Kazuo Ishiguro's Nobel win: A return to emotions

Literature in its most genuine form is back in focus. This is the most significant aspect of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature.

It feels good to remember that novels recounting strong emotions in a plain, no-frills style still hold a significant place in our lives.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels do not touch upon contemporary matters; quite the contrary, the stories he recounts are written from a point of view that almost alienates us from the age we live in. I believe this alienation is the reason behind the effectiveness of the way he presents the existential troubles in his narratives. Alienation in time facilitates focus on content. Just like telephoto zoom in photography, in Ishiguro’s writing, the greater the distance, the closer matters grow before our eyes, and concepts become more tangible the more he renders them abstract.

This way, in each of his books he manages on a profound psychological level to dissect a major issue faced by our contemporary societies. I believe this is the source of the true power of writing. He does not recount the war, but its emotional effects; instead of directly writing about major global traumas, he follows their psychological trails.

These are novels that beautifully recount the modern-day feeling of being lost at an existential level. Whether it is forced immigration, or class inequality, he handles the tremors he recounts in a minimalistic style; he recounts them the way they sink in in our day-to-day lives.

An editorial published in The Guardian following the announcement of the Nobel Prize raised an interesting point. “In an Ishiguro novel, the words on the page are the tip of the iceberg: so much is happening underneath, usually without the characters’ own knowledge.” I agree. I believe it is this very quality which enables Ishiguro to pen deceivingly simple and readable stories with such striking emotional strength. And it accounts for his highly loyal pack of avid readers.

The most striking features shared by all of Ishiguro’s novels are his enigmatic protagonists who suppress their emotions; a seemingly realistic and balanced storytelling; and a tightly woven and unadorned narrative. This technique maximizes the impact of the mysteries unraveled at the end of each novel and the tragedy the protagonist undergoes.

One might even argue that Ishiguro’s writing works to a fixed formula, but in each book there are some intriguing details that break that pattern. I believe he established a unique vein in which he combines 19th-century realism with modernist experimentalism. It is not a coincidence that he can adapt this novelty into the narrative patterns to which we are highly accustomed. This is a novelist who studied creative writing in East Anglia University, and studied writing under such mentors as Angela Carter and Ray Bradbury. Ishiguro is a no-frills storyteller who pays attention to the artisanal aspect of his work; one who does not turn a blind eye to classical standards. It is this ability of his, to build original works on these fundamentals, that makes Ishiguro unique.

In his first novel, A Pale View of Hills (published in Turkish as Uzak Tepeler), Ishiguro depicted a Nagasaki striving to recuperate in the aftermath of the atomic bomb. His second novel, An Artist of the Floating World (published in Turkish as Değişen Dünyada Bir Sanatçı) is set in the militarist-era Japan of the 1930s. His third book, Remains of the Day (with a Turkish publication titled Günden Kalanlar), again with a setting in the shadow of fascism, recounts 1930s’ England. All three novels are based on the same premise, in which the protagonist recalls his own past.

None of the three is an outright historical novel. Themes such as fascism or war serve as backdrops and not as tools for conveying a political message. On one hand, all settings are chosen with utmost attention as might befit a historical novel, while on the other, the stories as they are told do not get lost in the details of the historical period in which they are set. The focus is so much on the details of the lives of the individuals whose stories are recounted that the stories become inescapably universal.

Same novel, three books

Ishiguro has a rather interesting observation concerning his work: He says about these three novels that he has actually written the same book three times. In an interview he gave to the literary magazine The Paris Review in 2008, Ishiguro said he used the same theme three times in different settings, each time focusing on different details, adding, on a lighter note, that he was astonished at how he got away with that without anyone noticing.

Looking back on Ishiguro’s first three novels, it is obvious that all three are indeed based on the themes of wasted opportunities, lives lived wrong, disappointments, bad choices, psychological breakdowns -- in a way, the lives of most of us. However, the spiritual heart of the unique fate recounted in each of the novels, its irreversibility, its “capillary veins,” offer readers an unprecedented experience.

Ishiguro makes yet another important observation about himself: He says that during the early days of his career, he could not attain his aspirations as a writer by merely recounting the reality surrounding him, but that he found his own voice, as if a lock had just been unlocked, the minute he began to introduce the past and his native Japan in his writing.

Perhaps this is the key to the original style he created. Born in 1954 in Japan, Ishiguro grew up in Britain, where his parents immigrated when he was five. His mother survived the A-bomb on Nagasaki as a teenager -- which is a dramatic trauma in the Ishiguro family history. Concerning his education, his cultural choices, his university education, his relationship with the world, Ishiguro is a typical Westerner, but at the same time, not entirely. Japan serves as a mental groundwork for his writing. On one level, Japan serves a means for distancing the author from himself, while on another, it establishes an unprecedented bond with his own roots. This gripping mental spiral is detectible in the layout of all novels by Ishiguro.

Although he did not write any novels set in Japan following his first two, the mental framework of his childhood can still be seen in all of his books. I believe the untrustworthy and ambivalent nature of reality and a somewhat mysterious, uncanny flow one feels in every story he recounts is based entirely on this cultural dichotomy.

