Customer Reviews

A Pale View of Hills

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During a visit from her daughter Niki, Etsuko, who now lives in England, reflects on her earlier life in Japan. The floodgates of memories are also opened by a recent suicide of Keiko, Etsuko's older daughter from her first marriage. Keiko had struggled to adjust to life in England, prompting her suicide. As Etsuko remembers her older daughter, she also finds herself reminiscing about another young woman and her daughter whom she had met in Nagasaki shortly after World War II and who had emigrated to the United States. The incidents that Etsuko recalls are highly idiosyncratic, and it is not entirely clear if they had actually occurred, or if the mother and daughter duo are figments of Etsuko's imagination created in order to cope with her own sense of grief and guilt.

This is Kazuo Ishiguro's first published novel. It resonates with several themes from his other works, albeit in a very different setting. Attention to social and interpersonal relations is heightened, and the author's writing style is very refined and reflective. While not exactly the most exciting read, lovers of good literature will nevertheless find many good qualities in this short novel.