Classics Considered

It's London in the 1930s, and Christopher Banks has what most people want: his dream job.  After a childhood of playing detective with his best friend Akira, Christopher grew up to be one of England's leading private investigators, highly sought after both professionally and socially.  In spite of his success, he can't forget the life he left behind him in Shanghai, nor the fact that his parents remain missing there and unaccounted for.  Christopher's greatest hope is to go back to Shanghai to find them, even if it means returning to a war zone.  It turns out, however, that new relationships - including his love for a lonely socialite - make committing to his past the hardest case to solve. This book could not have had a more promising premise.  I've raved about the nuances of Empire of the Sun (another story about an English boy in Shanghai), and I know Ishiguro can be incredibly subtle .  I also love a good mystery with a Sherlock Holmesian characte...

Goto island by Masoud Akbari [ CC BY-SA 3.0 ] One day, Etsuko's quiet life is interrupted by a visit from her daughter Niki, who, though being independent and somewhat secretive, has taken time off from her London life to come visit her.  This visit prompts disturbing memories in Etsuko, from the recent suicide of her older daughter Keiko, whom she is still grieving, to her own life back in Nagasaki, Japan. As a young, pregnant mother and married to her first husband, Jiro, Etsuko's earlier life had been a witness to sweeping changes in Japanese society, as well as to the physical and cultural presence of the Americans, post WWII.  Most troubling of all, however, is her recollection of her friendship with Sachiko, a confident, middle-aged woman who had moved in to a nearby cottage.  Sachiko had a little daughter named Mariko, who suffered trauma from the bombings of Tokyo and other scenes of the war.  No matter how much Etsuko tried to help Mariko, it seemed ...

"Classic" - this word holds so much weight, yet what does it really mean?  Today we discover Kazuo Ishiguro's novel A Pale View of Hills and examine the different facets of what makes a classic book. Sources / Further Reading: "The Definition of a Classic in Literature" by Esther Lombardi "In Literature, What Makes a Classic?" (NPR) Kazuo Ishiguro and Malcolm Bradbury, in conversation (Interview, plus discussion of A Pale View of Hills ) "Kazuo Ishiguro becomes Nagasaki honorary resident" (NHK) The Buried Giant - My thoughts

Exciting news in the literature world... today it was announced Kazuo Ishiguro won the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature ! As you may know from following me here and on Goodreads, I have great respect for Ishiguro as a writer.  I do not agree with his outlook on all issues, and my reactions to his novels have ranged from jaw-dropping admiration and pure enjoyment to boredom and pure disgust .  Nonetheless, he is a truly talented storyteller, who is not above using plain language to reach his readers.  His genius lies in the fact that his simplicity of style never gets in the way of his subtlety or message.  As a reader I am drawn into his world, and as a writer I remain in complete awe of his style.  Kazuo Ishiguro is certainly a author of "axes" for frozen seas and, for the writing standard he sets, a worthy Nobel Prize laureate.

I bet someone's said it before, so I'm repeating it now - this one's a snooze... Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed The Remains of the Day , and An Artist of the Floating World is one of my all-time favorite novels. I appreciate Ishiguro's writing in its most subtle and emotive form, which is what I came to expect from those two books. Like The Buried Giant , however, Nocturnes ended up disappointing high hopes. This collection is subtitled "Five Stories of Music and Nightfall," yet the first three stories are really rehashes of the same plot, which is more about marital discord (no pun intended) than making music. The best of these three (though admittedly the most dismal) is "Malvern Hills," a peek in the life of two folk musicians and their joys and sorrows. As for the last two stories, though the relationship problems took the backseat, the main storylines were not all that intriguing and rather anticlimactic. Side note: there is quite a ...

For this recap, something a little different.  I was mighty pleased with the little mountain of to-be-reads I climbed, so everyone's a winner - and they all get awards!  Thanks to Bev for hosting this challenge! *** The Unexpected New Favorite Award ***   An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro This was a thrift store find I bought on a whim.  I was greatly moved by this fictional historical memoir, written by Ishiguro (of The Remains of the Day fame).  An aging Japanese man realizes his past is not creating the bright legacy he had envisioned.  Subtly written, yet incredible. *** The Finally, Finally Read It Award *** The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane I liked the beginning of this book a lot.  That made the ending somewhat disappointing.  However, I had to admit it is a worthy American classic, with good writing and thought-provoking scenes. *** The History Is Disturbing Award *** Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron - Nicholas...

Saw this over at Kristin's blog Wool and Wheel ...it's been a while since I did one of these, so I thought it would be a fun interlude to reviews.  Feel free to fill this out on your own blog, or in the comments - would love to read your answers! 1. What book is currently on your nightstand?  Right now, there's The Heart of the Antarctic (Ernest Shackleton), the Bible, my Nook, and my tablet. From my 2014 Powell's trip .  On the left is Albanov's In the Land of White Death , an excellent polar (north) memoir which I haven't reviewed but highly recommend. Heart is turning out to be a lovely read so far - more informal and relaxed in tone than South .  Maybe it's the pre-War zeitgeist, or Shackleton's personal optimism at this earlier point in his experience.  His excitement over the ponies is rather sobering...considering he didn't bring them on the Endurance , I can only imagine how badly things will go on the Nimrod .  (But, I digress.) 2. What wa...

Hi all, I've been so remiss in my blogging this year, it hardly seems like a big announcement - still, if I don't explain it, it may be confusing altogether...so, yes, it's worth announcing.  After five years of being Tanglewood - from Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales - this blog is (soon) going to be noonlightreads .blogspot.com . Since the time I split out my book reviews into their own blog, I've always felt 1), glad I organized it that way, and 2) still wistful my book reviews were partitioned off from my main blogging.  Recently I've concluded that changing the name and URL is probably the easiest solution to this quandry.  By naming it similar to my non-book blogs, the blog can still be its own "thing," but it'll make it easier for me to link content across all three blogs, as sometimes I'd like to. I did a bad thing this weekend, and that was to buy another book.  Actually, what I did next was worse: I started reading it. When I...

The Remains of the Day  Kazuo Ishiguro 4 out of 5 stars This award-winning novel is about an English butler, Mr. Stevens, who takes a road trip in the English countryside.  Though he attempts to keep a travelogue, he ends up reminiscing about his father, his friendship with housekeeper Miss Kenton, and his former employer's role in the Inter-War/WWII era. The book is pretty good, but I enjoyed the Anthony Hopkins film more.  His portrayal of Mr. Stevens is really moving, whereas book!Stevens is harder to like or understand.   The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irving 5 out of 5 stars I knew the story already (from the Disney animated film), but it was a delight to read the original!  Ichabod is a rather egotistical, materialistic guy in the book, so one hardly feels sorry for him.   A Passage to India E. M. Forster   2 out of 5 stars This book was really well-written, with some interesting depictions of the British Raj, but that's about it. ...

“It is all very well, in these changing times, to adapt one's work to take in duties not traditionally within one's realm; but bantering is of another dimension altogether. For one thing, how would one know for sure that at any given moment a response of the bantering sort is truly what is expected? One need hardly dwell on the catastrophic possibility of uttering a bantering remark only to discover it wholly inappropriate.” - Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day This is from my second reading for British history class.  I had tried Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go recently and didn't finish it, but this (more renowned) novel of his is really good so far.  It's in the form of a 1956 travelogue by Mr. Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, during his road trip in the English countryside. Overall, the characterization of Mr. Stevens is well-done, and it cracked me up to read of his attempts to reply with "witticisms" to his American employer's jokes ...