A Pale View of Hills

This book was so creepy and confusing that I opted to read it again. Not just because it is short, but because it is well written and it weaves a very intriguing mystery. Our narrator Etsuko’s oldest daughter recently hung herself in her apartment. Nikki, Etsuko’s daughter with her second husband, v......more

This is a beautiful novel that calls for patient and careful reading. I admire the way it's constructed. The cares and concerns of three pairs of mothers and daughters are refracted off one another. The first two pairs live near a resurgent Nagasaki sometime toward the end of the American Occupation......more

Every once in a while, a book surprises you on the way to its ending. After the first few pages of this book, I figured I knew what to expect - a well written realist novel about a displaced Japanese woman in England who reminisces about her youth while contemplating the choices her children have ma......more

[Edited for spoilers and typos 9/10/22] A Japanese-born woman living in England reminisces with her daughter about the woman’s memories of life in Japan in Nagasaki after the war. The woman had two daughters by two husbands. We learn in the first couple of pages that the oldest daughter, born in Japa......more

Even thought A Pale View of Hills is Ishiguro's debut novel, it shows the masterfulness of his craft in full display. Ishiguro here plays with his common themes of personal and collective memories, trauma and cultural differences between Japan and England. The main character, the first-generation im......more