Backlisted - The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

“A masterpiece I don’t fully understand—and don’t need to.” This week’s book is The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, a bold, baffling, and darkly funny novel that has confounded and enchanted readers since its publication in 1995. Joining us to explore it is Chris Chibnall, award-winning screenwriter, playwright, and now novelist, best known for Broadchurch and Doctor Who, and author of the new detective novel Death at the White Hart. Written in the wake of Ishiguro’s Booker-winning The Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled follows Ryder, a famous pianist, through an unnamed European city where nothing is quite as it seems. We talk about Ishiguro’s decision to “go electric” with this daring experiment in narrative structure and tone; how the novel grew from critical confusion to cult classic; and why its unresolved tensions and emotional obliqueness are part of its power. For anyone who’s ever had to perform while still in their dressing gown, this one’s for you. * To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops. * For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm *If you'd like to support the show and join in with the book chat, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes and exclusive writing, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted *You can sign up to our free monthly newsletter here  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast which gives new life to old books. The book featured in today's show is The Unconsoled, certainly the longest and perhaps the most controversial novel by the Nobel Prize-winning writer Kazuo Ishiguro. I'm John Mitchinson, the publisher at Boundless. And I'm Andy Miller, author of The Year of Reading Dangerously. And today we welcome a new guest to Backlisted. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Chris Chibnall. Very nice to be here.

Yes, welcome Chris. Thank you. Can we dub on some more applause because that very much sounded like a stadium or a middle eastern European town. I'd like an echoing concert hall please. Chris Chibnall is a BAFTA Royal Television Society Broadcasting Press Guild and Peabody award-winning screenwriter, executive producer, playwright and now novelist. His television work includes Broadchurch, remade as Grace Point in the US and Malaterra in France. Is that right Chris? Very nice. I don't know Andy. I mean, it sounded great. Badland. It's badland in Spanish or Italian isn't it? Okay. Yeah, it was in Corsica. It was

amazing. He was the showrunner on Doctor Who, casting Jodie Whittaker as the first female doctor. And he's also worked on The Great Train Robbery, United, Torchwood, and Life on Mars. His debut novel, Death at the White Heart, has just been published by Penguin Michael Joseph in the UK and will be published on the 10th of June by Viking Books in the USA. Is today actual publication day, Chris,

or was that yesterday? It was yesterday, but we convene at the end of an absolutely bonkers week. And you are the headline act, the climactic act. You've had David Tennant as a support act. Jenny Godfrey did an event for us in the Southwest of England this week. I'm here to tell you that The Unconsoled is the most relatable novel I could possibly be talking about in

this year. I'm so thrilled to be here. Isn't he nice everybody? Chris Chibnall, in the week of publication he's been interviewed by David Tennant and he's still got it within him to tell us this is the best thing he's doing. What an extraordinary gentleman he is. Now, let me Chris. Yes. I've read some of Death at the White Heart, completely gripping. Oh, thank you.

And we are going to come onto a, I don't want to make this comment too early in the show, but we'll come onto why that's quite an irony in terms of the book you've selected when we get to that particular. However, you know, this is a novel. It is. The Unconsoled is a novel. And there the similarity ends. Your publicist might actually be delighted to hear that.

But I don't. Nothing like Ishiguro, yes, I can see that. Yeah, quite the opposite. Have you written novels before that haven't made it into the world, or is this your first go round? My first go round, so I've wanted to do it for a long time. Respect. Thank you.

There were some conversations around it when I was doing Broadchurch, but then I was doing Broadchurch and then I ended up doing Doctor Who, So coming out of that show, I wanted to do things I hadn't done before and the novel was top of my bucket list and I wanted to be in a genre I was familiar with and I loved and as a kid I took out every Agatha Christie from Formby Library every week, including some in large print form when you couldn't get the normal ones. To driving someone who couldn't see properly. Well done Chris. How kind you are. My modus operandi. I want to give it a go, sort of twisty turny, full of suspects, murder mystery, but also that's about how people live in those sort of chocolate box villages now,

and full of characters, people you would recognise. And the subject of our episode today has written about and talked on several occasions about the challenges of moving from writing fiction to writing screenplays. You've done the reverse here. I wonder what was the most unexpected thing about taking a form presumably you were quite confident with, the village murder story for one of the better term, and what you didn't expect when you started putting it on the page? That's a really good question. I was unsure in terms of the pacing of a novel compared to the pacing of a television episode and a series and essentially

a novel is equivalent to a series. So the units you're dealing with, and it sounds really basic, the sort of single unit you're dealing with in TV is sort of a scene and then an episode, but obviously the novel is the word, but chapters and then the larger movements. So understanding the pace across a novel to keep it going at a satisfying pace, but also having enough space for the psychology, the emotional lives, weaving, which was the right amount of characters where it all feels satisfying. That was the different thing. It felt like you were definitely playing different instruments. Yes, that's interesting.

Also, I guess there are further volumes to come, all being well, correct? Yeah, it's a two book deal here and in the US and I'm just starting to write the second one with the same detective team on a bigger scale than the first one. And so presumably with your TV and filmmaking experience, you've also got that sense of the bigger story you're telling across several seasons or volumes or instalments, right? Yes, and it's particularly the lives of the two characters who are going to recur and their dynamics and how you parcel that out and at what rate is really interesting. So how much you give away, how much you tease.

As a Morse fan, am I going to be pleased? Am I going to be charmed? I hope so. I mean, Morse is so the gold standard, isn't it? You know, in both novels and those television adaptations. And I think that thing with Morse whereby you get the tiniest pieces of information about his personal life, you know, absolute little demi-taspoons of things that you're really craving and that keeps you going and I hope so. Good, good. Before we move on to the main event, Chris, has your mum read it yet? My mum is reading it on holiday as we record this. Why do you ask?

