Kazuo Ishiguro: Importance of Acceptance

Kazuo Ishiguro has been one of the most thought provoking authors to me. Today, I finished reading ‘An artist of the floating world’, my 4^th novel by the writer. This work, as most of his other works, portrays and enunciates the thoughts and world view of the protagonist. The work moves forward in a given period of time, while progressively looking backwards, in no specific chronological order at various people the character came across and how they subconsciously participated in his evolution as a disturbed individual, which he denies till the end.

Ishiguro always shows the transience of human nature, how it moulds itself according to the person’s assimilation of himself and events around him. The central proponent might be dealing selective areas of occupation, be it a pianist, a butler, a detective or an artist. That doesn’t stop them from justifying their actions and the impact they have had on society, their importance in the hoi polloi. On the first read, it would appear as if the agonist is entirely composed of the best ideas and notions about existence and rightful living. As the novel meanders into the deepest recesses of thought process, we come to realize that the initial righteous image of the person through his own dictation is flawed. Every human is perennially in doubt of their choice of path and purpose of existence, and would go to any lengths to vindicate the same, at whatever cost.

The prose, which initially makes us allies of the hero, thus complicit with his actions brings out our own tendency to side with what we think is right. Later on, as we are brought face to face with his cracks in personality and the inherent weakness of will to come to terms with failure as a human being we see the reflection of our own insecurities. It makes us uncomfortable, afraid to realize that Pianist Ryder, Butler Stevens, Artist Ono and Detective Banks are all around us, in us.

That, is the genius of Kazuo Ishiguro.

Shooting The Moon

Every now and then I realize that I am a very difficult person. A person who no longer talks to me (there are many such) had said that I am not everyone’s cup of tea. It came as a surprise to me the moment she said so. I had assumed that I am one of the most amicable people I know, someone who tries to give space, is sensitive to difference of behavior, understanding, attitude and choices. How the hell am I difficult then? What she said affected me and that instant, resentment spawned. Without telling her that I didn’t give two shits about what she thinks I started rationalizing for the good of me and rendering her daft; for my own good too. And there I recognized my very own defense mechanism. Superb I must say.

A defense mechanism works in a dilemmatic direction for me. One, whatever you find untoward about me reflects your own personality flaw in an equal measure as it does mine. So maybe instead of telling me that I am so and so you can try your hand at the charity-begins-at-home routine and root out the flaws which you think are mine, but are actually yours. I have also observed that voicing these thoughts is not helpful in taking the conversation or the relationship forward in a positive manner.

I know what’s wrong with you, I can tell you that. God help you if you think the same.

Two, my doing something like this is exactly the reason why I am not anyone’s cup of tea. Not that I have not tried not doing this, but I can’t stand anyone farting in my face and expecting me to open my nostrils wide.

Morning Walk

You know what the right thing to do is. You know how to do that. You also have a faint idea how important it is to do it correctly, what you might lose, how you might get changed, forever. Yet you push. You don’t shove; you push gently, inch by inch, feeling by feeling. A strange madness overcomes reason. The reasons to push keep refreshing, intermingling, becoming one dark mass of masochistically sadistic feeling of pain. Now it is imperative that you ignore cries for help, especially from within yourself.

And then you have reached the edge. You have the least idea what made you push it this far. But the edge is near, and to finish successfully you need to do the last bit. Your hands quiver and your legs ache. You are no longer sure if it’s your brain which drives you, or your heart. Which is the evil one? Why evil, you might ask yourself. Of course its evil, otherwise it wouldn’t feel this fucking good.

Pause. It’s the last inch. This part will take more than will power. It wants the last shred of goodness, of kindness and compassion to consume and gain strength. It is almost like a form of meditation, concentrating on one point.

A slight tap and it has happened. Down you fall, confused and panicked. Weren’t you the one pushing? You look up, the last effort, and there stands something black with its arms outstretched, laughing like a madman. You feel cheated, you look again, and realize. It’s your own ego.

Time has told me

You are a rare rare find

A troubled cure

For a troubled mind

Nick Drake

I have been struggling with the idea of writing, with the notion of being a work mule, with the prospect of being nothing more than hot air.

