. Spinning .

I’m beginning to suspect that the dreamlike events and particularly the protagonist’s somewhat unusual reaction to them may be a bit of unreality thrown into the reality, or perhaps a play on time. While Ryder appears to slowly remember Boris being his son and some conversations with Sophie and other tidbits, there is no corresponding acknowledgement on the part of the characters to his behavior to conclude a case of amnesia.

There are other things that Ishiguro pulls on his readers here, and while I’m the first one to cheer on the rulebreaker spirit, this is both one of the biggest no-nos  in writing as well as a confusing factor that appears more like poor writing than careful planning:

I watched her lead Stephan through a small and tidy front parlour, through a second doorway and down a shadowy corridor decorated on either side with little framed water-colours. The corridor ended at miss Collins’s drawing-room–a large L-shaped affair at the back of the building. The light here was low and cosy, and at first glance the room looked expensively elegant in an old-fashioned way. On closer inspection, however, I could see much of the furniture was extremely worn… (p. 56)

What’s wrong with this ? Well, the protagonist, this first person narrator, has been left sitting in the car. After this, we are allowed to witness the entire scene and dialogue between Stephan and Miss Collins, even as Stephan has confirmed his passengers waiting outside. And this:

While Stephan had been speaking, Miss Collins had risen from her seat and moved slowly over to her fireplace. She now remained standing quite still for several seconds, one hand resting on the mantelpiece as though to steady herself. When eventually she turned to Stephan again, I saw that her eyes had become moist. (p. 61)

So this is not merely the narrator’s retelling of the scenario as was perhaps told to him by Stephan, but he claims to see it as it is happening. In the very next paragraph, we are assured that yes, we’ve read it right and not missed something:

Miss Collins sipped her sherry thoughtfully. She seemed about to reply, but just at this point I heard Boris shift behind me in the back of the car. (p. 61)

Yes, there’s some funny stuff going on here and it’s not just about a man who has forgotten a few things about his life. Previously, as he walked through the alleyways following Sophie to her apartment, he ran into and spent some time walking with an old school-chum who just happened to be walking these same narrow alleys.

There is metaphor and symbolism though I haven’t gotten yet the clear meanings. The metaphor, I feel, is in the actions and characters and their plights. The symbolism is in the setting, the hotel, the emphasis on Old Town, the courtyard diner, and the alleyways are all so pointedly described. Ishiguro has even in the scenario described above, made the setting of the apartment with it’s L-shape and location at the back of the house an important part of the event.

Close reading here is vital, or useless. One or the other.

Now I can accept life on Mars and apocalypse on Earth in fiction. I can see The Invisible Man and believe that kryptonite can kill Superman. It’s getting hard however to swallow Ishiguro’s Mr. Ryder’s reaction to his circumstances in this novel.

Ishiguro does the right thing by not telling us how the protagonist ‘feels’ but there should be some jaw-dropping, wariness in speech, something going on when Ryder meets the porter’s daughter and she intimates by her conversation that’s he’s very involved with her and her son. For heaven’s sake, she seems to feel that he would prefer the new house she’s looking to move into–maybe even with him, and the man doesn’t even bat an eye?

Why is he staying at the hotel? Why doesn’t anybody notice that he may seem confused (maybe because Ishiguro won’t let him appear so?). Why, oh why, doesn’t Ryder ask somebody what the hell’s going on?

Yes, the mystery is intriguing but I’m getting pretty disgusted enough with the utter dopiness of the main character to care.

As the narrator, Mr. Ryder, settles into his surroundings at the hotel, we see a recurring theme of a near adulation from the hotel employees. Yet each finds a way to spend enough time with him in order to seek a favor. While on the surface there is emphasis on making his stay as comfortable as possible, his schedule is also supposedly a busy one, and it seems strange that they would add to that by taking up his time.

It seems odd to me that they would impose on any guest. The porter has even suggested that Ryder take a walk to Old Town, then intimates that since he’s there, he might meet the porter’s daughter and find out what’s troubling her.

I suspect that this slow pace and the building of hotel employee characters has a purpose in Ishiguro’s novel, but it is an unusual manner of laying story around an unsuspecting first person protagonist.

Old-fashioned and slow.

But that’s harsh, since the writing style is indeed wonderfully proper prose and as the story opens with a first person narrator, a concert pianist named Mr. Ryder, arriving at a hotel and being somewhat taken aback at the reaction he receives along with the news that he will be following a very strict and busy schedule during his stay. He seems to have a lapse of memory and is unable to voice his confusion to any of the hotel staff. We’re up to 30 pages so far and not much else has happened.

That’s fine; I’m not one who insists upon drama and action to fulfill my reading needs. There would seem to be however a perfect time here to broaden the character, and yet we get more information about the elevator operator’s daughter and grandson than we get from (or rather out of, since he is first person) Ryder himself. Particularly since it would appear that there is something odd going on and he doesn’t know what it is and won’t ask.

So much for pace. The writing style and voice had me looking several times for the date of publishing. The language is formal, perfect, but reminiscent of a style of novels of the late 18th, early 19th century:

I emerged from the elevator to find the lobby far livelier than before. All around me, guests were lounging in armchairs, leafing through newspapers or chatting together over cups of coffee.  Near the reception desk several Japanese people were greeting one another with much jollity.  I was slightly bemused by this transformation and did not notice the hotel manager until he had come right up to me.  (p. 19)

The words to me seem outdated: livelier, bemused, and jollity? With this out-of-time manner of relating the story, and the out-of-time attention given to small events that would seem unrelated to the here and now of Mr. Ryder’s plight, I might say that I am a tad disappointed with the narrative thus far.

(See, Ishiguro’s novel reads much like my own stilted manner of posting.)