'Crashing' A Novel- Kazuo Ishiguro

[Katie-Ellen]

And how he wrote Remains of the Day in four weeks

And an interview

 

[Marc Joan]

Hadn't read anything of his, so I tried 'The Unconsoled', as the reviews/blurb suggested it might be up my street. Just couldn't get into it. I could see very well what he was trying to do, but I didn't find it enjoyable to read -- rather the reverse. Put it down less than half-way through, and still haven't come back to it.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I find him strange. But I posted this primarily because of his account of writing The Remains of the Day (which I do think is a great story) in 4 weeks....by changing his pattern of attack.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I like stories that contain unpredictable themes, where the reader is wrong-footed in their expectations by the author. It's something that I attempt to do with my own writing.

As for the 'pattern of attack' in writing, I was surprised by how the structure of my recently completed ( last night! ) WIP affected my writing method. The plot involved a 200-mile journey through the Appalachian Mountains, following a trail alongside a river, so my protagonist had to deal with whoever he encountered—the good, the evil and those in need of his help. I started the novella thinking it would be primarily about a confrontation between my hero, who yearns for peace after the Civil War, and a psychotic killer who's continuing the conflict for his own pleasure. Instead, I found myself entering the world of writing a Hero's Journey with thoughts of The Hobbit, Heart of Darkness, Gulliver's Travels and The Odyssey haunting me. I found that the best way to tackle his journey was to write in two-hour sessions each evening, dealing with each encounter in one chapter, before having my hero move on before nightfall.

Normally, in creating a novel, I'll write in 5-6 hour blocks from late afternoon, not worrying if I finish a particular chapter or an encounter between my protagonist detective and a criminal suspect.

 

[MaryA]

I've loved some of Kazuo Ishiguru's novels (yes to Remains of the Day, @Katie-Ellen) and felt let down by others. He has had a huge influence on young westernised Asians writing and I found this article in the New Yorker on a shared affectless Asian-Anglophone voice. I'm not sure I agree with all the premises here but it made me think again about some of my favourite writers.

'The novels by Ishiguro, Park, Lin, and Wang all feature first-person narrators who keep their distance—actively denying readers direct interior access. This is true, it’s important to note, even when the characters they write are not themselves Asian. From Ishiguro’s famously oblique British-butler narrator in “The Remains of the Day”—whose voice has since become a hallmark of Ishiguro’s style—to Lin’s impassive young people, these protagonists, created by vastly different writers, work against standard ideas of rich novelistic subjectivity.'