'Klara and the Sun' by Kazuo Ishiguro
25 November 2022
I’ve long been an admirer of the novels of Kazuo Ishiguro. A few years ago I was lucky to see him at the Royal Festival Hall, in conversation with another of my favourite novelists, David Mitchell (reviewed here in February 2016). As well as Kazuo Ishiguro’s wonderful 1989 Booker Prize winning novel ‘The Remains of the Day’, I also really enjoyed 'When We Were Orphans' and even the impenetrably surreal dreamworld of 'The Unconsoled'. I have just finished his latest book, ‘Klara and the Sun’. Set in the near future, this is the tale of an artificial intelligence android, developed to serve as a child’s companion or Artificial Friend (AF). The story is told in the first person by the AF, Klara, a naive narrator whose voice reminded me of the child narrators of ‘The Trouble with Goats and Sheep’ by Joanna Cannon (reviewed here in January 2022) and Mark Haddon’s 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time'. This technique allows the reader gradually to piece together how this future world differs from the present day. There’s an ominous feeling throughout, as you quickly realise that Klara’s optimistic vision of the world is likely to be unravelled once she has experienced more of it. ‘Klara and the Sun’ reminded me most of the dark future reality of Ishiguro’s 2005 novel 'Never Let Me Go' (reviewed here in September 2006) but I don’t think it worked as effectively, not achieving the same level of emotional connection with the characters and their plight.
Labels: Books
'The Banshees of Inisherin' by Martin McDonagh
18 November 2022
Last Friday we were at the Curzon cinema at Milton Keynes Gallery to see 'The Banshees of Inisherin', the new film written and directed by Martin McDonagh. If you are familiar with McDonagh's previous plays and films, including 'The Lieutenant of Inishmore', 'Hangmen' (reviewed here in March 2016), 'In Bruges', 'The Guard' and 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri', you will have an idea of what to expect. 'The Banshees of Inisherin' is a very black comedy - incredibly funny but with some brutal violence. Set on a small island, off the coast of Ireland, the film reunites the stars of 'In Bruges', Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, together with a terrific performance from Kerry Condon (who was in 'Three Billboards'). Farrell and Gleeson play two friends who spend every afternoon together in the village pub, until one day Colm (Gleeson) decides, for no obvious reason, that he no longer likes Pádraic (Farrell) and doesn't want to speak to him ever again. Pádraic's attempts to understand and reverse this change of heart lead to a series of increasingly violent confrontations between the two former best friends. (Warning: animals never fare well in Martin McDonagh stories.) The film is beautifully shot, laugh-out-loud funny, shocking and moving. I enjoyed it as an absurdist black comic tale. But when I belatedly (on the journey home from the cinema) spotted an underlying allegory (which I won't give away here) I began to wonder whether this is Martin McDonagh's masterpiece. Much as I felt about the enigmatic film 'Caché' by Michael Haneke (reviewed here in May 2006) I now want to see 'The Banshees of Inisherin' again immediately to test my theories on what it's really about.
Labels: Film
‘De Todas las Flores’ by Natalia Lafourcade
11 November 2022
Natalia Lafourcade is a Mexican singer/songwriter who, over the past 20 years, has become one of the most successful singers in Latin America - having won 2 Grammy Awards and 13 Latin Grammy’s. I’ve been listening to her new album ‘De Todas las Flores’ - a collection of original songs that draw on Mexican traditional music but also incorporate gentle dreamy pop music and jazz. There’s a laid-back Brazilian bossa nova feel to several tracks. The album was recorded entirely on analogue tape and unrehearsed. The acoustic instrumentation, slick arrangements and quiet vocals suggest a group playing late at night in the corner of a classy bar. Here’s a sample of the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpwSV1QBd8M
Labels: Albums, Music
‘To Be Taught if Fortunate’ by Becky Chambers
3 November 2022
Becky Chambers writes gentle, charming science fiction novels that imagine a multi-species universe where everyone is mostly kind and polite to each other. Through showing how beings with completely different metabolisms and methods of communication can manage to understand each other and get along, she makes us think about issues of diversity and inclusion closer to home. I would recommend her Wayfarer series of novels (starting with ‘The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet’), each of which is a completely different type of story in a completely different setting, subtly linked to the rest of the series by one or two common characters. I’ve just finished reading ‘To Be Taught if Fortunate’ - her lovely bite-sized stand-alone novella which focuses on the human crew of a spaceship on an exploratory mission which takes them many light-years, and therefore many decades, from Earth. Becky Chambers doesn’t write conventional SciFi battles, mystery or horror: she is more interested in science than fiction, thinking plausibly about how life might arise and develop on different worlds. She creates likeable characters and places them in challenging situations where they need to work together to survive.
Labels: Books