Uh oh. She must be nervous. Okay. We'll move on. Anxiety caused by parents. There's a nice theme. Indeed, yeah. Yes. Right. Okay, we should get on to the book. The book that Chris has chosen is The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, first published in 1995 in the UK by Faber and by Knopf in the US. The basic plot of the novel is deceptively simple. Ryder, a fated English pianist, arrives in an unnamed middle European city to perform

in a concert. The great and the good of the city hope this concert will mark a turning point in the cultural life of the city and Ryder's arrival is widely and enthusiastically anticipated. But almost immediately things begin to go awry. A succession of characters have small favors to ask him and his already busy schedule becomes even more convoluted and stressful. Ryder appears to have close prior connections to a number of the characters and the book unfolds into a surreal catalogue of misunderstandings, misplaced hopes, unrealistic expectations and ratchets up almost unbearable levels of stress. In the final third of the book, the relentless pylon of unfortunate events grows more intense and eventually prevents the concert from happening,

at least in the way it was originally intended. The Unconsoled was the first novel Ishiguro published after his booker-winning million-copy selling triumph The Remains of the Day. And perhaps inevitably, given how different it is to that book, it received decidedly mixed notices. The critic James Wood said it created its own category of badness. And we'll come on to some of those reviews later in the show. The strange dreamlike quality of the narrative

and the book's slow pace have confounded many readers. It often feels like an Escher engraving, but gradually its reputation has grown and it now regularly gets compared to the best work of Franz Kafka, David Lynch and Samuel Beckett. It is the novel of Ishiguro's that perhaps most perfectly lives up to the Nobel committee's commendation that his work has, quote, uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world. So, are we on a road to nowhere? Sorry, sorry listeners.

So, are we on a road to nowhere? Are we jumping aboard the tram of a modern classic? Find out after this message from our sponsors. And we're back. And before we start on the main course, it's a good moment to mention that we'll be picking up elements of today's discussion in next week's Lock Listed, our show for patrons. You can subscribe for that at patreon.com forward slash backlisted and

five years of superior book, film and music chat plus ad free early versions of the main show will be all yours. Right. Let's focus in a way that perhaps Ryder is in unable to do in the novel, The Unconsolved. Chris, when did you first, normally I would say when did you first read this book, but actually I'm going to do the other one today. I'm going to say when did you first become aware of Sokazu Ishiguro's work? It was with The Remains of the Day. I was one of those, you know, millions who bought it and adored it and then went back into his first two novels. And then with The Unconsolved, sold, I actually don't have an accurate memory appropriately of exactly how I came by the

book or when, which year I read it in exactly. I think it was given to me by a flatmate and I then read it sometime in the late 90s, a couple of years after publication, but I can't be sure guys. And yeah, it feels appropriate. I can confess that here and now. And are you able to evoke in pastel shades the feelings that the novel engendered in you? Yes, what a great question. It's anxiety, confusion, laughter, but very much interesting that you're talking about Beckett and Lynch and Kafka. I mean, absolutely in that sphere.

A novel that evoked all of that definitely when I first read it and I've never read any other book like it that does those things. But I think it made me laugh. It made me so tense. It made me like physically I'm clenching my hands as we do this. And it's interesting even as we've started discussing it, we're all sort of laughing anxiously because it has a physical effect on you. I'm clutching my stomach. Yes. Did you like it? Did you like it, Chris? I found the first 10 chapters or so, I really wasn't sure whether I was enjoying myself. Because I was also, the experience of reading it and again re-reading it is, what is this?

What is this exactly? What am I supposed to be understanding on what this is and how am I supposed to be processing it? How is this plot functioning or not functioning? Who is this character? And then it is a spellbinding act of writing because the further you get into the novel, I sort of want to say surrender,

but it's not strong enough a word for my experience of it. My experience is I just love it and don't understand it and don't need to understand it. it's taken me through laughter. It's incredibly moving in the final reckoning as well and it is a masterpiece and you come out with it changed. To paraphrase Kundera it's a book about laughter and forgetting it struck me as one of the... Yeah. paraphrase Kundera, it's a book about laughter and forgetting. It struck me as one of the things. Also, Chris, before I ask John about his relationship with this novel, I know he has one. Chris, I must note formally that it struck me as absolutely hilarious that

a writer who has achieved such great success by mastering the skills of telling a gripping story across multiple formats and around the world has decided to raise two fingers to that very notion by picking this for backlisted. Was there some element of mischief making within your selection there? No. I mean, I think there's a lot of element of mischief in the writing of this novel. I think that's what's so fabulous about it, which maybe sometimes can get overlooked. But I was terrified to nominate it as my choice because it's such a momentously brilliant novel that I don't really understand how it works, what he's done, and that hasn't gone

away with time, it's only increased. Okay, yeah. I mean, I love, I'm putting my cards on the table. This is my favourite novel of Ishiguro's, and over the course of 40 years, rather than it's in one go, I have read it. I've read them all, and I think this is my favourite. I remember very clearly the controversy that was stirred up on first publication, which has happened, really has happened to Ishii Goro several times, hasn't it? It happened around the buried giant as well, which people got terribly upset about. And we'll come on to later in the show some more questions about that element of his work, the audience pleasing

or audience defying elements of it. John, I know you love this book. Did you read it? You must have read it when it came out because it was such a big deal then. I think I'd probably told this story before, but I met Sir Casio sometime after it was at a bookseller conference in Bournemouth and he was doing a thing about remains of the day.

I sat next to him at dinner and he's very incredibly pleasant and quiet and intelligent. And I said, are you working on something? And he said, it's really, really difficult. You win a prize like this and everybody, I've been traveling, I do lots of signings. It's really, really hard to do. And he said, but there's something else. He said, like now, you know that Monty Python sketch where Thomas Hardy is in the middle of Wembley Stadium? And every time he writes a kind of sentence, the crowd, the crowd either cheer or kind of, he said, I feel a bit like that. So he said, so I'm finding this, this thing I'm working on. I said, is it, is it, is it, is it? No. He said, it's very, very different. I remember him saying sort of, of course I was like, I've got, I've got, and then I remember the proof Andy, that big fat ridiculously thinking, ishiguro, really?

