Pamuk is awesome, Start with 'My name is Red", set in 15th century Istanbul. It blew me away.

Rahat: Am reading 'hotel du lac' - reads like a drag and is boring stuff. Had earlier started 'history of the kelly gang' and it's sentence structure sucked so left it after three pages- Foxglove, while I consider unpredictability to be a virtue, authors who take too many liberties with their sentence structures cripple the thought process!

Will get a hold of Mukarami books. Anyone tried out Pamuk's stuff?

See, we - rather I- tended to play safe and try out only books that have won the big prizes. But I'm finding out (as with the above two recent attempts) that some books that get the Booker are plain TRASH!!!!!

I can't stand unpredictable people but they make good authors... I've been wanting to check out Ishiguro's stuff for a while. Cheers Rozaiba!

Rozaiba you've gotta pick up some of his stuff. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle is a magically real historical dive into the occult. Right now I'm reading Norwegian Wood by him and it's sucking me in. Have no idea where its gonna go. : )

Rahat:

'Pitiful' is a good word for that butler.

I don't think I've even heard of Murakami till now. What's a recommneded book by him?

tangentially, have you read any of Murakami's stuff??

rozaiba, you're so dead on. Reading the Unconsoled was such a baffling adventure. But I couldn't make myself stop either. To add to the frustration, was the frustration of trying to explain to others in words the magical realism of that warped world. But what a difference in style from Remains, which is an amazing work in itself. Ishiguro's character study of our butler's narrow world is pitiful yet priceless.

Effie, Avas:

The Unconsoled was a fantastic book which permeates with commentary on the human condition. The breakdown of time and space, the delusional characters and the belief in self-importance based on trivialities of life - we are all unconsoled to some extent.

For this book, Ishiguro's style made sense. You had to take this book non-seriously and laugh at it despite its masquarade of seriousness to make reading it bearable. Initially I too wanted to rip it apart and it was only when I complained to my friend about its content that he laughed and explained how that's precisely the reaction the author is trying to gather out of the reader. You must laugh at the serious buffonery.

Dunno about the rest of his books. Yes, he is of Japanese origin but that is irrelevant to his writing. He is nothing but an Englishman and doesn't write with any 'immigrant's baggage' which so many other choose to write with.

I saw the film first - Remains of the Day - fine performances and yes, the film is very depressing. I was fascinated how well the writer had captured the English aristocracy since he happened to be Japanese. I did make an attempt to read the book but failed miserably (this was over 13 years ago). I have not done so again, but your post has encouraged me to give it another try especially since you mention how the film was not able to capture some important moments in the book.

Thank you

sounds like an interesting author--i looked up the unconsoled on amazon to get a feel for others' reviews..you might identify with what they had to say, although the book does seem v. frustrating to read from the others reviews..and i don't know if i'm at all tempted to pick it up.. www.amazon.com s=books