A novel by a Nobel Prize winner in literature
The Unconsoled (1995) represents a significant breakthrough in the work of British Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro. After the worldwide success of The Twilight of the Day (1989, no. 1997), which was preceded by two early works with Japanese themes, A Pale View of Hills (1982, no. 2018) and Artist of the Floating World (1986, no. 1999), the author decided to abandon the creative certainties that had earned him a leading position on the British literary scene: be it the postcolonial themes, the "quiet" but refined linguistic style, the realistic narrative in two intertwining time planes or the overall melancholic tone of the prose.
He embarked on a bold experiment: The result is a distinctive novel tragicomedy, which in many ways is incomparable to the absurd comedy of Kafka's The Castle or Beckett's Waiting for Godot, or the satirical cut of Thomas Bernhard's prose.
A world-famous piano virtuoso arrives in an unnamed European metropolis, resembling a composite portrait of Prague and Vienna. The local citizens expect from his performance not only an extraordinary musical experience, but mainly a spiritual renewal of the declining village. In the world of the allegorical novel, music is the medium in which all cultural and political life takes place - from the desires and dreams of gifted individuals, through the activities of civic associations, to the events at the town hall and the crisis turns in the political direction of society. Will the piano genius manage to get the local people on the desired musical and political note before he has to go on another tour? Can this mentally unstable saviour find in the labyrinth of an unknown city - where it is easy to get lost or get unpleasantly involved with someone - the right key to start the analogy of the "Prague Spring"?
Ishiguro won the Cheltenham Literary Festival prize for his work, which was controversial at the time of its publication. With the passage of time, it is increasingly clear that it is well deserved.