What is this kind of a historical sort of epic or, and then a bit like Chris, I think I just couldn't work out what the hell was going on. And then you, it works. It's extraordinary magic. I have enjoyed, no, no, that's not the right word. Rereading it this time, my admiration for it has deepened. And I would say, I haven't read Clara and the Sun, I've read everything else he's written, but I would say now without a shadow of a doubt, I think it is his masterpiece. To write a book with this degree of control and this degree of ambition, over 500 pages and not dropping a stitch. We should remember as well that when this was published, Ishiguro was the sort of, if you associated him with a format of novel, it would be a nice 200 page B format, rather polite, nicely turned out. Very good book, particularly in my view, A Pale View of Hills, which I think we might talk a little

bit about later. So suddenly, I can remember exactly what John says, the brick of a proof arrived looking, if not literally longer than all three of his previous novels put together, pretty close, simply in terms of length, it was a challenge to his established readership. I tell you what, could we hear, before we get onto things like the jacket copy, which I've got here, and the opening of the novel, which Chris is going to perform for us,

could we hear, yes, could we hear, are you anxious, Chris? I do hope so. Could we hear Kazuo Ishiguro's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, just the opening couple of minutes, because I think it contains several things within the unconsult that we can all recognise. If you'd come across me in the autumn of 1979, you might have had some difficulty placing me, socially and even racially. I was then 24 years old. My features would have looked Japanese, but unlike most Japanese men seen in Britain in those days,

I had hair down to my shoulders and a drooping bandit-style mustache. The only accent discernible in my speech was that of someone brought up in the southern counties of England, inflected at times by the languid already dated vernacular of the hippie era. If we'd got talking, we might have discussed

the Total Footballers of Holland, or Bob Dylan's latest album, or perhaps the year I just spent working with homeless people in London. Had you mentioned Japan, asked me about its culture, you might even have detected a trace of impatience into my manner, as I declared my ignorance on the grounds that I hadn't set foot in that country,

not even for a holiday, since leaving it at the age of five. That autumn, I'd arrived with a rucksack, a guitar, and a portable typewriter in Buxton, Norfolk, a small English village with an old water mill and flat farm fields all around it. I'd come to this place because I'd been accepted on a one-year postgraduate creative writing course at the University of East Anglia.

The university was 10 miles away in the cathedral town of Norwich, but I had no car and my only way of getting there was by means of a bus service that operated just once in the morning, once at lunchtime, and once in the evening. But this, I was soon to discover, was no great hardship. I was rarely required at the university

more than twice a week. I'd rented a room in a small house owned by a man in his 30s, whose wife had just left him. No doubt for him, the house was filled with the ghosts of his wrecked dreams. Or perhaps he just wanted to avoid me. In any case, I didn't set eyes on him for days on end.

In other words, after the frenetic life I'd been leading in London, here I was, faced with an unusual amount of quiet and solitude in which to transform myself into a writer. Isn't that your grip, Tom? I'm gripped already? I'm gripped already. Now listen, Ishiguro mentioned Dylan there and he has gone on the record as saying, first of all, that Bob Dylan is he considers the greatest influence on him artistically in his life. And he's also said that his decision to write The Unconsoled and publish it in the way he did was informed by Dylan. He describes himself there arriving as a complete unknown,

doesn't he? And he goes on to say, I wanted to keep moving forward artistically. And we'd learned that the heroic thing to do was to take to the stage and have people boo you and have someone call you Judas. So in that sense, the young console is kind of like a rolling stone, isn't it? I mean, first of all, in terms of the kind of wandering around and whatever, but also it's the Ishiguro goes electric. It's the outrage, the howls of outrage that greeted it. And actually I've got another Dillonological point and then I'll shut up. It really reminds me of the songs on Dylan's album, John Wesley Harding, which is a record full of narrative songs that seem simple and plain, that never resolve themselves. Chris.

Yes, Sandy? The audience howls in anger when it doesn't get what it thinks it wants. Do you have any experience of that in your career? Yeah, I do. Are there any fan bases you wish to mention at this point? Well, actually the strongest one I had, well, I mean, obviously casting the first female Doctor Who in Jodie Whittaker was a very uncontroversial decision, which we knew would go very quietly. But actually I had it on the second season of Broadchurch, the first season as the shape of a murder mystery, but it's rooted hopefully in emotions and

grounded psychology as the study of a community. And my pitch for the second season was always that it was about the trial of the killer because it was the story of how trials affect those families who have gone through that, re-traumatises them and also it was about the justice system and how you can reframe any story into a completely different narrative and it's not about truth. So that was the driving force behind the second season of Broadchurch. There were indeed howls of anguish when there was not another dead body beneath the cliffs after the first episode of season two in the UK. I remember we did a screening in my hometown of the final episode of that season. I remember a journalist coming up to me and going,

the Daily Mail says the entire reputation of Broadchurch rests upon whether the final episode of season two is any good or not tonight. And I was like, well great, thanks very much. Anyway, season three. But just to finish that thought I think it's interesting about this is what very rarely gets talked about is how do you respond as an artist to success? What do you do? Because in a sense, which goes to your Dylan point, which is so well made. But it's like, do you choose to replicate or do you choose to experiment? Sort of the two pathways. And I think what's

amazing about this novel is, I mean, obviously it takes him a good few years to write it understandably, but he leverages his success into creating his own ecosystem. And there's no sense of remains of the day. So no, exactly. Now this is very interesting. Now listen, we made a comparison in the introduction to David Lynch. I remember Chris, when Broadchurch was launched, I read an interview with you where you pitched it as being heavily influenced by Twin Peaks.

