Even though Ishiguro said in an interview in 1995 that when he writes a character in a novel, he won’t refer to himself; I am convinced that he has given himself away more than ever in those short stories, about who he is like as a person in life. Here I make a shortlist of the things and concepts that he has repeated telling across his novels and interviews. Keep in mind that they are merely guesses.
The claustrophobia.
He mentioned this in his Nobel prize lecture that he lived in a claustrophobic garret during his study time in Norfolk. In “Nocturne”, he used this word again to describe the miserable feeling of a ugly saxophone player seeing the world through the bandages on his face, after having received a plastic surgery: “Under the bandages, parts of my face throbbed awfully, others itched like hell and I had bouts of feeling hot and claustrophobic.” I have the reason to doubt that Kazoo Ishiguro has mild claustrophobia in his real life, otherwise it is a wise word choice to describe the devastating feeling of seeing a world through bandages on face.
The failed musical career.
It is no secret that Ishiguro aspired to be a rock star in his early twenties, he even went to California in the 70s to see if he could, by any chance, be appreciated or even signed by a label. Then he failed, we don’t know exactly why, but he vaguely mentioned in an interview that there's nothing wrong with his guitar playing, but something else more musical is missing. Again, we see in “Malvern Hills“, the main character who struggled to make his name in the music industry, has a good touch in guitar playing. And if we step back and see all these five stories in the distance, they are all disappointing lives associated with the love of music. Although Kazuo Ishiguro is now well acclaimed as a world-class writer, I can see he was still haunted by his old-time wrecked dream, at least before the creation of these short stories. Come on, he even knows the band audition process and the criteria! Nevertheless, I believe a successful writer's career has soothed his pain and trauma triggered by his failure in music; but for those who haven’t achieved the equivalent success but traumatised once by their failure in one field, it is hard to not feel sorry for being untalented. By the way, I can'f find any clip of Ishiguro playing music, please let me know if you have found any of these.
The uneasiness of disturbing or being disturbed during sleep.
In “Come Rain or Come Shine“, when Emily realised her phone call had awakened Ray, who was sleeping in her home after a trip, she anxiously excused herself for disturbing his sleep. This nerve-racking plot has appeared many times in his novel “The Unconsoled“, a book about anxiety as Ishiguro said himself. I will give just one example. At the beginning of chapter 10, the main character and story teller Mr. Ryder is awakened in the morning by a phone call from the hotel manager Mr.Hoffman, who was asking for the right time to break bad news to him: “I had not been asleep long when the telephone rang beside my ear. I let it ring for a while, then finally sat up on the bed and picked up the receiver. ‘Ah Mr. Ryder, it’s me. Hoffman.‘ I waited for him to explain why he was disturbing me, but the hotel manager did not continue…” I can’t help to think that Ishiguro himself must have gone through this situation many times in real life as a disturber and disturbee. Given his Japanese background and British manners, I believe this conjunction isn’t far-fetched.
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