wonderful story, Shane about the editing

super sorry about with tight writing and excellent sympathetic and contemporary narration. however the publisher couldn't be bother to do a little editing so that the comments meant for the cd version ('end of disc ...') were erased. the book are expensive and owe who produce them should have more respect for their clients.

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2 people found this helpful

Enjoyable

Off centre and bizarre as usual from the author. But well written and well read. Mostly enjoyable and satisfying.

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1 person found this helpful

Strangely compelling and moving

Michael Maloney - great reader.

Characters are at first cold and unsympathetic but they grow on you.

Great sense of place and time.

A detective novel / thriller? Sort of. But much more.

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At times surreal like The Unconsoled

This was a gripping detective story. Although not as good as The Remains of the Day or The Unconsoled, this story too has surreal tones in the latter half where the protagonist's self centered fixation on a case gets the better of him and it seems the entire world around him is just falling into step. The denouement, when it comes, is a very clever resolution to a tension that is skillfully maintained throughout the story

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Could have been a little shorter

The idea for the story is pretty good. China before the WWII does not come up much.

Narrator is soo posh as to be annoying at times.

Abridged version might be better.

But glad I listened to it.

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Gripping and yet ponderous

If you enjoy detail, and a journey through a book with no particular need for an outcome, then this is an enjoyable listen. The reading is unobtrusive, and it all evokes something of another world, peeling away the rose tinted spectacles of Empire.

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difficult, haunting book extremely well read out

The wonderful thing about this book is the quality of its first-person narration, a man driven by childhood memories and old trauma. He is blind to the trauma and to how it prevents him from connecting with other people. He also doesn't see the racist worldview he has acquired due to growing up as one of the colonists in a colonial outpost. The narrative voice is masterful, and perfectly depicted by the reader. It can't be easy to depict someone as deeply misguided and annoying as the narrator without ever once hinting that you know he is a broken person.

That said, the story is difficult, frustrating, and thoroughly implausible. The narrator, being broken, cannot describe other people in any depth, so all of the characters feel like cardboard cutouts. The childhood memories are the most human ones, but the narrator's obsessions mean that he provides little adult understanding of them. The narrator is only interested in his own obsessions, being all but oblivious even to being near the front lines of a war, which is stunningly skilled writing but does not in this instance make a good story. I have read that Ishiguro considers this his weakest book, and I'm not surprised. If you are looking for your first Ishiguro novel, I recommend choosing a different one. He has written some amazing first-person narrators in other books. This one gives glimpses of the amazing things the author can do, but in the end it is detached and disturbing without really holding together.

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Again one feels the need to race through

There is something gripping in Ishiguro's writing. Always a wanted trip to an unknown destination.

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Excellent

Fantastic novel, very well read. Will be thinking about this book for some time to come.

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Haunting story

The book seems to phase between different genres (childhood memoir, detective story, “Buried Giant” quest, romance, espionage etc) and while listening it’s hard to work out what’s important or what it’s really about. But this is good as overall it leaves a strong impression and ambience and a cloud of disbelief in the various sections. The story ties up fully by the end and yet leaves a sense that somehow I’ve also missed the real story somewhere inside the narration of both everyday and extraordinary events and beyond belief chances. It’s as if the speaker has narrated a dream as he dies. Intriguing, puzzling, elusive.

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