Yes, yes. And in due course, it becomes a big rating success, perhaps not because of the more Twin Peaks-ish elements within there. No, that's right. Yeah, you're very true. Right, is that true? Yeah, 100%. I've always wanted to ask you that.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, is that true? I've always wanted to ask you that. Yeah, right. So you are faced with the conundrum that Ishiguro was faced with with the remains of the day, which is, I think he, I mean, I can't, I won't speak for him, but I, I get the sense that he thinks it was okay. It was limited as an expression of things he wanted to do and ideas he wanted to explore. Yeah, it was limited. And I wonder how it feels for the artist, the writer, yourself, Chris, when you've devised this wonderful thing to please yourself and your aesthetic, it comes out, it's a massive hit for reasons you didn't quite expect. And not again, I don't wish to speak for you, but does it give you the fear because you then think, well, what do I do? Do I write the thing I want

to or do I write the thing I think people like? I think that's a hundred percent the choice and you are faced with that and you cannot avoid an answer. So you have to choose your pathway at that point and one can sort of worry about being in a gilded cage but I think for me it was always you have to follow your instincts in the work and as an artist or as a writer and I think if you want to replicate or just sort of go, also if you're trying to find the key to what made something a success the first time round you will never find it again because those things are like lightning in a bottle and what I've always tried to

do is you have to what's got you there are your instincts now it's not to say your instincts are going to deliver the same thing again but but for one as a writer, as an artist, that's the path you have to keep going down and you have to enjoy the process and surrender to the process and not get attached to results because results are not your business. There's a great quote from Gary Minkman, which he just says, what other people think of you is none of your business. Yes, yes. Well, this is exactly what John and I feel about Batlisted isn't it John? You know, people like it for all the wrong reasons but what can you do?

Which is what Ishiguro says about his novels often doesn't he as well? Exactly. So listen, let's hold those thoughts in our minds while you read as a newly published author and someone who has faced many of the same artistic dilemmas as Ishiguro, why don't you read the opening of The Unconsolved? And we'll think of you in the role of rider here, okay? This is a new experience for all of us. So this is the opening of The Unconsolved, the first page, not even the first page, first few paragraphs. opening of the unconsulted, the first page, not even the first page, the first few paragraphs. The taxi driver seemed embarrassed to find there was no one, not even a clerk behind the reception desk, waiting to welcome me. He wandered across the deserted lobby, perhaps hoping to discover a staff member concealed behind one of the plants or armchairs. Eventually he put my suitcases down beside the elevator doors

and, mumbling some excuse, took his leave of me. The lobby was reasonably spacious, allowing several coffee tables to be spread around it with no sense of crowding. But the ceiling was low and had a definite sag, creating a slightly claustrophobic mood, and despite the sunshine outside, the light was gloomy. Only near the reception desk was there a bright streak of sun on the wall, illuminating an area of dark wood panelling and a rack of magazines in German, French

and English. I could see also a small silver bell on the reception desk, and was about to go over to shake it when a door opened somewhere behind me and a young man in uniform appeared. Good afternoon, sir, he said tiredly, and going behind the reception desk began the registration procedures. Although he did mumble an apology for his absence, his manner remained for a time distinctly offhand. As soon as I mentioned my name, however, he gave a start and straightened himself. Mr. Ryder, I'm so sorry I didn't recognise you. Mr. Hoffman, the manager, he was very much wanting to welcome you personally,

but just now, unfortunately, he's had to go to an important meeting. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And therein is the next 500 or so pages of that novel. The exact cycle of that rhythm of that opening passage repeats itself again and again and again. John, do you want to just talk through what the beats are in there? What are the things introduced in that opening page that we run into repeatedly, frustratingly, anxiety inducingly? Yes, the genius of it, I think, is everything is a little bit off key. The taxi driver's a bit disappointed. The whole place is a little bit sh key. The taxi driver's a bit disappointed.

The whole place is a little bit shabby. The clerk is, he responds tiredly. So it's just this sort of faded, difficult, we all know how marvellous it is to wander into a busy hotel lobby and be greeted and made to feel, oh, I'm gonna have, my holidays are starting, I'm gonna have fun. But this is not that. We don't know anything about Ryder, but we do know, again, it's so clever, this novel. It's all Ryder being recognized for someone

of importance. And that happens on the very first page of the book. Oh, Mr. Ryder. And then there's another character introduced with a vag the book. Oh, Mr. Rider. And then there's another character introduced with a vaguely Germanic name, Mr. Hoffman. There's a little bit of Grand Budapest Hotel in it as well, isn't there? There's a kind of, Oh, Mr. Hoffman, where are we? Where is this? What's happening? Is it one of those sort of hotels in a slightly rundown Hungarian city? Or is it, somebody said to me the other day, oh, that's the Berlin novel. I said, what? Berlin? So here's the thing I think that is extraordinary with it. If you're trying to get that sense of emotional clarity, usually that's what

you expect voice fiction to do, character voice to give you, you're inside somebody's head and you're, this is extraordinary in that it's in the third person. For me, it's like Henry James level of control. There's not a single description or a line that isn't adding to a sense of foreboding of- Unresolved foreboding. Oh yes, that's the other thing, isn't it? The book is continually deferring, you know... It's not better to travel than to arrive in this novel. Travelling is grim, grim, grim. There is no arrival.

There is no arrival. There is just lots of barriers. Chris, that Henry James comparison is very good, I think. I doffed my hat to my colleague there. Because that sense, we've talked about this before, in fact, quite recently, didn't we, on the Hannah Arendt episode, but the sense with James that your discomfort, the discomfort provoked in the reader, it's like something slipped something in your drink before you started reading. That the literal truth is not available to you. Only between the lines

can you discern something. And in Ishiguro, what you discern is, I think, anxiety, for instance, or something, as John says, has gone wrong, but you don't know what it is. Do you feel that's there in that opening page too? Yeah, it's like the word that most sparkles out to me from that first section is the word sag. It's like there's a sag in the thing. Everything is slightly wrong, but I think you're so right. There is a hypnotic air to the whole novel that is you are two degrees off life. That discomfort is really important and it breeds anxiety. But also what you were saying about it being unresolved, it's like all of the musical scores and the pieces and the modernists with all their incredible names, which I'm sure we will come onto because we need to go through that list. Every piece

of music is always unresolved within it. Nobody finishes playing anything. That's really true. There's another Bob Dylan, there's a famous quote by Bob Dylan where he said, the true artist is always in the process of becoming. Right? Now you could read the Unconsolable, there's the dark flip side of that. The artist is never able to fully achieve the thing, but is always in a state of tension, thinking I must get to the thing, I can't, but I can't reach it, I can't find it. It's almost Alice in Wonderland like, there's always pressure to get somewhere

and then endless diversions. Do you not think that this novel, if you were, like a support group, but trigger words for the support group would be dressing gown. Oh, okay. Albums. The albums. Yeah. Carpet slippers. Yes.

