After I finished reading this book a few hours later (it's a small book so, it didn't take any time at all to finish it), I could not believe what I'd just read! This is going to sound crazy, but this is by far my first Ishiguro book! Not that I had not attempted, quite the contrary. Earlier this year I tried reading Remains of the Day as well as A Buried Giant, but in both cases, I wasn't able to finish them. Not because I didn't like the books, but somehow the timing was not right. Both of those times I was hit by the worst sort of reading slump, and simply had to switch to different books.
As I was saying, I just could not believe what I'd read. I was instantly hit by the urge to start reading it all over again, but I made the mistake of jumping on Goodreads and reading some of the other reviews which essential confirmed my suspicions.
Let's just say that, this was by far the worst case of an unreliable narrator (or the best? I love an unreliable narrator!) in my experience of unreliable narrators so far. But may be that is why I loved this book so much. It was so intelligent, I cannot imagine it was Ishiguro's debut novel!
From the prose, to the characters, to the plot twists, everything pretty much was out of this world! And I did not even know it until I reached the very end of the book. Like... the very, very end! Like, 10 pages before the last page, the world that my brain created around the characters of A Pale View of Hills, was turned upside down. Suddenly everything I knew, everything I just read, became a surrealistic nightmare. Did I read that right? -- I thought. Mistake in the prints? But that cannot be... but then again, it made so much sense! The disjointed thoughts, the memories, the switching back and forth between scenes and characters, the tone of the narrator... everything was perhaps hinting to what I'd come to fear in those very last pages... and then just like that, the story came to an end.
The narrator is Etsuko, an older widow living in England whose eldest daughter Keiko had committed suicide not too long ago. While her other daughter, Niki, was visiting her from London for a short stay, Etsuko reminisces the time she spent in Nagasaki, Japan, while married to her first husband, and Keiko's father. During that time, in one particular summer, Etsuko met a somewhat mysterious woman called Sachiko, a widow with a little girl, living in poverty. The two women bonded somewhat albeit Etsuko couldn't help but notice that Sachiko was in many ways, somewhat irresponsible towards her daughter Mariko, and even to herself. This, Etsuko did not voice, but it was quite obvious what she thought in her exchanges with Sachiko.
Throughout this flashback of post WWII Nagasaki, we see Etsuko's interactions with other characters: her husband, her father-in-law, an old friend. Every one of these people had been touched by the war, and the horrors of Nagasaki. Lives lost, hopes lost, dreams lost. People everywhere simply trying to move forward with whatever was left. The post WWII references were very subtle, but central in understanding the events of this book, the flashbacks of Etsuko's life during that period, and ultimately what may have happened to her and her daughter Keiko, and Sachiko and her daughter Mariko.
This book was fairly easy to get though at first glance, but a piece of caution, it was deceptive. Much caution, patience, and attention is required to fully grasp the events that unfolded towards the end. A lot of subtle hints were passed towards what may come, but they were not so obvious while reading, and only came to mind after I actually finished the book. That's when I started to reflect on what I'd read and how this bit there and that bit there should have been some sort of cautionary signal. Only I did not know to pay attention. Which is OK because I'm sure that's how it was meant to be, that's how Ishiguro meant them to be.
It is also a good first book if you have not had experience with Ishiguro in my opinion, but according to some Goodreads reviews I read, this was not an opinion shared by everyone. However, I am not complaining. This was a fantastic read and easily one of my favorite books that I've read this year!
Title: A Pale View of Hills
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Publisher: Putnam. March 1, 1982
Format: Hardcover. 183 pages.
Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical, Noir