of a "young cloned human being", where the "regrets of war and work (1)" fade away and converge on the issue of "love".

　In this sense, this work shifts the center of gravity from Ishiguro's initial focus on the "responsibility of the war generation", memory, and regret, to the "regret of love" that arose at the end of "The Remains of the Day". Moreover, by concentrating on this, the theme of love evolves into something new and more advanced. 　

　Let's look back at the analysis of the end of "The Remains of the Day". The question is: "Was there true love in my life?" and "Can I live the rest of my life with a loving partner? The novel ends at a point where regret for the past and anxiety about the future come together. In the past of my life, there was no true love. So, in the future, there will be no partner to live with.

　In "Never Let Me Go" , as the title suggests, the relationship between the two changes. I feel that in the past there has been true love in my life. In the past, I feel that there has been true love in my life, so I want to live with my partner for the rest of my life, without letting go of me. Even if we only have a short time left.

　I'm going to touch on the content of the novel and see how these points are related in the last part of the novel, but I want to warn you in advance that the link between the two is the "proof of love for the third person". Can they prove that there was enough love in their lives to live together for the rest of their lives? What are the conditions for this? 　　The protagonists ponder the meaning of the emphasis placed on "drawing and submitting pictures" in the school life of the cloned boys and girls, as a way of proving whether or not they are capable of loving others.

　Because he was rebellious, he did not submit his drawings very properly. Tommy, the protagonist's lover, has had a number of organ transplants and does not have much time left to live. In order to live with him and love each other for the rest of their lives, they have to prove to "Madame", the president of the institution, that he was really capable of loving people. The final climax of the novel is the desperate search for the former "Madame", the final recipient of his drawings and the judge of his capacity to love.

　The novel's climax is the search for the former 'Madame', the final submission and the judge of the capacity for love. In order to do so, they must prove to a third party, Madame, that their love is real.

　The relationship between the young clones and the Madame reflects the relationship between man and God. The proof of their love to God is a condition for their continued existence with their beloved in the next life. It is a similar picture to that of "God".　

　How can we prove that we will live together in the next life, no matter how strongly we wish to do so? Can true love be proved? In "The Remains of the Day", the longing to live with a loved one in old age was portrayed as "unfulfilled despair", but in this work it is portrayed as "longing hope".

Authorial considerations: Ishiguro and his wife.

　I believe (from a very writerly point of view) that this change is a reflection of Ishiguro's age, his success as a novelist, and his growing bond with his wife during this time.

　During the writing of this novel, Ishiguro turned fifty years old. He and his wife (the Scottish Lorna MacDougall) have always written their novels as a "joint project". As the first reader and critic of his novels, he trusts his wife and writes his novels with her. He and his wife appeared in an interview programme in the Japanese media after he was awarded the Nobel Prize, and in an interview programme for NHK's drama adaptation of “The Artist of the Floating World”.

　In my opinion, Ishiguro has reached an age when the relationship between art, work and love is strongly concentrated in the relationship with his wife, a wonderful partner.

　From a young age, he has been worrying about the possibility of regretting something he has done in the last stages of his life, both in work and in love.

　The main themes of his work up to this point - his artistic and professional life and his political successes and failures, and the fact that he is so absorbed in his work that he fails to build a loving life with his partner - have been avoided in his real life as a result of his proactive worrying.

　As a novelist and a literary figure, however, it is an ironic paradox that what he pursued as a major literary and artistic theme did not become a serious and confronting issue in his own life.

　The wartime generation's dedication to work and its ethical sins and responsibilities in the larger historical context. The regret of not being able to build true love with one's family, one's partner, because one is so immersed in work. These things did not occur in a serious way in Ishiguro's life. The paradox is that the "ethical responsibility" of the novelist and the literary artist arises in his success as a novelist in dealing with issues that are not serious to him. This is a paradox.

　Firstly, on the political issue. If you take as your protagonist "the Japanese people during the Second World War, the generation that was forced to feel this way because of their relationship with the Nazis", the problem of the failure of political life comes up, but fortunately in Ishiguro's own life, there is no political problem or situation for which he has to take responsibility, for which he has to feel strong regret. But fortunately for him, there were no political problems or events in his life for which he should be held responsible.