And it's like, what's happened? He's still in a dressing gown. He's got to give a speech. My parents arrival. See, that's why I asked you about your mum reading the book. No, I got it now. I was in an alternative space. I was in a liminal space at that point. So we're going to take a break in a sec, but before we do that, Chris, you're an imaginative chap. I want you to put yourself back in time. You're in the Faber and Faber marketing department. It's 1994. Yes, I'm already anxious. marketing department. It's 1994. This novel arrives on your desk from the Booker Prize winning author of the massively successful Remains of the Day. What is your campaign

going to be? We're going to hear back from Chris after this message from our sponsors. Thank you so much. We're back. Chris is about to pitch us the Unconsolved, but before he does that, I am going to do what we always do on Backlisted, is read you the jacket copy, the blurb. And so that will buy Chris valuable seconds in which to- Oh, Andy, I'm sweating. Yeah, my microphone. Think how he's going to get it out to the trade. Okay. Ryder, a musician of international renown, is checking into a hotel in a city somewhere in central Europe. He has the distinct recollection he is due to perform in the Civic Concert Hall in a few days' time. But as Gustav the hotel porter escorts him to his room,

it occurs to him that there is much more to this visit than he had at first anticipated. A sad, strange comedy set in contemporary Europe, the Unconsealed features among its memorable gallery of characters some of the most poignant the author has ever created. Chris. Oh, it's good. It's good. Well, what the desperate marketing department have gone, I think we might be able to evoke Stevens a bit in that last bit from the remains of the day. Poignant. Poignant. Poignant character. Right. Yeah, he's not poignant, is he? He's pompous. Yeah, he's not poignant, is he? He's pompous and self-reporting. But all joking aside and without expecting you to pitch, what challenge

do you imagine was faced when it came to selling this book? I mean, there's so many, isn't there? Because I always feel there's two versions of the remains of the day. There's the book and then there's the film and they're very, very different experiences and the novel has so many more layers and so much more in common with The Unconsoled than the film does, which is so much about those performances and those faces. But I suppose the challenge is that there is no linear narrative to get hold of in terms of the movie trailer of, you know, in a world where a man arrives in a unnamed middle European town, we think, because a lot of people have

European names. Some of them have Nordic or Scandinavian names, but English, some have English names. A man has to overcome the demands of others in order to fulfill his schedule. Envy does not succeed. Tries to play the piano for 400 or so pages. And yet strangely at the end is happy with a big cooked breakfast. On the next episode of Locked Listed we will play Stacey Kent's song, the jazz singer Stacey Kent's song Breakfast on the Morning Train, the lyrics of which were written

by Ishiguro and were inspired by the final scene of The Unconsolid. No. Incredible. Get out of here. And if you know that, it's like somebody's written a musical of The Unconsolid. Brilliant. Nobody's filmed this book, have they? Nobody's tried to do it. How'd you get locklisted? So yes, Nikki is saying how'd you get locklisted? Well you get locklisted but you sign up to the Patreon. Sell, sell, sell. Don't go and listen to the Stacey Kent thing on Spotify. Sign up with ours and hear us talk about it. Hear us talk about it intelligently and wittily. We're also reflecting on the show, aren't we? The show.

The behind the scenes. Behind the brick wall, we might say. I hope you will be doing the full version of the Unconsoled musical that you have obviously completed yourselves. So great. With a selection of numbers. Actually, you can imagine it as an opera, can't you? You can imagine it as a weird modernist opera. Yes. Okay so when Ishiguro was on Desert Island

Discs his record that he chose for all time was of course a Dylan song and it was called Trying to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door, which again is a very good description of the Unconsoled isn't it? Yeah. It's perfect, that is brilliant. And the other one on there is Keith Jarrett, blame it on my youth. The whole of the novel is about that. The whole of the canon is about that. So let's listen to a clip now of Ishiguro on that episode of Desert Island Discs. Sue Lawley has just asked him about the reaction to the Unconsoled. And this was recorded in 2002. And she suggested that the press had run stories that he had gone, quote, bunkers, which he has agreed with.

And then he says this. Well, I think there's a great danger in being trapped by the things that once worked for you. It's rather like insisting on wearing the same clothes you wore 20 years ago. There comes a time when it's inappropriate. You see, a book like The Remains of the Day, there is this notion that you can look back over your life at a certain point and you can see a clear path down which you have come. You made a few key decisions and you came down the road. I think I used

to write out of that kind of vision of what a person's life was like. By the time I got to my late 30s, it seemed to me that you didn't really set a course and follow it through life. You did try and set a course, but it was more like a kind of a wind that picked you up and dumped you in some place. I think things like chance, you know, what life allows you to do doesn't allow you to do. The obligations society and people close to you put on you. These are often the things that make you go in a certain direction. And of course, you stop every now and again, take stock and say, I'm glad things have worked out this way.

