(And obviously I instantly regretted “provincial Thatcherite turd.”) Was “British” any less lazy a word to use to describe him as a writer than “Japanese?” British like who? Nick Hornby? Hilary Mantel? Zadie Smith? Julian Barnes? I was suddenly sympathetic to the podcast host and imagined her experiencing a similar struggle. In the introduction, the host referred to him as “the Japanese novelist Kazuo Ishiguro.” It’s accurate as far as country of origin goes, but it still inspired me to bellow at my little Bluetooth speaker, “He’s lived in Britain for ninety percent of his life and won the Man Booker Prize for a novel about an emotionally stunted butler, you provincial Thatcherite turd! What does he have to do to be called a British novelist?”īut as I spat it out, the phrase “British novelist” didn’t feel right, either. I doubt BuzzFeed will ever publish, “21 Ways To Tell If You’re In A Kazuo Ishiguro Novel.”Ī few weeks ago I was listening to a podcast on which Ishiguro was the guest.
I’ve read nearly everything he’s published-all the novels and stories together run to only a couple thousand pages-but I’ve never used the phrase, “Ishiguro-esque,” and I’m not sure what I’d mean by that if I did. We the devout can’t imagine what we’ll get when we take an unread volume down from the shelf, or click to commit to a pre-order.
Being a fan of Kazuo Ishiguro is as much an act of faith as an expression of taste.
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