by Kazuo Ishiguro
Writing this a year or so after reading it, I find I can’t remember much about the story except that it involves an early people (probably iron age), a journey, relationships and responsibility. It was a strange but mesmerising book, and I am rather regretting having taken it back to the charity shop after reading it. Perhaps I will have another go. It’s the kind of book one goes back to.
It is also the first of Ish’s fiction that I have read since hearing him speak at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2015, where I was very impressed both by his lucidity and the general impression he gave of being a ‘nice person’. I have previously read The Remains of the Day, When We Were Orphans and Never Let Me Go. All of them some years ago, not long after they were published. Ishiguro is not a prolific writer by any standards, though he has written some short stories – which I will definitely get down to – and the long, some say impossible novel The Unconsoled. Not sure whether I will try to tackle that one. Perhaps life is too short.
A rug and a book 