A Pale View of Hills: Kazuo Ishiguro

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The plot is constructed in the way that the reader can notice a parallel between Etsuko and Sachiko. They are both constantly making excuses for their actions. They are both constantly reminding themselves that they have made right decisions. When Sachiko decides that she wants to leave Japan, she repeatedly tries to convince Etsuko that she has been planning her and her daughter’s future wisely. Etsuko rarely comments on Sachiko’s personal affairs. However, Sachiko constantly repeats : “But why can’t you understand that I’ve nothing to hide, I’ve nothing to be ashamed of”? Also, after talking about Keiko with Niki, Etsuko says: This was a very interesting discussion which became focused in part on the issue of whether, in reading a novel, one should ever take into account known authorial intention.

There are a few gaps in my Ishiguro reading and his debut novel, published in 1982, was one of them. A Pale View of Hills thematically foreshadows much of the work Ishiguro will subsequently produce. His exploration of the deceptions and vagaries of memory, is a project begun in this novel and polished into a masterpiece in The Remains of the Day .Right now, my mountain view is worse than "pale". I can't see a damn thing for the smog that has made its way to Vancouver from the forest fires in the interior of British Columbia. The hills around me are unseeable, which makes the timing of reading Kazuo Ishiguro's slim debut novel quite poignant. The Pale View of Hills is a very implicit book, and the conclusions I took from it may not even be conclusions at all. It’s a story that made me think, and it even made me re-read it when I finished. And that’s the problem: the cleverness of this is not revealed until the very end. There are three paragraphs in the penultimate chapter that (perhaps) change the entire story. The story starts with Etsuko, a Japanese woman living in England, remembering her life in Japan before and during the pregnancy of her first child. A small part of the book is set in present day England when her younger daughter is around 20yrs old, the rest of the story remembers a different life in Japan, during the 1950s, when life was still very much affected by the bombing of Nagasaki. The novel has an eerie atmosphere, ghostly presence is implied, even though never directly presented. The main theme explored is the theme of familial relationships, accent being on the mother-daughter relationship. Update this section! There is also a key scene at the end of the book when the narrator shifts from neighbor to mother of Mariko mid-paragraph.

But you see, Niki, I knew all along she wouldn’t be happy over here. But I decided to bring her just the same”. Eser çok çabuk okunabilecek, akışın içerisinde güzel tespitler sıkıştırılmış bir kitap. Yazarın ilk romanı. 1993 senesinde İngiltere'de yayımlanmış. Kitap, ikinci evliliğini İngiliz bir adamla yapmış; biri vefat etmiş Japon kocasından diğeri İngiliz kocasından iki tane çocuk sahibi; İngiltere'de yaşayan, II. Dünya Savaşı sonrası Nagazaki'de yaşamış; İngiltere'de ilk eşinden olan çocuğu Keiko'yu intiharla kaybetmiş bir annenin; geçmişe dönük yolculuklarıyla, çocukları ve hayatla kurduğu ilişkiden bahsediyor. On the other hand, Etsuko does not want to talk with Niki about Keiko even though, quite ironically, Keiko is their only subject of conversation. At moments, Etsuko feels regret about having to leave Japan and she feels guilty of Keiko’s death. She fancies Keiko’s ghost is still in Keiko’s old bedroom. Clearly, she feels a great amount of regret, but the reader is deprived of the real reason why she feels like that. Only at the end of the novel did Etsuko admit her failings and tells Niki:

The main character of the novel A Pale View of Hills, Etsuko is middle-aged woman from Japan, now living in the English countryside. The novel concerns her daughter Niki (the child of Etsuko’s marriage with Englishman) and her late daughter Keiko (the child of Etsuko’s first marriage with Japanese businessman), who committed suicide. The story of a young woman named Sachiko and her daughter Mariko plays a crucial role in the novel. The present events and memory of the past (while Etsuko lived in Japan) create a tangled web of regret and guilt. Several years later, Etsuko fell in love in a man from England. She proved to have enough courage to leave both her homeland and her past behind, starting everything anew. When she gave birth to her second daughter, she persuaded her husband not to give a child a Japanese name. Niki seemed to please them both. Some books you really just have to read (at least) twice. Never before have I read a work of literary fiction more carefully than I would read an Agatha Christie novel. What can I say? I was determined to figure it out the second time around, reading for details instead of for an explanation, and as it turns out these characters actually have a special place on my heart, especially Etsuko and Ogata-san and their teasing relationship. What was I smoking the first time around? I just wanted answers, instant gratification was my crime, and having finished the second read I believe I have found (some of) them, and made peace with the fact that I will likely be reteading it again at some point in the future. Is Mercury still in retrograde? The two women’s histories are intertwined. Etsuko/Sachiko lost a boyfriend and her family in the war. Etsuko married a man in a caretaking role. A distant, controlling husband who didn’t seem to care or notice when Etsuko, several months pregnant, left their apartment many a night to hang out with Sachiko. Not likely. Sachiko briefly lived with an uncle after the war. After moving out, he asked her to return but she didn’t want to. Her feelings toward the uncle are likely the same as Etsuko felt about her first husband: “It was nice of him to have invited me into his household. But I’m afraid I’ve made other plans now. “ “There’s nothing for me at my Uncle’s house. Just a few empty rooms, that’s all. I could sit there in a room and grow old.“ Etsuko remembers a woman she met at that time called Sachiko who had a little daughter called Mariko. The most of her recollection of the past involves her time with Sachiko. Sachiko was in a relationship with an American man who kept promising her to take her with him to America, but never actually keeping the promise. Etsuko remembers that Mariko was a strange girl, who talked very little and hated Frank. Mariko also kept mentioning a woman she keeps seeing and who wants to take her away. Sachiko explains to Etsuko that they knew a woman who died from the Nagasaki bombing, and alludes to that being the cause. Etsuko also remembers her father-in-law whom she was very fond of, and her husband who was very strict and cold.

the whole narrative strategy of the book was about how someone ends up talking about things they cannot face directly through other people’s stories. I was trying to explore . . . how people use the language of self-deception and self-protection.”N-ar mai trebui sa ne uitam mereu inapoi, spre trecut. Razboiul mi-a distrus multe lucruri, dar inca o am pe fiica mea." Finally, Etsuko’s memory was openly referred to multiple times, and we were led to believe that while she thought she had sturdy reconstructions of the past, this view was not necessarily shared by others. In light of that understanding, it’s curious to see her seeming sneer and judgment when recalling past characters in her life, when she may not have been much better herself. Her first matrimony could hardly be described as bliss. Nevertheless, it was not a complete disaster either. Even if Jiro was neither attentive nor caring, they did have pleasant moments. A little flat and a soon-to-be-born child helped her to recover from horror of a war and start enjoying that peaceful life. Kasuo Ishiguro bilindiği üzere Japon kökenli olmasına rağmen; İngilizce yazan, İngiltere'de yaşayan ve İngiliz vatandaşı olarak hayatını sürdüren bir yazar. Haliyle bu durumda aslında İngiliz Edebiyatı yapması beklenebilir. Ancak İngiltere'nin, malum tarihi politikalarından dolayı, eskiden beri sahip olduğu çok İngiliz olmayan gayrikökenli yazarları mevcut. Bu yazarlarda ilginç bir şekilde, İngiltere'de başarılı olma yolunun, farklılığını kullanmak bundan beslenmek olduğunu düşünüyor sanırım. Bu çerçevede Kasuo Ishiguro'nun eline aldığı konu ve işleme şekli bir Japon yazarınkinden çok farklı değil.