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A Pale View of Hills
 
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A Pale View of Hills (Paperback)

by Kazuo Ishiguro (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Faber and Faber; New edition edition (3 Mar 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0571225373
  • ISBN-13: 978-0571225378
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.6 x 1.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 9,028 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #6 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > I > Ishiguro, Kazuo

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Product Description

Product Description
In his, highly acclaimed debut, A PALE VIEW OF HILLS, Kazuo Ishiguro tells the story of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living alone in England, dwelling on the recent suicide of her daughter. Retreating into the past, she finds herself reliving one particular hot summer in Nagasaki, when she and her friends struggled to rebuild their lives after the war. But then as she recalls her strange friendship with Sachiko - a wealthy woman reduced to vagrancy - the memories take on a disturbing cast.

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Customer Reviews

15 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (11)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Choosing to Tell, 14 Nov 2002
By Eric Anderson (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A Pale View of Hills (Paperback)
This is an amazing first novel and it is a good introduction to Ishiguro for readers who haven't read his books before. It is so delicately told from the point of view of a woman who has survived WWII. You are given only brief personal glimpses of her life, yet those glimpses spark an enormous amount of questions revealing her to be a woman of deep complexity. You would expect her to be pondering the life of her daughter Keiko, but she spends most of her time remembering the mysterious woman Sachiko who she knew briefly in Nagasaki. Over the course of reading the novel you begin to understand that this is a way for her to process her emotions over her daughter's death. Pondering the mysteries of a woman she can never understand is preferable to admitting the responsibility for her daughter's suicide. Perhaps she contributed in some way to her death? From her obsession with Sachiko and Sachiko's daughter Mariko we understand that she is possibly drawing parallels between the girls. While this mystery looms in the background you are brought deeply into her observations of Sachiko and her story of a single woman trying to survive independently. Through the entire time Ishiguro is very careful about what is and is not given away. He is a master at telling and not telling. The selection that goes into telling has an impact on the way we interpret what is told. In this way he explores human complexities that few other writers are able to dig into. Our view of Etsuko, like our view of Nagasaki, is blurred and from this not quite clear view we understand that this Japanese woman still has a lot more to tell.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Impressed but puzzled, 3 May 2005
I came to this novel late, after reading Remains of the Day and Artist of the Floating World, both of which I loved. It's similar to both in that we slowly discover a passionate past lurking behind an emotionless surface. There's also a macabre element to it, that makes it sometimes read like a precursor of The Ring films. And yet for all the effectiveness of the climax, I can't help feeling that the author doesn't really play fair with us. The narrative is so unreliable that in the end it's not really possible to work out exactly what does happen. But maybe I just need someone to explain it to me...
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Pay Attention, 26 Mar 2007
Having read "Never Let Me Go" and "The Remains of the Day", I was expecting a novel that left me asking questions and would make me feel a little bit empty. I was not wrong.

That is not to say that Kazuo Ishigur's novels are bad. Far from it. But if you expect to put this novel down with a neat happy ending and no questions you'll be disappointed and confused.

You really need to pay attention to the novel to understand it, there are sublte hints which at first might not make much sense, but do not dismiss them out of hand.

If you're still missing the plot there's plenty of online sources out there which will explain the plot to you in a little more detail, but don't look at these until you've finished the book.

When it all falls into place I'll guarantee you'll see why this book is actually far more intelligent than it originally seems.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars It doesn't matter how old someone is, it's what they've experienced that counts
Under the surface of apparently harmless conversations, the author uncovers Japan's `very strict and very patriotic' old world of `discipline, loyalty, such things held Japan... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Luc REYNAERT

4.0 out of 5 stars Shadows Across The River
Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. He was awarded the OBE in 1995 and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1998... Read more
Published 17 months ago by cluricaune

5.0 out of 5 stars macabre
I read this having never read his books before but have always loved the 'remains of the day' film version. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Ms. Samia Bushra

4.0 out of 5 stars Quality Creative Writing
This, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel, is similar at face value to his better known works The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go but, on closer inspection, is darker in tone and... Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2006 by Jonathan Birch

4.0 out of 5 stars Strange
I don't really know what to say about this one. I really enjoyed reading it, I liked the authors style and the memories of a culture so different to my own, but most of the way... Read more
Published on 17 Sep 2006 by Cee-Gee

4.0 out of 5 stars The Beginnings of the Day
Ishiguro's first novel reads as though it sprang from the womb fully formed, at the tenderish age of 28. Read more
Published on 16 Mar 2006 by John Self

4.0 out of 5 stars A great read!
I'm studying The Remains of the Day at school at the moment and thought that by reading another of Ishiguro's novels, it would help me in my studies. Read more
Published on 28 Oct 2004 by saffronshell

4.0 out of 5 stars A portrait of a life changed by the war
I read this book a while ago but I still think it is probably the best Ishiguro's work. Just a piece of story, a few memories put together and no ending. But it does the trick. Read more
Published on 16 Oct 2003 by sara_gnd

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative but a little slow ...
I still give five stars to this novel by Ishiguro, but I found the story a little slow ...

How the author allows the past and present to merge in Etsuko's mind is quite... Read more

Published on 15 Jun 2001

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and confusing
I had high expectations, but found the book enigmatic and the protagonist frustrating. If a book promises to explain or resolve the problems it presents, then this book is a... Read more
Published on 5 Mar 2001 by shatzie2@aol.com

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