Yet, Ishiguro is a novelist who utilizes this with utmost care; without exaggeration and without special emphasis. There is a layer he carefully places beneath the realistic writing style on the surface. I suggest we should invent a new term for this layer called “subreal” instead of the conventional “surreal.”

In this respect, I think Ishiguro is very much alike another British novelist, Joseph Conrad. An identity and a viewpoint that is neither fully local nor alien; an eye capable of seeing things from both inside and outside at the same time; he does not write in his native tongue but English is not exactly his second language either. And just like Conrad, Ishiguro too, has managed to come up with an elaborate style that can turn this linguistic and cultural divide into an advantage. A sensibility that can create a difference in British literature... It is this very difference through which he could breathe new life into an almost parodic societal archetype in British culture, “the servant,” through the character he created in Remains of the Day. His depiction of the character is from such a fresh viewpoint and so objective that it is hard to see how it could be t be done by a writer of purely British origin.

In the same interview, Ishiguro explained how he managed to eventually, and for the first time ever, turn his focus fully towards Britain in his third novel, saying, “I realized that the location for the subject I wanted to write about could change.”

Ishiguro is a writer who is not afraid to speak about -- in a deceivingly straightforward and honest manner, akin to his style in his novels -- how he found his own voice, how he diversified this voice, and his writing techniques.

The chameleon novelist

Another significant characteristic of Ishiguro is that he seemingly reinvented his voice as a novelist following the immense success of his third book, to which he owes his stardom -- or, to put it more correctly, he so radically altered the settings of his books from that point onwards that it made us think that he reinvented himself.

In his fourth novel, The Unconsoled (published in Turkish as Avunamayanlar), he created such an unexpected mise-en-scène that he defied all expectations and shocked the literary circles. In it, he left behind all the conventional social and class-related codes of the 20th century to present his readers with a seemingly modern and familiar world, yet whose setting could not be identified in reality.

This came as a huge surprise to literary circles. Personally, as a reader, I did not find it so strange; I can even say that this new path he began following with his third novel that I became more attached to Ishiguro. What’s more, I could discern back then that this was in fact not a move in such a radically different direction as it was initially thought to be, for despite the different subject matter and setting, the issues the author often deals with were still in place. Instead, this was just another “shift.”

Indeed, Ishiguro’s ability to incorporate his identity as the same novelist in a variety of settings ever so effortlessly, just like a chameleon, in all his books thereafter was going to become increasingly all the more interesting.

As I see it, Ishiguro has been writing the same novel ever since he began writing. He is still telling stories which so beautifully depict the feeling of loss. Even though the settings change, his basic perspective does not. Yet, Ishiguro introduced so fundamental changes to the settings in his latest novels that the world has started seeing him as a writer who reinvents himself with every new book; one who constantly renews himself and never writes the same thing twice. His story as an author is almost a lesson on the effects of breaking habits and expectations in contemporary culture.

He created an unidentifiable modern age, an eerie central Europe in The Unconsoled; an unidentified future, a sci-fi age that posed as 1990s England in Never Let Me Go (published in Turkish as Beni Asla Bırakma); a prehistoric England covered in fog, bordering fantasy fiction in The Buried Giant (Gömülü Dev); and a Second World War setting so fantastical that one could call dystopian in When We Were Orphans (Öksüzlüğümüz) -- which could as well be a sci-fi novel. The way I see it, Ishiguro, now in the later years of his career, is still performing the magic trick he called “shifting settings” which he learned during his early period.

The logic of dreams

In the Paris Review interview, Ishiguro recounts a discussion he had with his wife before he wrote his fourth novel as to how he could reach out to an international audience, not just the English-speaking world. During the discussion, his wife brings to his attention that dreams could be the most universal thing in the world, which ignites in Ishiguro the idea to set up his upcoming novel in accordance with the logic of dreams.

The Unconsoled takes place in a mysterious city where a world-famous pianist visits to perform a recital. We sense central Europe; this is a dystopian setting reminiscent of Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, and more importantly, of Kafka.

By the time the novel ends, the recital has still not taken place. In each step the readers are introduced with a new gateway that leads to a new corridor. We find ourselves in the midst of artist Maurits Escher’s stairways. The book’s protagonist Ryder strives to no avail to reach a tangible reality amidst the confusing twists resembling the horrible maze-like structures that represent our mental wreckage that often recur in our obsession-ridden nightmares. Neither his former girlfriend, nor the boy he later figures out to be his son embrace him. So once again, we are presented with the story of a man who has missed out on the opportunity to a happy life; one who has wasted his life.

But, to quote Etsuko, the female protagonist in Ishiguro’s first novel, “as with a wound on one's own body, it is possible to develop an intimacy with the most disturbing of things” -- the worst pains, the biggest losses. Ryder was not unhappy; perhaps out of being unaware of his loss, or perhaps out of an effort to not make a big deal out of it just to protect himself.

