You know when friends send you links and say you have to read this or watch that, and maybe sometimes you do? Well, a writer friend sent me a link to British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2017 acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
I wasted no time watching it from beginning to end, forty-nine minutes.
Ishiguro is one of my favorite writers. I’ve read all eight of his novels and his one short story collection, and I don’t think I can say I’ve read any other author’s entire output.
You may know Ishiguro from his breakout novel The Remains of the Day, often called the butler book, or from Never Let Me Go, his disturbing parallel-world novel, or his most recent novel, Klara and the Sun, about a child and her artificial friend. His narrative voice and style are like no other writer I’ve come across. I find it rhythmic, sonorous, and mesmerizing. I read his first novel, A Pale View of the Hills, when I was coming up as a writer, and its voice and structure greatly influenced my own early work.
In his acceptance speech, he talked about how he believed his early novels were too cinematic—they contained dialogue and direction, he said—and he purposely set out to write the type of story that can only work on the page, a story style that is not possible in other art forms. I don’t know if he completely pulled it off, since several of his novels became films. But what he says is something I understand: the best novels are those that do something only a novel can do.
He often explores the ways we deceive ourselves by choosing what we remember versus what we let go, and the constant struggle between forgetting and remembering. He said he did this mostly on an individual character level, but later tried to do it on a broader level; for instance, how a nation chooses to remember and forget.
He said (this was 2017, and yet is more applicable than ever today) that liberal democracies are on the downswing and savage meritocracies are taking over. He said, “In a time of dangerously increasing division, we must listen. Good writing and good reading will break down barriers. We may even find a new idea, a great humane vision, around which we can rally.”
In a time of dangerously increasing division, we must listen. Good writing and good reading will break down barriers. We may even find a new idea, a great humane vision, around which we can rally.
Is it possible? I hope so. Ishiguro is doing his part: “Stories must communicate feelings that we share. They are about one person saying to another: this is how it feels for me. Can you understand? Is this also how it feels to you?”
Stories must communicate feelings that we share. They are about one person saying to another: this is how it feels for me. Can you understand? Is this also how it feels to you?
Ishiguro is not just a writer, but also a human who has curiosity about others, who harbors empathy for others.
If only we could all read more, maybe our situation could improve. Maybe we’d all be more empathetic.
But alas, reading books is on the decline. The most recent Survey of Publication Participation in the Arts found that fewer than half of Americans had read a single book in the previous 12 months; only 38 percent had read a novel or short story.
The Guardian reported on a New York Times survey that showed many schools are no longer assigning entire books to high school students, and instead are assigning only excerpts that students read on their laptops. Some of the reasons given were students’ short attention spans and the need to teach students to perform on standardized tests.
Sad, because a two-decade-long study found that “kids who lived with books in their home benefitted significantly over those who didn’t, in areas like academic success, vocabulary development and job attainment.”
Back to Ishiguro. Give him a try if you haven’t already. And here’s a link to his Nobel acceptance speech, just in case you’re into that kind of thing.
