I read Kazuo Ishiguro’s A Pale View of Hills, first published in 1982, with intense curiosity. Until then, I had only sparsely known Ishiguro as someone who had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017. And, I take it you would have assumed so, I did not read anything by Ishiguro then.
So, when I was browsing through fiction in my University Library, I found a book titled A Pale View of Hills, with a misty yellow cover and a hazy backdrop of a girl running and a woman chasing after her. I picked it up. I read its blurb, which cautioned that, in the story, both past and present converge in a haunting way. I was hooked.
So, I grabbed a few other books, along with this one, just in case I were to be disappointed with this one, there would be others to fall back on. And instantly, I scanned through the books in the library, and stuffed them into my tote, and marched, I did, to my apartment unit. The following two days, I read through Ishiguro’s A Pale View of Hills with care, amidst so much chaos unleashed by a 5-minute storm, a “fire weather” (the term I was oblivious to until then) of sorts in Brisbane.
A Pale View of Hills was Ishiguro’s first book. It is a story narrated by Etsuko, a Japanese woman who had moved to rural England with her second husband. The story begins with an unexpected visit from her daughter, Niki. And in the next few pages, there is a sense of confusion: Niki’s elder sister, Keiko, had died by suicide years earlier in Manchester, and Niki did not go to her funeral. Treat this as a hook. I wanted to know so much about why she would die, what happened to her, and how Etsuko ended up with a second husband.
But the story would soon shift between two instances, just at the time when Etsuko was still pregnant with Keiko and living in Nagasaki. It was a time when the Second World War had caused so much havoc in Japanese society. It was also a time when tradition and modernity were constantly at odds with each other. There were subtle patriarchal norms at play, and within them, the violence that structured Japanese society.
The two instances I referred to earlier were, one, Ogata-San, the father-in-law of Etsuko, and the father of Jiro, Etsuko’s first husband, who had come to stay with them in Nagasaki, and second, an unexpected short-lived friendship with an older woman, Sachiko, who lived with her daughter Mariko, in a cottage close to Etsuko’s apartment. Sachiko was dating an American guy, Frank, who drinks and spends time lazing around.
Both Etsuko and Sachiko are different. Etsuko seems to be a caring, selfless, and gentle person. And Sachiko, in contrast, was carefree, selfish, and gullible. Mariko, Sachiko’s daughter, has befriended cats, named them, and plays with a kitten most days, as some of us would have done in our childhood. Sachiko believes that, if she were to go to America with Frank, all her problems would be solved. And that she could start anew. However, Mariko is extremely unhappy about the prospect of going with Frank, whom she would say smells like a pig.
However, as one continues reading this book, with more threads being unfurled, one begins to wonder whether Etsuko and Sachiko were the same person. And Mariko, her daughter, Keiko, who ends up dying by suicide. The similarities become uncanny: just as Sachiko, who wanted to go to America, Etsuko actually went to England and took a new husband. Just as Mariko’s reluctance to go to America, Keiko may not have been really excited to go to England. Much like Mariko, Keiko seemed to be extremely reserved and would keep herself locked in her room for days. At once, Etsuko even admits that her memory has become unreliable and fragmented. Perhaps that could be the reason for these distinct narrations.
In between, there are other characters. Jiro, for instance. He spoke less. But, through his subtle actions, his stare, his rage, he would get things done at home. For instance, when Jiro’s office-colleagues visit their house, and when they insist on not drinking tea, Jiro stares at Etsuko, hinting to her to make them tea. So, when he received appreciation at his office for his work, Jiro asked his father to join him to drink sake to celebrate. “Jiro nodded to me. I went to the cupboard and brought out a bottle and two cups.” He was a traditional, patriarchal man.
Jiro’s father, Ogata-San, although a very caring and fun person, was stuck in a time warp. He could not reflect on the changing nature of Japanese society with enthusiasm. He found it deeply disturbing that husband and wife could vote for two different people in elections. He firmly believes that women should take their husbands’ views on politics into consideration. And he also wants to reprimand Shigeo Matsuda, a student of his and a childhood friend of Jiro’s, who had written an article in an education journal condemning the old-style of teaching, and even directly attacking Ogata-San.
So, finally, when Ogata meets Shigeo, he derides how much the newer generation has lost patience and has lost any value to the older generation, teaching and teachers. However, he is keen to learn new things; he wants Etsuko to teach him cooking and music.
Each instance in A Pale View of Hills reads like a confusion. And in confusion, Ishiguro presents us with multiple impossibilities. He does not tell us a straight-jacketed story—there was a king, and he had five daughters. Instead, he draws us into things that we least expect, and in them, he brings his characters alive.
So, when you begin reading this text, you would want to know what happened to Kieko—and why she would die by suicide. Likewise, there is a great deal of subtle violence, and one wonders what role it may have played in Etsuko’s decision to move to England. However, Ishiguro never tells you that. A Pale View of Hills, in this sense, is a haunt-induced blur.