Archive for Kazuo Ishiguro
yet another list of 100 “best novels”
Posted in Books, Statistics with tags authors, best novels, book list, English literature, French literature, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowlings, Kazuo Ishiguro, NYT, Russian literature, Susanna Clarke, The Guardian, The Lord of The Ring, The New York Times, The North, Ursula Le Guin, Victor Hugo on June 15, 2026 by xi'an
Libé’s Cannes’tionaire
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Running, Travel with tags 8 Miles, A Clockwork Orange, Alien, Blade Runner, Casablanca, Chaplin, Desperately Seeking Susan, Eine Liebe in Deutschland, Festival de Cannes 2025, Forest Gump, If..., into the wild, Isabelle Huppert, Kazuo Ishiguro, La Haine, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Les 400 coups, Libé, memories, Moby Dick, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios, Mylène Farmer, O Brother, questionnaire, Rashomon, Shoplifters, Shrek, Spirited Away, Sweet Bean, Tampopo, The Blues Brothers, The Circus, The Dead, The Grapes of Wrath, The Hobbit, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Martian, Tirez sur le Pianiste, trainspotting, Twenty-Thousand Leagues under the Sea were, Where Art Thou?, Young Frankenstein on May 30, 2025 by xi'an
The French newspaper Libé(ration) is submitting some participants to the 2025 Cannes film festival to a questionnaire akin to Proust’s literary questionnaire and I found myself hard-pressed to answer, as it took a few on-line searches to fit the questions. Obviously the answers are of little interest and definitely not going to appear in Libé!
La première image ?
Hard to remember, rally, since (paradoxically) we were hardly ever going out to see films in the cinema of the small Norman town where we lived when I was a kid (and with no TV at home). Once in a (long) while a projectionist would come to our primary school so it may be Moby Dick (1956) or Twenty-Thousand Leagues under the Sea were among the first films I saw. As well as The Grapes of Wrath on a neighbour’s television, down the street. I actually remember most vividly a time when we all went to this local cinema for a family film (possibly Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus) and I got terrified by the teaser for an incoming film about vampires!
Le chef-d’œuvre dont tout le monde vous parle et que vous n’avez jamais vu ?
An incredible number of masterpieces, in fact, like Les 400 coups or La Haine to stick to the French production—and neither I have watched Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain, but I am uncertain it qualifies as a masterpiece. Which reflects my lack of cinematographic culture, getting worse in the recent years where I only listen to the film critic show on the French public radio, France Inter. I tried to catch up during COVID, but somehow got distracted by series. Partly because watching on-line older, more classical movies, is often a challenge. (I managed to bag Tirez sur le Pianiste last year.)
Un film secret qui en sait long sur vous ?
If… a 1968 vitriolesque depiction of boarding schools, with A Clockwork Orange‘s Malcom McDowell. Reflecting my mood about said schools at the time I saw it.
La bande originale qui vous trotte dans la tête ?
The music of Blade Runner by Vangelis is just fitting the movie so well. Albeit not something I would keep in my head for days. If I skip films involving music one way or another like 8 Miles, The Blues Brothers, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, or Desperately Seeking Susan, the (not original) soundtracks of, to name just a few, Trainspotting, Shrek and The Hobbit (Misty Mountains) certainly stayed there for a while!
Un film où il ferait bon vivre ? Ou un film qui fait aimer les gens ?
Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し), by Miyazaki Hayao. Even though the episode of Chihiro’s parents being turned into pigs traumatised my very young daughter when we watched it in a cinema! As well as (pardoxically) Shoplifters.
Votre palme d’or favorite (ou un film qui ne l’a pas eue et c’est un scandale !)
Rashomon, obviously. Although it was withdrawn from the Cannes 1951 competition for copyright worries.
Votre vie devient un biopic. Qui dans votre rôle ? Et qui derrière la caméra ?
No interest whatsoever, a waste of time and money. Unless I decide to get Into the Wild..! But I would dream of a movie in the spirit of Andrezj Walda’s Eine Liebe in Deutschland (which I never watched!), that would evoke the story of the Macé’s, a couple who were friends to my grandparents and went through an exceptional life and love that started in a German farm during WWII.
Le monstre ou le psychopathe de cinéma dont vous vous sentez le plus proche ?
Alien! I mean, why did they have to come and bother it?! And, in a less serious mood, The Monster (with no name, poor thing!, not even for his Abe Normal’s brain…) in Young Frankenstein. [Answer that I share with Isabelle Huppert, as I realised after writing this! And she also mentions Blade Runner, albeit as the masterpiece she did not watch.]
La scène qui vous fait pleurer à tous les coups ?
The finale of (John Huston’s) The Dead. And Tokue’s death in Sweet Bean (あん). And many others! Plus, while this is not the question per se, I have fainted during a few films, like The Last Temptation of Christ (and not because the protesters at the entrance of the Ithaca cinema!) and The Martian (during a flight to Boston). But would not necessarily faint again were I to watch them a second time.
