I keep down the book. An acute sense of shock surrounds me. Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills has moved me,deeply. We know memory can play games. We use memory to unmask reality, seldom do we realize that memory and reality can be seamless.Memory is a mask,too. Perhaps more stubborn and opaque than reality because it is careful constructed. Memory reflects upon the past. The past is constructed through memory. The events and characters remain hazy like sepia toned photographs. This lack of clarity and credibility permeates the novel. Estuko remains cunningly deceptive. We continue to form and modify impressions about her.
We see her as a mourning mother, grieving over Keiko's death at the same time she is trying to reconcile her relationship with Nikki.Interestingly, she never becomes a victim-social,domestic or political. Ishiguro talks about post War Nagasaki: how nothing could ever be the same again. Ishiguro talks about the post War life in Nagasaki. The times pregnant with change:
"The worst days were over by then.American soldiers were as numerous as ever-for there was fighting in Korea-but in Nagasaki, after what had gone before, those were days of calm and relief. The world had a feeling if change about it."
Etsuko speaks of her friendship with Sachiko who is pretty enigmatic. One truly wonders whether she exists. Estuko tells us that women would discuss Sachiko's strange ways.. Sachiko's house is described as "derelict", it is poorly lit and strange. Sachiko becomes the talk of the small locality. .
Etsuko paints Sachiko as a fiend. Particularly, the episode where Sachiko attempts to drown the kittens. The stubborn kittens do not succumb:
"She put the kitten into the water and held it there. She remained like that for a few seconds,then glanced up at me."It's just an animal, Etsuko," she said. "That's all it is." .... Sachiko brought her hands out of the water and stared at the kitten she was still holding. She brought it closer to her face and water ran down her wrists and arms. "It's still alive," she said,tiredly. ..."How these things struggle,"she muttered,and held up her wrists to show me the scratch-marks.
Mariko is a mysterious girl. She has no friends. She spends a lot of time with Etsuko. Towards the end, Etsuko gives us scope to believe that she might have killed Sachiko and taken Mariko away with her. In the end we guess that Mariko is Keiko or maybe Keiko eclipses Mariko completely as Etsuko moves to England. Mariko gets a new identity. Interestingly, Keiko commits suicide. Etsuko never admits Keiko's absence to her neighbors. Sachiko and Mariko remain in her narrative of her older days in Japan, of her life with Jiro and Ogata-San.
Ishiguro keeps the narrative open to interpretation.One continues to question Etsuko's disturbing revelations.
The novel will haunt me for days now. I have found a new obsession: Kazuo Ishiguro.
"The worst days were over by then.American soldiers were as numerous as ever-for there was fighting in Korea-but in Nagasaki, after what had gone before, those were days of calm and relief. The world had a feeling if change about it."
Etsuko speaks of her friendship with Sachiko who is pretty enigmatic. One truly wonders whether she exists. Estuko tells us that women would discuss Sachiko's strange ways.. Sachiko's house is described as "derelict", it is poorly lit and strange. Sachiko becomes the talk of the small locality. .
Etsuko paints Sachiko as a fiend. Particularly, the episode where Sachiko attempts to drown the kittens. The stubborn kittens do not succumb:
"She put the kitten into the water and held it there. She remained like that for a few seconds,then glanced up at me."It's just an animal, Etsuko," she said. "That's all it is." .... Sachiko brought her hands out of the water and stared at the kitten she was still holding. She brought it closer to her face and water ran down her wrists and arms. "It's still alive," she said,tiredly. ..."How these things struggle,"she muttered,and held up her wrists to show me the scratch-marks.
Mariko is a mysterious girl. She has no friends. She spends a lot of time with Etsuko. Towards the end, Etsuko gives us scope to believe that she might have killed Sachiko and taken Mariko away with her. In the end we guess that Mariko is Keiko or maybe Keiko eclipses Mariko completely as Etsuko moves to England. Mariko gets a new identity. Interestingly, Keiko commits suicide. Etsuko never admits Keiko's absence to her neighbors. Sachiko and Mariko remain in her narrative of her older days in Japan, of her life with Jiro and Ogata-San.
Ishiguro keeps the narrative open to interpretation.One continues to question Etsuko's disturbing revelations.
The novel will haunt me for days now. I have found a new obsession: Kazuo Ishiguro.
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