Kazuo Ishiguro- Prediction

  

The two books I have on my self by Kazuo Ishiguro are ‘The Unconsoled’ and ‘The Remains of the Day’, which won the Booker Prize, and beautiful they look too.  I have the ones published by Faber with blue and brown tints that evoke the senses of memory.  They both seem interesting.  ‘The Remains of the Day’ looks like a character study about a butler who takes some time off and ‘The Unconsoled’, about a pianist who has to play a concert whose origins is mysterious to him, which could be an allegory or absurdist drama.  I have read ‘When We Were Orphans’ about a detective looking for his parents and from what I remember it was a wonderful work of art with many striking features.

 So from the little I know what do I think of Ishiguo’s chances of winning the Nobel Prize?  Having won the booker he has in some ways already proved his worth and does not need anything else, and this also plays into the being popular dilemma that I have looked at in other writers.  Each book is in a different literary genre ranging from crime to sci-fi but he overcomes the limitations of genre to say something more profound about human beings.  

This is his main virtue that he uses genre for his own purposes and makes it into something that enlarges genre into something more than the stereotypes it is usually associated with.  He deals with big themes in a subtle and nuanced way and is able to change his moods with every publication.  He is an artist and an interrogator of society and personal identity while providing as story to hook all of this onto.

  
For some reason Ishiguro reminds me of Oran Pamuk though I now how distinct they both are from each other.  What I am reminded of is the attempts of the individual to reconcile him with the world around them.  Like in ‘Snow’ ‘When We Were Orphans’ is about getting caught in political situations when the main characters have personal problems that they would much rather solve than the wider underlying conditions of society.  

It’s not that the characters do not care about the world in which they live but simply they are displaying the fundamental problem of being an individual who acquires personal burdens while expected to be part of something bigger and, almost therefore, more meaningful.  It is a universal trickiness that people have to deal with but the writers’ style is marked into this worldwide condition and therefore making it their own while being applicable to the reader, whoever they might be.

  
As sincere as Ishiguro is as a writer I do not whole heartily believe he could be a candidate for the Nobel Prize as close as he does come to it.  I am not convinced, from what I know, that he is ‘Great’ enough to deserve it but I would also like to argue that this may not be a bad thing for him as the Nobel Prize will change the type of writer he is viewed as.  I do not think he needs to be changed by praise.  

Of course I may be wrong in this as he could be seen as a perfectly acceptable candidate but perhaps not for this year.  I think that there are too many stronger candidates on offer this year but as this list gets whittled down through winning and deaths than he may well be picked and awarded the converted prize.  Or I could read one of the two books on my shelf and find that he is much better than I have previously given him credit for and that would be wonderful.

Does Kazuo Ishiguro deserve the Nobel Prize?  Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Next week I'll be looking at Gabriel Josipovici.

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