Le film le plus drôle de tous les temps ?
Monty Python and the Holy Grail, no doubt! [Shared with Mylène Farmer, a posteriori.]A un-Monthy-esque seconder would be Almodovar’s Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios. Or Tampopo, as I have not watched either in years.
Quelle réplique peut résumer votre humeur du moment ?
I felt like running (Forest Gump) [which was a missed masterpiece for Kazuo Ishiguro, another interviewee!].
La dernière image ?
The final scene of Casablanca, with this forever obscure quote Here’s looking at you, kid.
Klara and the Sun [book review]
Posted in Books, Kids with tags AI, artificial intelligence, book review, England, English literature, Graham Greene, Kazuo Ishiguro, Man Booker Prize, Never let me go, Nobel Prize in Litterature, robots, science fiction, The Remains of the Day, USA on April 22, 2022 by xi'anKlara and the Sun is the latest book of Kazuo Ishiguro. I am a big admirer of Ishiguro’s books and always moved by their bittersweet exploration of humanity (or humanness?!). The remains of the day is one of my favourite books, competing with Graham Greene’s The end of the affair, and I deeply enjoyed When we were orphans, Never let me go, and The buried giant. While this latest book exhibits the same craftsmanship in depicting human feelings and incomplete (in the sense of unsatisfactory) relations, I feel like I missed some component of the book, too many hints, the overall message… Not that I rushed through it, contrary to my habit, reading a few chapters at a time during lunch breaks. But I cannot set the separation between the subjective perception of Klara [the robotic friend], which is very clearly limited, both by her robotic sensors [lacking a sense of smell for instance] and her learning algorithm, furthermore aggravated by her wasting (?) some material to sabotage a machine, and the real world [within the novel, a vague two-tiered USA]. Because the perspective is always Klara’s. This confusion may be completely intentional and is in that sense brilliant. But I remained perplexed by the Sun central episode in the novel, which I fear reveals a side of the story I did not get. Like Джозі в якийсь момент перетворилася на робота? [Using Ukrainian to avoid spoilers for most readers!] (In a way, Klara and the Sun is a variation on Never let me go, both dealing with a future where copies of humans could be available, for those who could afford it.)
the dark remains [book review]
Posted in Books, Travel with tags Birmingham, book reviews, Glasgow, Ian Rankin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Laidlaw, Rebus, Scotland, tartan noir, The Scotsman, William McIlvanney on December 4, 2021 by xi'an
When I left Birmingham a month ago, I spotted The Dark Remains, a book by Ian Rankin and the late William McIlvanney featuring Laidlaw, a unique Glaswegian detective featuring in his other books. Which I of course bought on the spot. (Ironically, along with the latest Ishiguro!) The book had been started by McIlvanney but left unfinished, which is where Rankin took over, as a big fan of McIlvanney, the designated father of tartan noir. This is a prequel to the other three Laidlaw novels, taking place in the early years of Laidlaw, at a time he was still living with his family, and it starts as a brewing war between two Glasgow gangs, with a fantastic immersion in the Glasgow of the 1970’s. The conclusion of the story is somewhat disappointing but the atmosphere and the reflection on the attitudes of the era are making it a great book. I actually stopped searching for Rankin’s touch almost from the start.
As an aside, the meaning of the title is unclear to me: is the Dark that remains or are the remains dark..? Reading from the Scotsman, it seems this is a typical French miscomprehension!
reading highlights
Posted in Books, Kids with tags Arto Paasilinna, Burial Rites, Céline, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Karen Blixen, Kazuo Ishiguro, Marguerite Yourcenar, Moby Dick, The Remains of the Day, Victor Hugo, Voyage au Bout de la Nuit on January 10, 2021 by xi'an
A reading questionnaire I picked somewhere I cannot remember, a while ago, and filled in the lazy days after X’mas… Could have substituted each entry with dozens of others.
- Your first memorable reading experience : La Panthère Blanche (a pre-1960 children book about an albinos jaguar in the Amazonia I kept reading as a kid, and then I switched to compulsive bi-yearly reads of David Copperfield…)
- Your hidden masterpiece : Kent’s Burial Rites
- An official masterpiece you could not complete : Melville’s Moby Dick (too much technical jargon)
- A writer you would dream to meet : Patrick Rothfuss (so that I could hear the end of the trilogy!), Karen Blixen, Victor Hugo, many others
- A favourite writer you would rather not meet : Louis Céline (definitely not a favourite person!)
- A book you would like to be the main character : Zeno in Yourcenar’s L’Œuvre au Noir (The Abyss)
- A book you offer by default : Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day
- A book that makes you laugh out loud : Paasilina’s The Year of the Hare
- A book you would rather read in the vernacular : every book not written in French or English