I have been wondering if being incorrigible, running away, disregarding my near ones is what I will always do.

I have been squirming under the night time moon, deadened by the blows of tenderness, scorched by words of love.

Introduction

An unnamed character from my imagined work of fiction conversed with me

“I don’t want to be a part of your impending novel”

“Why is that so?”

“I feel as if I already know what my lifes going to be like”

“Isnt that a good feeling?”

“Elsewhere, maybe. Coming from you, I would rather be dead”

That’s when I decided to kill the fucker.

But somehow, it felt as if the fucker had the last laugh.

T.h.e E.n.d

Adult-Ness

They say spotting patterns is human tendency, the brain searches for traces of the past images or signals in the present and matching them up, becomes happy. Something like a simple fool who appreciates the way he arranges a set of colored cubes in a particular bizarre sequence, even after reaching the age of adult-ness. The pattern I have been a witness and perpetrator to in the past one month, also the time since I last wrote about my inner thoughts, has been one of running away. Not as much running as breaking free from the shackles of present, but that’s the idea.

Shackles of the present, there was a time when I used to adore these few words, they seemed like an escape into a world of fantasy of imagination. Neither too remote, nor implausible.

In a way, a pleasant distance away

on a windy Sunday afternoon.

However, as present catches up with the future and past seems light years away, the feeling of contempt, disappointing farcicality towards the fantasy and me increases. The gap between reality and hope widens, and the moment demands, orders me to take a side. Step this way or that.

The pathos lying in the fact and fear of seeing most people take the side of reality and betraying hope.

Bitchy Rant

There’s a female in our batch, she used to be there in our college too. Which goes to show that I have known her somewhat since the last four years. In fact, if it can be called so, our ‘relationship’ goes deeper than just knowing each other. There’s a compelling, seething, writhing and complex emotional bond existing between us. I sincerely have no idea how it came to be, but I can safely say that the genesis of this bond was given seed by her, or if not seed then its formulation was brought about by her divulging nature. Like all relationships, it is not something that I enjoy very much, feel uncomfortable most of the times it comes to force, and question its meaning throughout the time of our simultaneous presence within 10 feet of each other. I really don’t understand why it is the way it is, what did I do to bring things to this state, or how should I go about correcting it.

The bond that I talk about, is one of mutual and unadorned hatred. I had never really noticed or given any credence to her until the day I came to know that she has been calling me a kutta(dog) all over the place. This happened when we had entered the second year of our engineering course and the news came to me after it had spread to various other quarters of our college. Now in normal circumstances it wouldn’t have made much of a difference as to who calls whom what, but in NIT Rourkela, may god bless its marauding soul, the population of females was very less, hence most of the males hankered after the females like dogs after a piece of meat(no pun intended). The name picked up for the simple reason it was given so by a female, and I became irritated, because normally a female would call me that after I have gone around with her, broken her heart or some such. But here I was genuinely bewildered. And so I picked up my arms of sarcasm, searched her person for probable seething remarks, and the forces that be had adorned her with a good many of them. So came out a spate of names for her, ‘Manchested united’, ‘3-hole Carom Board’, ‘Gujju Bitch’, etc. etc. the first two names have similar meaning, and I won’t be explaining them anymore. Also I always made sure that she was in hearing range(I have an unusually booming voice) when I used these terms and a lot others without refrain.

This went on for four years, and again, the forces that be landed us in the same job at the same place. I thought it would be a good time to lay down the stupidity and behave like responsible adults, but, yet again she has started with her antics. And I really don’t even feel like replying with the earlier tactics, it feels weary and nonsensical. I really don’t know what to do, maybe I will just ask her directly one day, “what the fuck do you want, you floating rotting flat board of wood?”. But that would be culpable under female harassment. Such dark times.

***UPDATE***

As of now things have settled down quite amicably between us. I asked her guy who's incidentally a friend of mine from college to clear things up for us, and going by her words, it was all a huge misunderstanding. This post is to be directed at other females from her batch who did the major groundwork. Anyhow, I am happy that we talked and cleared up stuff. Always the better option.