But often you've been dumped there and there is something almost comical sometimes and sad and in some ways touching about the people's ability to dignify the spot that the wind has dumped them down on. Now I'd like to suggest that not only is that a fascinating insight into the themes of The Unconsoled, it's a fascinating insight into how Ishiguro himself might have felt about honouring the obligations of creating well-formed novels. My instinct is he'd finished, he'd mastered the form as far as he was concerned with the remains of the day. It was too limited for what he wanted to write about and what he wanted to say. I do want to get to some of the reviews of The Unconsoled and its reception. But I wonder whether first, Chris, you've

found us a story that I don't think has been collected in a volume of Ishiguro's work yet. Chris Williams Yes, a village after dark it's called, from The New Yorker in I think May 2001. When I found it having re-read The Unconsoled, it feels like it has a similar shape and a similar central voice to The Unconsoled. It's almost like a sort of afterword or something. The character of Fletcher who arrives at a village that he once lived in many years ago and has returned to hoping to find some comfort. And he encounters during his walk through this village after dark and out the other side into open territory where at the end, spoiler, he waits for a bus that is described

as being incredibly welcoming. He encounters people from his past. But also he meets young people who promise him that they know a bit about him and promise him they're going to take him to a party or something, right? They'll be delighted to see him. But he's also troubled by both knowledge of what rivals have been up to and... David Maggis. What's David Maggis been doing all this time? And what former school friends now think of him. It's very similar to the bit I was going to read from the book, isn't it? It's the bad... Well, it is like The Unconsoled, but also perhaps we could interpret it as a reflection on how it felt to be cast out,

as it were, of the literary tradition he was part of. Gosh, that's interesting. I also think, Andy, it's almost as well saying, it wasn't a mistake for young consultant, it was deliberate. Yeah, I didn't. I'm really good at this and look I can do it again and nobody else can. Yes, please give us a short reading from it.

Okay here we go. We were once again walking along the narrow twisted passages between cottages. The girl was still leading the way, but she was now walking much faster. Often we would only just manage to catch a glimpse of her turning some corner ahead of us, and it struck me that we would have to keep alert if we were not to lose her. Today, of course, Roger Button was saying, I've let myself go a bit. But I have to say, old fellow, you seem to be in much worse shape. Compared with you, I'm an athlete. Not to put too fine a point on it, you're just a filthy old tramp now, really, aren't you? But you know, for a long time after you left, I continued to idolise

you. Would Fletcher do this? What would Fletcher think if he saw me doing that? Oh yes, it was only when I got to fifteen or so that I looked back on it all and saw through you. Then I was very angry, of course. Even now, I still think about it sometimes. I look back and think, well, he was just a thoroughly nasty so-and-so. He had a little more weight and muscle at that age than I did, a little more confidence, and he took full advantage. Yes, it's very clear looking back what a nasty little person you were. Of course, I'm not implying you still are today. We all change. That much I'm willing to accept.

Have you been living here long? I asked, wishing to change the subject. Oh, seven years or so. Of course, they talk about you a lot round here. I sometimes tell them about our early association. But he won't remember me, I always tell them. Why would he remember a skinny little boy he used to bully and have at his beck and call? Anyway, the young people here, they talk about you more and more these days. Certainly the ones who've never seen you tend to idolize you the most. I suppose you've come back to capitalize on all that. Still, I shouldn't blame you. You're entitled to try and salvage a little self-respect. Wow. We suddenly found

ourselves facing an open field and we both halted. It's very similar isn't it? It's extraordinary isn't it? Following people and... Also, there are two brilliant things there. One, which we could say at the end ofed, I'm sorry, everybody. You heard me cackling a while ago. It's really funny. I think once you, once you detect, you tune in the humour and the, in the repetition and the constant sense of frustration that's in the unconsulted in this story, I find that very funny. But also why I was laughing is because Ishiguro has said often his work is about emotion, the emotions of his characters, and his way of approaching emotion is to portray it with a degree of uncertainty, without clear motivation, but bubbling up from inside.

Those little twists you think you're going one way and suddenly you're going the other way. Yeah. And so listening to that, you know, I don't wish to give too much of my own personal psychology away, but I was laughing because it's almost like he's burlesquing what our paranoid imaginations think people might be saying about us and then putting them right there on in front of you. He really is, isn't he? And bump into somebody from a nightmare and a nightmare is what the unconsoled...

You're still in touch with any of the old crowd. Yeah, well it's also, it has an echo in the unconsoled of his encounters with the journalist and the photographer who are polite to his face and then absolutely slag him onto all hell while he's there with him and it's just not common to disappoint. They call him a shit all the way through. I couldn't possibly comment. It's that thing isn't it though. The brilliant thing is, so the scene where he meets Parkhurst, who's an old school friend, he's waiting outside Miss Collins' office because Miss Collins is obviously working as a psychotherapist and she's got a cup.

This is the thing, it's always waiting rooms and then the characters that you're expecting to be central to the scene are doing something else and Ryder is in the middle of all this. But then it's just that it's just the brilliant way he turns on Ryder and says, you know, oh, they talk about you, these terrible boorish old friends that they get, they talk about you. And then does brilliant impression of how they talk about Ryder and do impressions of him playing the piano. A friend of mine was saying, similar to how you introduced the book Chris That she read it when it was published or thereabouts and she has two vague memories of it first is that

She couldn't recall and indeed can still not recall something so effective at Portraying the transitional logic of the dream state. The scenes blend into one another in a kind of woozy way. Her other memory of it is that no novel better captures the anxiety of imminent piano practice. Anything imminent public performance is so true, the imminence of having to do something in a moment. We should talk at some point about consolation, whether there is any, because I think it's either a totally unconsoling novel or it's a brilliant bit of misdirection in the title. Yes, that's a really interesting point. Chris, you're the guest, you brought the book, you answer the question. What is it called, The Unconsoled?

Well, every character within the novel is seeking consolation and including Ryder. Well, I mean, you could argue some of them are searching for it from Ryder that he will bring consolation to the city or town, we're not sure what it's called both and the cultural life of the place and everybody wants him to do them a favour that seems quite practical but actually will resolve their emotional traumas or problems. Is he unsuccessful would you say? Yeah, I would say so. There's a point where he's staring into space and drunk.