The novel ends with a strange yet pleasant breakfast; a belated development, but this time for real. For a brief moment, things in life once again return to being normal; a scene that is quintessentially Ishiguro that one is sure to come across in all of his novels.

 

Literary squabbles   

But Ishiguro’s constant shift between genres, his constantly changing his outward appearance while staying the same as a writer, is nevertheless annoying to some readers and critics alike.

When his latest novel, The Buried Giant, set in medieval British history at the time of the legendary King Arthur with a backdrop featuring dragons, it drew comparisons with J.R.R. Tolkien and his The Lord of the Rings, and George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, and put Ishiguro in a position where he almost faced the risk of not being taken seriously. Furthermore, the mythical society in the story to be covered in a mist of amnesia as though they were collectively suffering from Alzheimer’s was deemed all the more unusual. But actually, Ishiguro had long been writing about remembrance and forgetting-- ever since his first novel.

When Ishiguro voiced his concern as he was speaking in an interview that the fantastical “surface elements” in his book might prevent readers from grasping the central idea in his novel, veteran sci-fi and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin lashed out at him (which I found out about just recently). Like all other literary squabbles, this too, in my opinion, was pointless.

When Le Guin accused Ishiguro of genre-snobbery and “despising” the fantasy genre, Ishiguro was forced to clarify his comments. But to me, it was Le Guin who was being a snob in this discussion.

On the surface, Never Let Me Go may recount the tragedy of clones raised for organ transplant and The Buried Giant may be about a spell that renders communities without memory, but underneath their respective fictional tales, each novel is a very touching modern fairytale about love and mortality.

Ishiguro’s melancholy

All of Ishiguro’s books are pleasant reads and the wait for his upcoming novels is always an eager anticipation. In this sense, the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature could also be deemed an award bestowed upon avid readers of novels. I see this award as a return to literature in its purest. Considering their existentialist outlook, all of Ishiguro’s novels are heartwarming tales. They are all very rich in terms of compassion and empathy. The storytelling may sometimes seem a little too dry, but the technique is nevertheless solid.

If one were to clone a human being as an experiment in creating the ideal mix of Japanese and British, Ishiguro would be the perfect candidate for such a project.

When I visited Japan, I was struck by how similar it was to Britain. Just by looking at the deep rooted literary traditions of these two countries one could get an idea of how alike they are. These two island countries on the Western and Eastern hemispheres indeed make up the symmetrical poles of a whole, which makes one think the similarity is based on the differences between them, considering their distinct cultural traditions and histories.

I believe Ishiguro’s success in casting a fresh light on reality and taking the art of the novel to new heights by essentially writing the same book over and over again is rooted in this extraordinary symmetry. I also believe the Nobel Prize in Literature to be bestowed upon him is a re-acknowledgement of the basic values of the art of the novel.

Back in 2014, when Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize in Literature, I wrote that this was the best indication that we were about to step into a new age of melancholy. Just like Ishiguro, Modiano too is a novelist who seems to be writing the same book over and over again, but who introduces unexpected twists every single time. He, too, writes about remembrance, forgetfulness and loss from a similarly poignant and eerie perspective. In Modiano’s work, the Second World War and the German occupation serve as the tools for his search of a humanistic way with which to chronicle wounds that will never heal -- just like Japan is to Ishiguro. And Ishiguro’s melancholy is a remarkable artistic account of the age in which we live.

Centrality to culture

British author Will Self reacted to the 2017 prize by doubting that the award would contribute much to reestablishing “ the former centrality of the novel to our culture.” This rather pessimistic outlook was disdain in disguise and one which I certainly disagree.

I believe the novel still holds a significant place in global culture and I also believe Ishiguro has made a great contribution to that.

Right now, the novel may not hold as central a position in global culture as it used to back in the 19th century, a feat which I also do not believe can ever be achieved again; however, the novel is still in a remarkable position.

Even though reading is chiefly a solitary activity, I still see the novel as a collective art of purification. I believe the novel currently carries out the function assumed by tragedy in Ancient Greece and by theatre in the Shakespearean era, with the same effectiveness, albeit in a more quiet fashion. Certainly, by no means can it be compared to popular music, the main tool for collective sentimentality in our contemporary world. Nor can it attain the sweeping reach of movies, but since the art of cinema too is mostly based on narrative, it could be deemed to go hand in hand with the novel.

What matters at the end of the day is our ability to carry the individual freedom and sentiment of the novel to an arena of collective discussion. The novel is still important because it is capable of making us feel that we can all be better persons. One could even argue that the novel is in a position similar to that of contemporary art. In major collective contemporary art exhibitions, the curators of those shows present us with clues by which to evaluate the age we live in. Likewise, the Nobel Committee for Literature functions as a compass in contemporary culture.

The Nobel Prize at times hints at contemporary ideological or political conflicts; sometimes it diverts from the mainstream to cast a spotlight on dissident personalities; and yet at other times it salutes mainstream literature, the basic values of the novel, just like it has done in 2017.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro initially came as a surprise, but on second thought it became apparent that this was a much needed move towards regaining our belief in the novel.