/lit/ - Literature

>>19839003
This chart is pre-Klara and the Sun but still fits.

>>19811837
Even Ishigurofag admits his short stories are not very good. You shouldn't judge a novelist by his stories.

>>19471631
>I should read The remains of the day.
Yes, you should; it's his most affecting work.

>>19296356
There was an Ishiguro chart that was posted the other day. It seemed to suggest this was an accessible book, but entry-level.
I read it in undergrad at 18. This is a much better cover than the one I bought, however. Blue and washed out tones are appropriate.
Reading it was a combination of melancholy and associating Tommy with my autistic brother. Here's a version of the chart, maybe outdated.

>Frankenstein, but the monster is three passive-aggressive boarding-schoolers
More interested in why you think this. It's been ages since I read Frankenstein though.

We need an updated chart.

>>19081842

Did Ishiguro-anon ever do an updated chart with Klara and the Sun added to it? Last I saw, he was planning to put Klara where Never Let Me Go is at the moment.

>>18886783
Ishiguroanon #2 here (the original /lit/ Ishiguro fan predates me but doesn't seem to post anymore). Love him to pieces. A wonderful writer. Very content to do his own thing, and he does it well. Banal and yet remarkably powerful. Great writer. Remains of the Day helped me to change my direction in life, and I'll be forever thankful of Ishiguro for that.

>>18510498
Love it. If I had to pick a single book that has had the biggest impact on my life, I'd probably say Remains. Saw far too much of myself in Stevens. Honestly, "Remains" is a perfect book. There's not a single thing wrong with it, and the complaints you'll see on /lit/ about its prose fail to take into account that the prose is Stevens' narration.

>>18510522
I 100% agree that The Unconsoled is a masterpiece, and the best book written in the last 25 years.

That said, I struggle with seeing "Remains" as a test run for it. Remains is a pretty solidly realist short novel. I can see precursors to "The Unconsoled" in the China section of "When We Were Orphans," and certainly in the short story Ishiguro wrote for the New Yorker that was basically just a small section of "Unconsoled," but I don't see it in "Remains."

Whereas I do see "An Artist of the Floating World" being in some ways a test run for "Remains."

>>18510558
>>18510597
The critic James Wood describes Ishiguro's prose as 'punishingly cliched and banal' or something like that, and he isn't wrong. But even so I think it works. I can't think of any other author who can create such emotional effects with such flat prose. It's kind of uncanny.

>>18510644
>>18510730
Honestly, I think it's already a classic, at least among those who read contemporary literature.

>>18512843
Before the soul-crushing ending, it's comfy. The parts where Stevens is just puttering around the English countryside in the old car and talking about how great England is because it is not 'grand' like Africa or America are hilarious and cozy.

-----

I put together this chart earlier this year before Klara came out. Will have to update it some time.

>>18244282
It's a decent introduction to later Ishiguro, since it's playing with genre. I put together pic related a few months ago; I think Klara would fit well up at the top.

That said, Remains of the Day is a better book, and a better introduction to the more 'literary' version of Ish.

>>18144878
>Written by a Nobel laureate and it reads like a YA novel.
That's because it essentially is a YA novel. That said it can be a useful gateway to people who usually read YA or genre fiction to start tackling some more mature themes (the inevitability of mortality, the search for meaning, etc).

As >>18144906 says, Remains of the Day and The Unconsoled are tremendously good. I would also put "Artist of the Floating World" up there too (perhaps not quite so high, but close).

>>18111125
Did Ishiguro anon ever update this one to take into account the new book?

Has Ishiguro-anon updated the chart with a spot for Klara and the Sun?

>>17715653
Ishiguro-anon has heard the call and will be here shortly to battle for The Unconsoled.

>>17705085
He won the Nobel. While he is approachable, he is very much a writer of real literature. "The Unconsoled" is one of the great works of our time.

Will give some though to how to update this as well. I think replacing "When We Were Orphans" with "Klara" is the way to go, though one does lose the kind of introduction to the structure and style of "Unconsoled" that you get in the last third of "Orphans."

Thank you for the input, anons. Here is the updated chart. I did my best to tighten it up and to correct typos. Removed the anecdote about Bezos per the several requests. Also positioned "Artist" directly under "Remains," which had the additional effect of generally putting his 'literary' work on one side of the chart and his 'genre' work on the other, which is nice (at least until you get to the last section, where Buried Giant is in the middle. I would have moved it to the 'genre' side of the chart, but that would require moving either "Pale View" or "Nocturnes" up above it, and while the last three are in no particular order I do think "Buried Giant" is significantly better than the other two and like it above them).