I mean, also he's standing with one leg bleeding with an ironing board trying to conduct an orchestra. I mean, it's magnificent. And his dog Bruno has just died. May I read a section on Brodsky, the character of Brodsky in this novel, and his dead dog, because it kind of fits in with what you were saying there Chris. the idea that everybody wants something from Ryder that's stopping him getting to do the thing he's doing. But when he attempts to fob them off, that doesn't work either. He can't, he can't ever quite

break out of that cycle. Right. Mr. Brodsky, I said, walking briskly again, I'm not clear what exactly you're requesting, but I have to tell you, I'm in no position to consider any more calls on my time.' Mr Ryder, Mr Brodsky, I'm very sorry about your dog, but the fact is I've been obliged to attend to too many requests. As a result, I'm now very hard pressed

to get done the most important things I came here to. Suddenly, I felt a flash of impatience seize me and came to an abrupt halt. Frankly, Mr Brodsky," I said, almost shouting, I must ask you and everybody else to stop asking favors of me. The time has come for it to stop. It must stop. For a second Brodsky regarded me with a slightly puzzled expression. Then his gaze fell away and he looked utterly dejected. I immediately regretted my outburst, realizing also the unreasonableness of blaming Brodsky for the numerous distractions I had had to deal with since arriving in the city. I sighed and said more gently, look, let me make a suggestion. Just now I'm going

back to the hotel to reverse, but I'll require at least two hours completely undisturbed. But after that, depending on how things have gotten, sorry, I'm just going to interrupt the incredibly brilliant conditional equivocal nature of the offer he makes here. But after that, depending on how things have gone, I might be in a position to discuss further with you this matter concerning your dog. I must emphasize, I can't promise anything, but he was just a dog, Brodsky said suddenly, but I want to say goodbye. I wanted the best music. Very well, Mr. Brodsky, but I must now hurry on. I really am very short of time. I began to walk again and I found my thoughts turning back again to the much more pressing matter of my evening's performance.

I mean, but that switch round, it was just a dog. You know, the idea you've given something and then it's not wanted anymore. To me, that is powerfully evocative of, I suppose, paranoia in the waking world, an attempt to please other people, the desire to be liked, all that stuff. But also in dreams and nightmares, you were asked to do something.

You don't question the logic of it. You do it, but then suddenly it wasn't the right thing. And the way he changes the emotional weight of a scene, just really quickly. So you've got Brodsky and Miss Collins tearing one another apart. And then suddenly they're walking down the street and are having another

rendezvous and talking politely and even kindly to one another and as you said before Chris there's no explanation it's just dream logic isn't it it's not about psychological accuracy in a way it's it's he's doing something much more interesting. Different moods aren't they? Yeah. I think it's I think the other thing it makes me think is that but then later when you do find Brodsky after he's buried his own dog where, Rider has actually accidentally ended up playing at the funeral while Brodsky is burying the dog by pure accident. But then aren't which is ridiculous and wonderful and but then there are more

mourners at the grave and suddenly Brodsky to your point about consolations Andy Brodsky who's been a relative figure of Furnamockery says to a grieving widow at the grave about pain and emotional loss, this is a precious time, come now, caress your wound. It will be there for the rest of your life, but caress it now while it's raw and bleeding. And just what you were saying, John, about the mood, the tone switches from high strange, dark comedy into absolute profound emotion as well. Mm. John, you said you had found a- Well, there's a marvelous- A description- Yeah, Sam Jordison did this in the book Guardian Book Group. And it seems that, and this is, I think you have to take this with a massive pinch of

salt, okay? Because this is Ishiguro who joined the web chat, and this is what Ishiguro says about the book. There are two plots. There's the story of Ryder, a man who's grown up with unhappy parents on the verge of divorce. He thinks the only way they can be reconciled is if he fulfills their expectations. As a result he ends up as this fantastic pianist. He thinks that if he gives this crucial concert it will heal everything. Of course by then it's too late. Whatever has happened with

his parents has happened long ago. And there's the story of Brodsky, an old man who's trying as a last act to make good on a relationship that he's completely messed up. He thinks that if he can bring it off as a conductor, he'll be able to win back the love of his life. Those two stories take place in a society that believes all it sills are as the result of having chosen the wrong musical values. Oh, come on. That reminds me of that brilliant thing Susan Sontag told that story about this book, Roland Barth by Roland Barth, and Barth turned up to a symposium. So it was kind of like Roland and kept joining in the discussions.

I sort of feel Roland Barth on Roland Barth on Roland Barth. But I think that's it's just going in and saying, oh, people say this novel is complicated and difficult. In fact, it's not. There are only two plots and these are what they are. Also, don't you think the- I don't think he thinks that for a moment. And I think that-

As we've been talking, as we've been talking today, I think you can feel the ghost of the word unresolved within the word unconsoled. There's so much about the novel that is, you know, John, you talked about the happy ending. You know, it's almost a happy ending in inverted commas, isn't it? It's almost a kind of shrug of an ending. We've got to have an ending. We may as well have breakfast.

We may as well have breakfast, yeah. Could we listen to one more clip? This is, now I would love Chris to talk about this because he'd never seen this before, I believe. Fills me with glee. In the 80s, Ishiguro wrote several, I think he wrote more than one television screenplay, but he wrote one for what we could describe

as a nightmare short film called The Gourmet. And Chris, who are we about to hear delivering some exposition as only he can? Charles Gray, one of our finest actors and many listeners will know as an excellent Blofeld. Indeed. Delivering lines as only he can. The narrator in the film of Rocky Horror, I believe, as well, isn't he?

Yes, of course. Charles Grey. Charles Grey. Yeah. Anyway, so as we join the quote unquote action, which there's almost none, what you need to bear in mind is that when Charles Grey starts speaking, he's sitting with another man who I think is a homeless person. When Charles when Charles Grey starts speaking, he's sitting with another man

who I think is a homeless person. When Charles Grey's character starts speaking, no one has actually asked him a question. Okay, this is part of the, this is very much in the spirit of the own console it struck me. But anyway, there's lots of atmosphere here. You can find this on YouTube if it takes your fancy.

