Fantastic Metropolis

Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled was launched to mixed reviews in 1995. After winning the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 1986 for An Artist in the Floating World, then the Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day in 1989, it may have been expected that Ishiguro was very much part of the modern literary establishment and would, with his latest novel, deliver more of the same in his original and idiosyncratic way. Unfortunately, The Unconsoled failed to attract the major awards or praise of his previous books.

The reasons for this are all too obvious. Viewed from the perspective of the literary establishment The Unconsoled is an odd book. So odd that reviewers agonised for a touchstone to anchor it against. Kakutani (1) likened it unfavourably to both Kafka’s The Castle and Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Another reviewer described it—more favourably—as a cross between The Twilight Zone and The Hobbit (2). Others merely thought it an abstruse book which defied description and settled on the more than inadequate description of “surreal” or its literary associate, “Kafkaesque”.

The Unconsoled is certainly an unusual novel, but the problem with most people who have reviewed it is, I think, that they hold a fairly narrow view what of what constitutes a good literary novel. From my perspective, this view usually dictates that a literary novel will contain strong elements of social realism, that the world it describes obeys natural laws and its characters act rationally or irrationally depending on the nature of their character, and the pressures of their present circumstances. Most often the protagonist is experiencing some sense of conflict and, through an exploration of that conflict, the author attempts to provide some insight into the nature of human existence, whether that be sublime or ridiculous.

Ishiguro’s earlier novels met these criteria with a high degree of resonance. The Unconsoled also goes close to achieving such resonance, but fails on a key criterion. The world Kazuo Ishiguro creates in The Unconsoled disregards the known laws of space and time. In this sense the novel could almost be regarded as a work of speculative fiction. I use this term in its widest sense. It is common these days to use speculative fiction and science fiction interchangeably, but I think this is incorrect. Speculative fiction is much broader and captures a range of literary genres within it, including medieval and mythical fantasies, horror, science fiction and much writing that defies categorisation. What all speculative fiction appears to have in common, however, is some element of the fantastic.

The Unconsoled is one of those books which defies categorisation. While remaining true to the fundamentals of a “good” literary novel, Ishiguro often uses fantastic elements to illustrate the central theme of his novel, that of an isolated and intelligent artist: Ryder, the pianist, caught between the duties and responsibilities of his personal life and the duties and responsibilities which flow from his public identity. In essence it is a novel about the role of the artist in society and the gap which exists between personal and public images.

This is not a new theme in literature and it is not an unusual theme for Ishiguro. It is what he always writes about in one way or another. But where The Unconsoled differs from Kashiguro’s previous novels is in the way it takes the personal and private worlds of the artist, breaks them apart and sporadically and chaotically merges them again. It turns them into parallel worlds—in an identical sense to which you would find parallel universes in a science fiction novel. But it is not just the existence of the parallel worlds which lends the novel its speculative nature. Ryder himself, as the first person narrator, differs significantly from the Ishiguro’s previous protagonists in that he displays, at times, extraordinary mental powers. These involve the ability to read minds and project his consciousness through space and time.

A summary of the plot of The Unconsoled gives no hint of its complexity, nor of the elements that it has in common with speculative fiction. Ryder, the first person narrator, arrives in an unnamed European city whose residents regard him as “the world’s finest living pianist.” (3) The city is experiencing what is best described as a cultural malaise and the concert Ryder is to give is welcomed by many as the event which will rejuvenate the city. So high are the expectations, however, that Ryder soon finds himself being all things to all people. He is constantly called upon by the citizens of the city for small favours, most wanting some assistance with personal problems, while being pressured by others to maintain a high profile at a series of cultural events.