　Secondly, on the issue of love, Ishiguro was fortunate that he had a good partner in his life, so that he did not have to feel sad that true love had not been a part of his life.

　He has been able to continue to write about the theme of irreparable regret in the second half of his life, in a variety of settings and settings, while always showing an attitude of literary challenge, but when he takes a closer look at this theme, he may have begun to experience a subtle shift between the theme he has become accustomed to writing about and the theme that is truly important to him.

　So what are the issues that are really important to the fifty-year-old Ishiguro? It seems to me that he came face to face with this in the writing of "Never Let Me Go ".

　It is the fear of losing the true, loving relationship with one's partner that one has built up over the course of one's life. 　

　The fact that contemporary Booker Prize contenders such as Julian Barnes and John Banville have all begun to write stories, both in real life and in their novels, of "elderly men who have lost their beloved partners" may have had some influence.

　 If they simply continue to grow old together in this life, there is no need to prove their love to a third person, except under special conditions like the protagonists of "Never let me go". But if the "next life" is in heaven, then in order to live together in heaven, they will have to prove to "God" that their love was true. 　If we set up the problem in this way, our reading of the next novel, “The Buried Giant”, will be very different.

　 “The Buried Giant”

A quote from the Amazon description: "An elderly couple leave the village where they have lived for many years to see their son who lives far away. A young warrior, a boy attacked by a demon, an old knight ...... and many others await them as they travel across rainy wastelands, through forests and across a land filled with mysterious mists. A Booker Prize-winning author's masterpiece.

　The story is set in England in the time of King Arthur, where there has long been a conflict between the Celts, the Romans and the various peoples who came to England after the Romans left. In this period there was a serious conflict between the Britons and the Saxons.

　At the beginning of the novel the people live in a deep fog, where even the memory of the conflict is obscured.

　The protagonists, Axel and Beatrice, are also old and their memories are all hazy because of the fog that the dragon breathes. Not only their memory, but also their ability to carry out the various activities of daily life has become impaired. The couple had a son, but although they know he is living somewhere, they are not sure why he left and what he is doing now. They set off on a journey to find their son before his memory fades further and his body deteriorates.

　As they meet people along the way, they find themselves in the company of a knight who wants to slay a dragon, which he finally does. When the dragon is defeated and the fog clears, they are reminded of facts they should not have remembered and should have forgotten.

　The "irretrievable regret" in Ishiguro's novels, which we have already analyzed, appears in several layers here.

　One is that the old man, once under the command of the king. It reminds us that the old man used to work as a double agent for the two warring ethnic villages. As a result of the old man's activities, the two villages were fighting and killing each other miserably. It is a remembrance and regret of the sins committed during the war.

　He also remembers that his wife had been unfaithful to him while he was travelling and working. It was only for a short time, and they had gotten over it, but the fact that they had forgotten reminds them of a deeper regret that led to the memory of their son.

　At a time when the couple's relationship is on the rocks, their only son, who is just at puberty and sensitive to such things, leaves home. He died of an epidemic while living somewhere else.

　Regret that a loving life with his wife and children had been lost in a life of work. An irretrievable loss. A loss that is irretrievable, a loss that confronts the protagonist because of the memories that have come back to him. This composition is a vivid repetition of the theme of his debut novel, “ A Pale View of Hills ”, in which the protagonist loses his daughter to suicide. Would he have been happier to have forgotten?

　The memory of the tragic killings had been forgotten, and so long as there was fog, the neighbouring villages of different ethnicities were able to live in harmony. Now that the memories have returned, will the two villages be on bad terms again? 　Wouldn't it have been happier to think that he was still alive when he went missing, than to remember that his son had died?

　In the final chapter, however, the novel's focus converges sharply on a more poignant theme for Ishiguro, newly discovered in “Never Let Me Go “ .

　Their journey leads them to a ferryman who takes them to an island where legend has it that even the dead can be seen. If they go to that island, they may see the dead. He might even be able to see his son. However, it is said that once they get to that island, all memories of their time on this shore will disappear.

　The old couple, too, are said to be separated from each other as soon as they reach the other side. 　

No, the ferryman tells them that if there is true love between them, they will live together as happily as if they were on this shore. It is a repetition of the condition in "Never let me go" that if there is true love between them, they will live together. It is a repetition of the condition that if there is true love between two people, they can live together.

