"It's simply too late."

Readers:
It has been a bit since I have written! I have finished Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, which left me with some conflicting emotions. For the most part I really liked it. There were some literary techniques that really worked with the novel, which I will go into more detail about in a second, but there were one or two things that didn't work so well. Also, as much as I was interested in the story, I finished the novel with a sense of...well, so what? On top of that, there were a couple of things, vague yet important throughout the novel, that were left unexplained.

Now, for the techniques that worked: dialogue. I have mentioned this before, but I focused more on the urgent undertones present and the pure verbosity of it. However, there is also a very frustrating element in the dialogue of The Unconsoled that deals with the inability of one person to say what he/she needs to say. Dialogue in general can be very frustrating to a reader, for just as an author can employ conversation as a way to impart information of a character or events, it can also be used to emphasize what is not being told. This worked great with the novel, though, because it added to the chaotic, constricted feeling that reflects Mr. Ryder's constantly running to and fro and never being able to do what he set out to because of the town's incessant demands.
As a small example, take a conversation between Mr. Ryder and the hotel manager named Mr. Hoffman, who worries over the musical talents of his son. Hoffman is saying how he "can't deny it any longer," his son's lack of talent, and laments his son's upcoming performance in an important recital; Mr. Ryder, meanwhile, keeps trying to insist that the son actually has real talent, but Hoffman refuses to listen. It is pathetic, even, how little Hoffman listens to Ryder, and he is constantly interrupted whenever he starts:
'Excuse me, Mr Hoffman. You say this about Stephan, but I can assure you...'
'Mr. Hoffman, really, I've had the pleasure of listening to Stephan's playing and I have to say to you...'
'Mr Hoffman, Stephan is a very gifted young man...'
-Page 354
This is a small example of constricted conversation, and though it may sound unimportant, this dialogue holds more weight than shown here. It is, however, a good example of how stubborn some of these characters can be when dialoguing; they simply refuse to let the other get a word in sideways if it's not what they want to hear.

Something that I want to say worked well, but seems to go against everything I have been taught about writing fiction, dealt with the narration. The Unconsoled is narrated in first person, specifically in the point of view of Mr. Ryder. The narrator, then, cannot at the same time be omniscient--and yet, he is. Or at least at some points he is. There are a good amount of occasions when, though it seems impossible for him to do so, Mr. Ryder can relay to the reader exactly how a conversation between two characters is going. This raises questions of reliability, which is why I want to say it was not the best technique, but it does work well and allows the reader to get a better understanding of important characters.

There were some moments in the novel that really struck me. I remember a specific point towards the end of the novel where, all of a sudden, a character who was otherwise pretty silent, though talked a lot about, breaks out into a pretty long (surprisingly "explicit") speech. All of a sudden, the whole point of the novel hit me like a bus, I was filled with this sense of understanding why the novel was titled as it was. The unconsoled...Those who can't fix their wrongs, who are disappointed with themselves and/or with others, who just can't move past a regret. There are some specific characters who embody this ideal, particularly Mr. Brodsky, who made said speech, but the whole town, really, is a representation of failed expectations, of long-nursed wounds. There are a few quotes of this speech further down in the post (along with others I liked or that showed different themes).

There is one more thing I noticed that I want to make a slight mention of. It is not so important, but it definitely enhances that hectic and constricted feel I keep talking about. The novel is divided into four parts, but it is interesting to note how the last three sections begin:
"I was woken by the ringing of the telephone on the bedside cabinet...I picked up the receiver, seized by a sudden concern that I had overslept." -page 155
"I awoke to find bright sunlight pouring in through the vertical blinds and was seized by a panicky feeling I had let far too much of the morning slip by." -Page 293
"I awoke with the panicky sense that I had slept far too long."- page 413
The obvious repetition of his fear that he overslept just goes to show how racked and busy Mr. Ryder is the whole time, how hectic and important his time at the town is.

This post lasted a lot longer than I had anticipated! I have one more thing I want to talk about, but I will have to leave it for another day. Here are some quotes!

QUOTES:
"That's to say, during the course of any one day I'll be called upon to make many important decisions, and the truth is, the most I can do is to weigh up the evidence available at the time as best I can and forge on. Sometimes, inevitably, yes, I'll be guilty of a miscalculation. How could it be otherwise? This is something I've long come to terms with. As you can see, when such a thing occurs, my only concern is how I might make good the error at the first opportunity." -page 375

"For many, many years, an apology from you was not the end but the beginning. The beginning to another round of pain and humiliation. Oh, why don't you just leave me alone now? It's simply too late." -page 316

"These old wounds...they stay the same for years. You think you've got the measure of it. Then you get old and they start to grow again." -page 309

"...I thought about whores, imaginary ones, fantastic ones doing fantastic things, and nothing, nothing, nothing. And then I thought, well, that's reasonable. My old prick, there's only one last mission, why taunt it with all these whores, what's that got to do with my old prick now? There's only one last mission, I should think about that. So I did. I lay there in the dark, remembering, remembering, remembering. I could remember how we used to do it, step by step. And that's how we're going to do it again." -page 311


"You realize soon when a wound's not going to heal. The music, even when I was a conductor, I knew that's all it was, just a consolation....But then you touch it and you know it's the same, your old friend. You do this year after year, and then you know it's not going to heal and in the end you get tired of it. You get so tired. You get so tired. You're not tired yet, Mr. Ryder? You get so tired." -page 313

"But it's the same, the same. I think of something, something good for us, because I know deep down you like things to be a little unusual. Then you just laugh at them. Maybe it's because my ideas, like the cemetery, they really appeal to you, deep down, and you can see I understand your heart. So you pretend..." -page 315

"An embodiment, Mr. Ryder! He's become an embodiment of the great mistake she made in her life." page 354

"She'll be like the music. A consolation. A wonderful consolation. That's all I ask now. A consolation. But heal the wound?...A medical impossibility. All I want, all I ask for now is a consolation." -Page 313