"The Unconsoled" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro channels his inner Kafka and adds a healthy dose of Lewis Carroll in this fantastical story.

The narrator-protagonist is Mr Ryder, a celebrated pianist, who arrives in an unnamed Central European city where he is due to give a speech and perform at a forthcoming concert. But as soon as he arrives at his hotel, things begin to go wrong. Hilde Stratmann has put together a busy schedule over the next few days but she doesn't share it with him. Instead, everyone he meets makes demands upon his time. The hotel porter Gustav, whose mission is to improve the status of hotel porters, wants him to meet his fellows at a local cafe where they collectively urge him to make a statement supporting their cause.  Stephan, the son of the hotel manager wants Mr R to hear him play the piano and advise him if he is good enough to perform at the concert. Sophie, who seems to be Ryder's wife, wants him to look after Boris, her son, and Boris wants him to go back to their old apartment to find a toy that was left behind in the move. A newspaper photographer wants him to pose before a controversial monument and he agrees, despite being privy to a conversation which makes it clear he is being set-up. He is expected to mend the fractured relationship between an alcoholic orchestra conductor and his ex-wife. Etcetera. 

It seems he cannot say no to anyone and in his endeavours to meet these multiple demands he crisscrosses the town and its surrounding countryside, never quite sure where he is going but often reaching his goal even though the landscape must shrink and twist and buckle like an Escher version of the Mobius strip for him to get there (this reminded me hugely of chapter 2 of Alice Through the Looking Glass when the paths in the garden twist and turn and Alice is advised that if she wants to get somewhere she should head in the opposite direction). And, of course, on each of his travels he meets new characters, including several plucked straight from his childhood, who make fresh and further demands upon him. 

Usually, when he meets people, they treat him with respect and show that they expect great things of him, increasing the feeling that he is subject to demands that it will prove impossible to meet. But sometimes they ignore him completely and at other times he encounters hostility. Some characters discuss him as if he wasn't there. On other occasions he is able to follow characters and listen in to their discussions, understanding their thoughts, even though they are round a corner or inside a building where he cannot possibly have followed them. It's all incredibly surreal.

Doors, as in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, are portals into new places and new areas of experience. Except, perhaps, for the door into the broom cupboard which he opens by mistake even though he is well aware of the comedy trope about people walking into a broom cupboard by mistake. 

It reminded me of the stress I was under when I was a deputy headteacher. I even wrote an article for the Times Educational Supplement (under the pseudonym Chris Jarrett) in which I explained my fear of corridors ... because they were places where doors would open and people would pop out and expect you to do something. It reminded me of how impossible the job was, the repeated demands of others, my inability to delegate (mostly because I didn't have anyone to delegate to) and how my personal life suffered. 

But as well as being a frighteningly accurate portrait of a man under pressure, it also allegorised our dystopian world. Many of the demands were for Ryder to help people solve what was widely perceived as a crisis in the city, to aid the citizens in their attempts to bring about a cultural and consequently economic rebirth of their town. I wondered whether these were a comment on post-imperial Britain.

• "Our city is close to crisis. There's widespread misery. We have to start putting things right somewhere and we might as well start at the centre." (Ch 8)
• "Why don't we resign ourselves to being just another cold, lonely city? Other cities have. At least we'll be moving with the tide." (Ch 9)

Alternatively, some of it seemed to be the torments of a celebrated artist, struggling with the expectations of others and an inner feeling of worthlessness, of imposter syndrome:

• "I have to keep going on these trips because, you see, you can never tell when it's going to come along. I mean the very special one, the very important trip, not just for me but for everyone, everyone in the whole world." (Ch 15)
• "These lovely dreams in the early morning. When the day starts and none of it happens, I often blame myself bitterly." (Ch 28)
• "Even back then you were never a real musician. And you'll never become one now. ... You'll never be anything more than a charlatan. A cowardly, irresponsible fraud ..." (Ch 34)
• "From the beginning I said to myself, I'll tell him tomorrow, we;ll have a proper talk about it tomorrow when they'll be more time. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I kept putting it off." (Ch 35)
• "Leave him be, Boris. Let him go around the world, giving out his expertise and wisdom. He needs to do it. Let's just leave him to it now." (Ch 38)

Is it a five hundred page nightmare? It certainly follows the tangled logic of a dream narrative. Is it an almost endless acid trip? Is it a nervous breakdown? Is this how a newly famous author must feel when the expectations of the world are so out of proportion with his assessment of his own abilities? (In chapter 22, the narrator, realising he hasn't had time to practise the piece he will perform, tells a man who wants him to plays for his dog's funeral: "I've been obliged to attend to too many requests, and as a result I'm now very hard pressed to get done the most important things.") Or is it a rewriting of Kafka's Trial? 

Yes it went on and on but it was fluently written and endlessly inventive and it certainly produced a claustrophobic feeling of  pressure. I had to finish it, I needed to know whether the culminating concert would be a success or not and whether the needs of so many needy people would be satisfied. It was an epic read. I've never read anything quite like it. I think it is probably a masterpiece.

The Guardian called it "difficult, perplexing and uniquely challenging"; I couldn't disagree.

Selected quotes:

• "If she wasn't so beautiful ... she'd have been universally hated." (Ch 9)
• "Until recently, Mr Brodsky was really only ever noticed when he got very drunk and went staggering about the town shouting. The rest of the time he was just this recluse who lived with his dog up by the north highway." (Ch 9)
• "In order to get inside and close the door again I was obliged to squeeze more tightly into a corner and to tug the edge of the door slowly past my chest." (Ch 23)
• "This wall is quite typical of this town. Utterly preposterous obstacles everywhere. And what do you do? Do you all get annoyed? Do you demand that it's pulled down immediately so that people can go about their business? No, you put up with it for the best part of a century. You make postcards of it and believe it's charming." (Ch 26)
• "I was still making my way rapidly along the corridor when I became aware of several figures standing in a line against the wall. Glancing towards them, I saw they were all wearing kitchen overalls and, as far as I could make out, were each waiting their turn to climb into a small black cupboard." (Ch 34)
• "Leave us. You were always on the outside of our love. Now look at you. On the outside of our grief too. Leave us. Go away." (Ch 38)

Surreal and superb. April 2024; 535 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God