Japanese-British writer Kazuo Ishiguro, 62 years old, is the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature. The announcement was made this Thursday morning (5). The Swedish Academy justified the distinction by highlighting the importance of Ishiguro's work, “who, in his novels of great emotional strength, revealed the abyss beneath our illusory notion of connection with the world”. The author is mainly known for his seven novels, released between 1982 and 2015. Four of them, in addition to a book of short stories, were published in Brazil by Companhia das Letras.
According to Alcir Pécora, professor at the Department of Literary Theory at the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at Unicamp, Ishiguro stood out among the new generation of British writers. His production achieved international dissemination, with two of his books being turned into films. The film adaptation of “The Traces of the Day”, a volume released in 1989, made the author known worldwide. “Although I am not an expert on his work, I would say, as his occasional reader, that Ishiguro is almost a pop author. In general, I think he is a good writer, but that’s it”, comments the teacher.
In 2010, Pécora wrote a review for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo on "Noturnos - Histórias de Música e Anoitecer", Ishiguro's first book of short stories, released the previous year [See full text below]. In his analysis, the IEL-Unicamp professor highlights that “in Ishiguro's execution, however, the melancholy is close to the atmosphere of romantic comedies in current English cinema, with its clumsy hero, the situations of trouble between people from different classes and cultures , one or two sad facts, some childish evocation and a more or less realistic conclusion about destiny. Good to read, easy to forget.”
The awarding of the Nobel Prize to the Japanese-British writer represents a kind of return by the Swedish Academy to tradition. In 2016, the recipient was the American singer Bob Dylan, chosen “for creating new poetic expressions within the great tradition of American music”. The decision generated some controversy, fueled by the artist's stance, who took a few weeks to comment on the distinction.
Trajectory
Born in 1954, in Nagaski, Japan, Kazuo Ishiguro migrated as a child (5 years old) with his family to England. The experience provided the future writer with the influence of two distinct cultures. In the late 1970s, he graduated with a degree in English and Philosophy from the University of Kent. He later studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia. As a teenager, he began working as a musician, but the realization only came when he dedicated himself to writing.
REVIEW
ALCIR PÉCORA
Born in Japan, but living in England since the age of six, Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) was once considered one of the 20 best young British writers by Granta magazine. He became known worldwide with the film adaptation of the 1989 novel “The Remains of the Day”, for which he won the Booker Prize.
Although he is an experienced novelist, “Noturnos – Histórias de music e anoitecer”, from 2009, is his first book of short stories. The title is literal. In the five stories there is music and nightfall scenographically framing them: piazza music, pop music and jazz. However, its true common theme only reveals itself if the title is also taken, metaphorically, as an allusion to the moment of cooling of hopes of talent naturally adjusting to success, whose conditions are discovered to be random, unfair and, at times, ridiculous. . Thus, the stories compose a kind of moment of truth in which the promises of a sunny life are confronted with the installation of a mediocre life, in the shadow of desire. The confrontation takes place in a minor key, without tragedy or strong dramatic moves, but in a self-ironic and, so to speak, tenderly disappointing way.
Two stories revolve around the same character, Lindy Gardner. Coming from nowhere, beautiful without talent, she is successful in the art of marrying the right men. Fifty-year-old, in her prime, is the subject of a touching farewell serenade from her partner of more than 20 years, crooner Tony Gardner, and a third plastic surgery, with which she hopes to win another successful husband.
In two others, the narrator deals with his own prolonged immaturity, which postpones the time to take a direction in life and career, and also with the crisis of friendly couples, whose love seems insufficient to contain the boredom or mutual disappointments of banality. . The final story follows the dilemma of a young cellist between the high expectations raised by a mysterious woman who extols his talent and the pedestrian needs to survive that force him to play familiar songs in hotels and squares, while people eat or talk without him. give attention.
Narrated in the first person by witnesses rather than protagonists, the stories have a colloquial language, with deliberate marks of orality and casual conversation, which makes them very easy to read and enjoy. The best of them is, after all, the homology between its tempo and the “nocturne” musical genre, conceived as the construction of a delicate atmosphere, which intelligently combines humorous situations and small stridencies with a general tone that is definitely melancholic.
In Ishiguro's execution, however, the melancholy approaches the atmosphere of romantic comedies in current English cinema, with its clumsy hero, situations of trouble between people of different classes and cultures, one or two sad facts, some childish evocation and an inference more or less realistic about the destination. Good to read, easy to forget.
Text originally published in Folha de S. Paulo
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