　In order to determine whether there is true love between them, the ferryman takes the old couple apart and asks each of them a few questions. The ferryman assures them. It's all right, I understand that they love each other.

　But, says the ferryman. "we can only take one person at a time on the ferry. The old man resisted, saying that he had promised to take them both to the other side, but the ferryman said, "I will take your wife to the other side first, and when I come back, I will give you to her at once. When we get there, you will be together again. 　Somehow, once he has left his wife in the hands of the ferryman, he can no longer see her or her ferryman.

　The ferryman, in Western legend, is the one who passes the river from this world to the next. The novel ends with the suggestion that his wife will die first and the old man will be left alone in the world, unable to die yet.

　So, if he delays, will they meet when he crosses the river to the other side of the island? Will the ferryman be able to prove to God that there was true love between them? 　　The story is full of questions of "responsibility during the war" and "discord between parents and children", but at the end, in the final chapter, the story comes to a sobering conclusion: will he and his wife be able to meet and live together again on the island they have crossed?

　In order to do so, the ferryman, God's representative, must be convinced of the true love that has existed between them in their past lives. Is it not enough to say how much they need each other now? Does it have to be true love for the whole time of life? Is it possible to prove it to a third party?

　I think it is a distinctive feature of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels that the regrets that revolve around "work and war" suddenly turn and converge on regrets about love in the last part of the story. I think this is a distinctive feature of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels. In this sense, “The Buried Giant “is a legitimate successor to “ The Remains of the Day”, and a very honest projection of the changes in Ishiguro's life during that period. 　

　At the end of “The Remains of the Day”, it is a life of tragic regret, of not having enough "love in the past" to live the rest of his life with the head maid. 　In "The Buried Giant" there is love in the past, and love in the present. But God does not give them any guarantee that they will be able to live together on the island to which the ferryman has given them.

　Does Christianity teach that if two people go to heaven after death, they will be able to live together in heaven? No, as the priest at the wedding said, "until death do us part", marriage is an earthly relationship. No matter how close they come to true love, the afterlife awaits them when they are old and unsure of what will happen to them.

　In the two latest novels, the theme has changed and deepened from the "regret that the work to which one has devoted one's life has become a crime in time, and that one has not been able to build a true and loving relationship with the one loves, regret for the irretrievable stage of one's life" of the previous novels, to the anxiety that "no matter how much one has built a loving life with one's partner, no matter how much one has loved in this life, that love may not carry over into the next".

　By the standards of contemporary literature, which emphasises "political meaning", this can be seen as a "regression" to the question of proving love before God, a private and religious value.

　The Nobel Prize is hardly awarded to novels that have no political significance. Ishiguro's novels, from his debut to his most recent, do not miss the point. However, this does not mean that this is the central theme of Ishiguro's work, as we have seen in all his novels. It is only one wheel.

　The other wheel, the way love is in our personal lives. The fear and anxiety of looking back on the whole of their past life and proving before God that it will determine their fate in the next life.

　It seems to me that Ishiguro sees his own aging and maturing as a "love anxiety" for the next life.

　The title of this series is "The best age for Kazuo Ishiguro" because I believe that the best age to read Kazuo Ishiguro, my friend, is when you have reached a certain age, when you can look back on your whole life and think about what lies ahead, when you can really see the afterlife. This, I think, should go without saying to those of you who have read this far. I can't help but admire, once again, the unique talent and tenacity of Ishiguro, a writer who has been worrying, thinking and writing about these themes since his debut novel, before he turned 30.

The end.

Afterword 　

　Thank you very much for staying with me until the end.

　My aim in writing this essey was to give a fuller picture of Ishiguro, a writer whose work is so often overlooked in Japan because of his Japanese background. 　In the English-speaking world, too, many readers and critics seem to be confused by his continual use of bizarre settings in his works, so I wanted to clarify the consistency of his themes. 　I am dissatisfied that the term "thematic coherence" ends up with the vague cliché of "a writer about memory". 　　This essay is based on the fact that, although he is an outstanding writer, there is no discussion of what kind of novel he has written throughout his career. I would be grateful for your comments and suggestions. About.

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