| The Unconsoled | |
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1st edition |
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| Author(s) | Kazuo Ishiguro |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Faber and Faber |
| Publication date | 1995 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 535 pp (paperback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-571-17718-2 (paperback edition) |
| Preceded by | The Remains of the Day |
| Followed by | When We Were Orphans |
The Unconsoled (1995) is a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Cheltenham Prize.
Contents |
The novel takes place over a period of three days. It is about Ryder, a famous pianist who arrives in a central European city to perform a concert. However, he appears to have lost most of his memory and finds his new environment surreal and dreamlike. He struggles to fulfill his commitments before Thursday night's performance.
Considered distinct from his other works, The Unconsoled was described as a "sprawling, almost indecipherable 500-page work"[1] that "left readers and reviewers baffled".[2] It received strong negative reviews with a few positive ones. Literary critic James Wood said that the novel had "invented its own category of badness". However, a 2005 poll of various literary critics voted the novel as the third "best British, Irish, or Commonwealth novel from 1980 to 2005"[3], tied with Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Ian McEwan's Atonement, and Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower. John Carey, book critic for the Sunday Times, also placed the novel on his list of the 20th century's 50 most enjoyable books, later published as Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the Twentieth Century's Most Enjoyable Books.
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