But here is a minute from the gourmet. Very well, I will tell you. One night in 1896, a pauper was murdered in there. Why? Huh? Why was he murdered? Oh, they needed some human organs for medical research, some such thing. In any case, he was brought up here and killed in there 90 years ago on this very night.

Oh, I get it. And you're waiting for this ghost to appear? Very good. And I understand it's a very reliable ghost, as ghosts go. And you're gonna precisely... I've experienced many strange joys on this show, but watching Chris Chidnell corpse madly down on Zoom while listening to that was one of the most very good. Chris, what did you make of that when you watched it? Oh my goodness, I was unprepared. The best delivery of the word precisely you're ever going to hear anywhere. I think the extraordinary thing about it is if you had sent me that and go, I'll give you 150 guesses as to who wrote this screenplay. There

is no way I would have landed on Kazuo Ishiguro. Isn't that interesting? What I love about there, as I pointed out beforehand, is when Charles Grey starts that speech, no one's asked him a question. When he says, since you asked, or whatever it is, John Finnegan style. And then when it ends, it's an underwire. When the other chap goes, so you're gonna, he goes, precisely. What are you gonna do? No idea. And the central idea behind it, which I won't spoil because I think everyone should go and watch it on YouTube, is so insane that it's wondrous. I love it. Okay, listen. I so want to get this squeezed this in. We've discussed when this was published, it received mixed reviews. I am going to read you a brief extract from a particularly bad one by the novelist Margaret Forster that appeared in the literary review.

And this is how it started. Nothing is more irritating for novelists than the expectation of the public that they will remain true to previous form in every way. Publishers in particular are keen on consistency. There is always great in-house consternation when novelists who have built up a following and become profitable with one kind of novel suddenly produce a quite different sort. The usual fans will be alienated and new things hard to attract. It is those novelists who go on delivering the same goods successfully, who are most prized by publishers and also, to a certain extent, by readers. Everyone

knows where they are with, for example, the excellent Anita Bruckner. No danger there that she's suddenly going to go berserk and start turning out, say, magical realism. If this all sounds horribly like some kind of warning, then that is exactly right. This new novel of Ishiguro's is the perfect example of a writer apparently chucking everything he is known and valued for out of the window and to hell with the consequences. I mean, the thing is, I would have bought that book immediately on the basis of that. Selling it to me. Right. And also she's wrong, isn't she? She's particularly wrong about Anita Bruckner because

Anita Bruckner's great misfortune to be perceived to be writing the same book over and over again with diminishing critical and sales returns as a result. So Margaret Forster calls that one totally incorrectly. Sorry if you're listening, Mags. But six months Six months after the publication of The Unconsoled, Anita Bruckner herself requested of The Spectator magazine that she be given the opportunity to review it because she felt it had not received a fair hearing, nor had it been properly understood by many critics, with the notable exceptions of Penelope Fitzgerald, John Carey and Bruckner herself. And this is the final short paragraph of Bruckner's review. The unconsoled is a superb achievement. The logic of the procedure is never in doubt.

The reader's simultaneous absorption and helplessness are a tribute to the author's mastery. In a brief interview I read, he appeared to be handsomely unapologetic for foisting this phantasmagoria onto an unwitting public. His smiling face in the jacket photograph conveys the no-doubt disconcerting impression that he has, and will will have the last laugh. Oh, that's great. I love that. That's great. She was right.

She was. She was right. So I know we love her on this show, but she was exactly right. Not only does she say this is a great novel, she also says this will go down in the future as a great novel. And what we were saying that it's perceived as now it's perceived as perhaps his masterpiece. You know, Anita Bruckner was right.

Now, listen, we don't have time now because we got to wrap up. But when we do record Lock Listed, the next episode of Lock Listed, which remember you can sign up for via the Patreon, I will be sharing Kazuo Ishiguro's description of the artistic experiment he felt he was trying in the novel, which he actually gave in a newspaper interview about three months after it came out. And once you've heard it, you won't be able to

read The Unconsolidated in the same way. But we haven't got time, so I can't give it to you now. I'm so you a chance. Sorry everybody. I know it's bad, isn't it? But you know, alternatively you could just look it up in the telegraph. But we'll be discussing it on the next episode of Lock List. John, is there anything you want to say? That people should read this novel. That's where we've got to end things I'm afraid. Huge thanks to Chris for leading us so faultlessly through the blind alleys, double baffles and dreamlike landscapes of Ishiguro's imagination. And thanks also to

our producer Nicky Burch who always makes these episodes make sense and sound good. notes with clips, links and suggestions for further reading for this show and the 236 that we've already recorded, please visit our website at backlisted.fm. If you want to buy the books discussed on this or any of our other shows, including Chris's, visit our shop at bookshop.org and choose Backlisted as your bookshop. And do subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com forward slash backlisted. Remember, you subscribe at the lock listener lever, you'll get two extra exclusive podcasts every month. The But before we climb aboard the tram and eat some delicious Barry Giddens, thank you very much. And Karen Telfer, thank you very much. But before we climb aboard the tram and eat some delicious croissants, Chris, is there anything else you'd like to add about this novel or the life and work of Sir Kazuyoshi Guro that we didn't have time for in the show? No, Andy, I would urge everybody to read it.

And I would just everybody to read it and I would just like to exit with the final words from the novel of that I could now look forward to Helsinki with pride and confidence. Okay, well listen everybody, thank you Chris, thank you so much. Thanks John and Nicky for doing this one. We wanted to do The Unconsult for years, haven't we, John?

Literally, we talked about doing it for years. And we were so excited when you decided this is the novel that you'd like to do. I hope you feel you've learned nothing about it that you didn't already know. I remain in a state of bewildered confusion and much anxiety. Okay, and with that on that cheery note everybody, bye-bye. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time. See you. Bye everybody. you