bookbug book club ⤴

this book was alright. it wasn't riveting by any means (not a bad thing!) it's got sort of a slice-of-life quality to it, for lack of a better term, which i enjoyed reading. there's also a sort of foggy feeling to it, which makes sense given it's all told from sachiko's memory. in particular, i did enjoy etsuko's interactions with her father-in-law. i don't think there's anything weird going on there, i think they just do have a genuinely close relationship. there's also something to say about unreliable narrators here but i don't think i have the words

i lived in japan for a while, but modern-day japan is obviously going to be different from post ww2 japan. still, parts of ishiguro's depictions do feel familiar to me. i also do find it interesting that ishiguro is japanese and british considering the important settings of the book

i thought the book would pick up much more near the end, but it didn't. this may be because i finished reading the book after midnight, but i didn't entirely know what to make of the ending. i looked at a few people's reviews: there's definitely some sort of parallel between etsuko and sachiko, but i can't really put it into solid words. i will now attempt to do so anyway

of course, the main "twist" is the book is the brief which to first-person pronouns near the end. i'm still not exactly sure what this means— i do know it's meant to highlight (?) the parallels between the two mothers, but i'm struggling relating that particular situation to estuko. one interpretation could be that sachiko is actually estuko from when she was younger, and the "etsuko" in the stories is present-day estuko "inserting" herself in the position of an outsider. this is interesting, and could be intended, but i think this is more of a metaphorical and/or secondary (??) interpretation of it.

there's i can definitely see a sort of commentary on the concepts of good and bad in the book. etsuko is depicted as a more kind-hearted, well-intentioned, and possibly naive mother, while sachiko regularly does things that would be considered bad parenting. the similarities between the two women's lives tie into this. their lives are parallel, yet one is portrayed as "better" and one is portrayed as "worse". something to do with nuance... a commmentary on the often black-and-white portrayal of morality?

i'm not very good at interpreting themes. anyhow, i liked this book and would say it's worth reading.

holy fuck, that sure was a book! i'm currently writing this right after reading (june 17), so my thoughts are a little messy.

everything happened so fast at the end – i didn't expect bruno dying, for sure. the ending also left me wondering what happened to guy afterward. it was a hard-hitting ending, for sure, but i do crave more closure.

this was an easy book to read. the writing style feels sophisticated for lack of a better word, yet it's not too dense or complex. i really really liked guy and bruno as the protagonists. while they're flawed, i saw myself rooting for them as you do any book protagonist. i found them charming too, in a weird way

there were definitely some vaguely gay undertones, but i see guy and charley's relationship more like a fucked-up brotherly love

update jun 30: i also wanted to add how i love the use of repetition throughout the book – such as with the line "Twelve steps up, skip seven… . You can remember it, it’s got a syncopated rhythm." really helps tie different parts together

Who would accept such fantasy? The letter, the map, the gun—They seemed like props of a play, objects arranged to give a verisimilitude to a story that wasn't real and never could be real.

It was the night that took up the body of his thoughts and distorted it, he felt, the night and the darkness and the sleeplessness. Yet the night had its truth also. In the night, one approached truth merely at a certain slant, but all truth was the same.

He hadn't told Anne about the hospital, he remembered suddenly, that was why it seemed unreal. She was his glass of reality, not his work.

finished this book on the last day of the month aw yeah !!!

i wasn't super into this book at the start but i got really invested around halfway through.

i really liked genly's relationship with estraven and their interactions. estraven was cheering genly on from the start but he didn't trust him until the end. and then he loses him. auhg. auhgshg

i liked the worldbuilding, some stuff was confusing but the author really does well in making us feel like we're reading a story from another planet because. we are

genly's changing attitude and understanding towards the people of gethen throughout the book was interesting; i personally didn't really get most of the politics stuff (which i KNOW i'm missing out on but i've never had a good understanding of politics) but genly's changing thoughts on gethenian gender i especially liked. i heard ursula k. le guin talked about regretting the use of he/him for gethenians, but i think it makes sense since genly comes from a world with binary genders so it'd feel more natural for him to do that. also love the part where he finally gets a good understanding of gethenian gender and then turns around and describes women in the most misogynistic way

the ending. holy fuck the ending. tragic. i don't have the words to describe how i feel but auhghg

all of these are from the second half

“Yet you are. It is strange. I am the only man in all Gethen that has trusted you entirely, and I am the only man in Gethen that you have refused to trust.”

“The fact is,” I said, “that you’re unable, or unwilling, to I believe in the fact that I believe in you.”

Warm through, benevolent, I said, “The best food I’ve eaten on Gethen has always been in your company, Estraven.”

“Good night, Ai,” said the alien, and the other alien said, “Good night, Harth."