I'm absolutely in love with it. Having said that, it's hard to review it without giving surprises away.

[[Ishiguro]] is one of my favorite authors and this book is like his others in that it's not as straight forward a story as you might think, starting out. Etsuko, a Japanese woman remembers a summer in Nagasaki when she was pregnant, and had met Sachiko. The story flips between present day and that summer, and although there seems to be a progression in events, Ishiguro keeps his surprise till the very end and leaves you with a few possible conclusions. He certainly had me mulling over a few scenarios when I had finished reading it. ( )

Read this too quickly... want to approach it again, this time without speeding through to search for answers and resolution. ( )

Just give the man a Nobel. Just do it. Take Al Gore's away and give it to this man. (i know they're for different things, but that would speed up the process) ( )

A hauntingly sad, enigmatic novel, it tells of Etsuko, a Japanese woman now living in England, who is trying to come to terms with the suicide of her eldest daughter, and in the process, is drawn to memories of her own life back in Japan. She remembers in particular the summer just after she got married -- she strikes up a friendship with an enigmatic woman and her young daughter who kept seeing a "lady." This was post-war Nagasaki, and people were still dealing with the loss and destruction from the bombing. Ishiguro deftly and subtly uses metaphor, is ambiguous in parts, and sometimes frustratingly sketchy. But this style evokes very well the brokenness of people's lives then, the hurt, the picking up of the pieces, the unreality, the abruptness of change. There are a lot of things Ishiguro left out -- why the daughter killed herself, the missing part of Etsuko's life between that long-ago summer and her life now, what happened to the mysterious friend and the girl -- details which might have "completed" the story. But we are left to wonder, and perhaps the details do not matter so much as the sentiment and portrayal of loss, disconnection, and memory as identity. ( )

With Ishiguro, I really do enjoy his writing style. Can I describe it? No. That would require my own writing style which I don't have. But it is interesting and he certainly has you turning the page to read what's next.

The mix of realities was certainly interesting but, even though I don't require closure with my books, I just felt that this one could have closed a few ends at least. Mystery and intrigue is good but if I wanted to have only that I would look at my own love life. Although I could hardly call it intrigue, I would be curious to see how Ishiguro interpreted it in writing. Would I look over the hills myself pondering who that person on the other side of the river is? Or perhaps I would be that woman in the shadows. Or perhaps I'm the noodle shop lady in all her side character glory. In any case, I guess this shows that I wasn't all that interested in the story.

Sorry Ishiguro. Like I said, I really do like your style.

For those curious, however, this book is about a woman named Etsuko who has just lost her daughter to suicide. This incident, along with the visit of her daughter's half sister makes her look back to her past when she was still living in Nagasaki, Japan. There, while pregnant with her first child, she encounters Sachiko, a woman with a seemingly strange relationship with her own daughter and men. Realities twist, memories fade in and out, and we're left with Etsuko, still questioning her daughter's fate as well as Sachiko's. ( )