14 - Ishiguro and Love

Summary

The longing for love and the possibility of its loss are consistent concerns in Ishiguro’s production. Through references to ancient and modern conceptualizations, the chapter addresses the varieties of love that dominate Ishiguro’s works. It moves from the guilt-ridden love of a mother for her suicided daughter in A Pale View of Hills, through Stevens’s barely acknowledged love for Miss Kenton in Remains of the Day, to the unresolved tension between the devotion to our nearest and dearest and the pursuit of a higher ideal in The Unconsoled and When We Were Orphans. After minor excursions into songwriting and short stories, the chapter focuses on the most recent three novels, considering the deceptive possibility of romantic love’s redemptive power in Never Let Me Go, the long-standing but apparently doomed conjugal love of Axl and Beatrice in The Buried Giant, and Klara’s touching devotion to the sick Josie in Klara and the Sun.