Got absolutely no response fm the BC forum so hopefully can get some discussion here...

So, now I finished reading it, I am still wondering:
1. Was Etsuko pregnant before moving to England? With Niki?
2. Where does the father-in-law fit in? Just a general old men?
3. So did Etsuko have an affair w Frank, then leaves Jiro her husband to go to England? Or the Jiro part was when she was pregnant with Keiko, and then after she left Jiro (or the bomb killed him) she was alone w Keiko when she met Frank? That is, the past Etsuko with Keiko in her belly befriending an Etsuko a few years down the road as a single mother?
4. When did you as a reader realize that Etsuko was retelling her story as Sachiko?

I read it some time ago and found it all a bit confusing :wacko:

I don't remember all the ins and outs but this may help.

A Pale View of Hills

Gosh I read it not long ago and I STILL don't know the answers..... let me think.

I think Sunny's link helps more than anything I can say. I really love Ishiguro books but I don't really understand them.

And in keeping with things Japanese have you read any Yukio Mishima? Another one I like but don't really understand.

But then, one of my friends is married to a japanese guy and she says the culture is so different to ours it really is dead perplexing..... maybe that explains some.

Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb ( sp?) is a really good novella around the difference in Japanese and European cultures..V Funny, touching and worth a read.

1. I believe that Etsuko was pregnant before she moved to England (with Niki).

2. I believe the father in law highlights the difference in culture and the shifting cultural norms in Japan. I think it's a commentary on the changes in Japanese culture that resulted from WWII.

3. I believe that she may have been alone with Keiko at the time she met Frank...but I also think it was possible that she had an affair with Frank earlier, then Jiro was killed/she left him...then reconnected with Frank again later.

4. I started to realize that she might be retelling the story in a shifted perspective around the middle of the book -- when she was starting to make big assumptions about the thoughts in Sachiko's head. It started to read more like an internal monologue. But I wasn't actually sure until very near the end. And I'm maybe still not sure.

I have another question -- what did you think of the imagery of the piece of rope and the child Mariko/Keiko running from the woman holding it and asking why she was holding it. Does it reflect a guilty feeling that she caused Keiko to kill herself/played a role in the suicide? Does it foreshadow the suicide in Etsuko's mind?

I actually don't like how the wikipedia explanation spelled it all out so clearly, that the two women are one and the same. I think it takes a lot of fun out of reading the book.

I agree - somehow most of the Japanese authors I read are somehow different to understand. Like you think you got it, but you are not sure. And you feel bad that everyone raves about it... I've read books from other Asian cultures and they don't seem to present such problem.

Now you mentioned the rope... I think there was a scene that Etsuko was talking to Sachiko, and the latter said that she had a rope upstairs and she could hang herself anytime. And Keiko discovering the rope. The rope tangling at Etsuko's feet... Could it mean that Etsuko at one point, maybe as a single mom (and possibly pregnant as well) or as a married woman having an affair, contemplated hanging herself. She didn't but the curse (rope) seems to follow her until it catches up in the destiny of her child Keiko.

Gosh, this would be such a fun bookclub book. If I could get my bookclub to read it.

:angry: Why no one posted Spoilers-Warning!!!??? :angry2:

Because it says in the title 'Only if you have read it' silly :P

But read Never Let Me Go which I thought was a FANTASTIC book. Although I think Sunny thought it was not as good as Remains of the Day.....

I love love love Remains of the Day - the book and the film ( which I saw first)

It is so understated, but builds such a feeling of repressed passion - just fab.

It amazes me how Ishiguro can write such different books so well. Although I didn't particularly like A Pale View or Never Let Me Go, his writing is so evocative.

This got me thinking about similarities between the books and in all of them (that I've read) the main protagonists have a strongly held sense of duty and if you like 'Stiff Upper Lip' - obviously this is very much the British norm at the time portrayed in the Remains of the Day and I wonder if it is also indicative of Japanese culture too?

I don't know enough about the Japanese culture really, but I do know they have ....how to say, strict rules? I suppose and rigid customs. A strong sense of duty.

I totally agree - Never Let Me Go was the first one of his I read and it completely blew me away - but it's so strange reading his others just how different they are. I almost don't want to read any more cos Never was so good.....a bit like Neil Gaiman - I've not read any more of his since Neverwhere cos I loved that too much!

Hmmmmm Never seems to be a theme here :lol:

I didn't much like Never Let Me Go either. I thought it was entertaining enough, but the idea didn't strike me as fully fleshed out or all that new and I thought the elliptical storyline didn't really work.

Maybe I should read Remains of the Day. It's one of those classic novels that I somehow never ended up reading.

The theme of sense of duty is interesting. That's certainly one of my stereotypes for British culture and also for Japanese culture, particularly for men.

I wonder if Etsuko really had a sense of duty, though, so much as a sense of guilt. It doesn't seem that she actually fulfilled the societal expectations -- instead she ran off with a Brit and left Japan (and possibly left her Japanese husband as well). While she seems to feel bad about this, and it's clearly related to sense of duty as the source of guilt, I think the guilt is a separate and distinct feeling from the duty.

But don't you think, to some extent, that one is born of the other? When such a sense of expectation that duty will be done is put upon someone, they are almost bound to feel a sense of guilt?

But then, if we are going to talk about duty, sometimes I read books cos I feel i OUGHT to :lol: that they are good for me..... and then I feel guilty that I don't enjoy them - or feel like I'm not intelligent enough for them.... like The Tin Drum for example.