Its was one of those events which at a crucial stage in one's development arrive to challenge and stretch one to the limit of one's ability and beyond, so that thereafter one has a new standard by which to judge oneself.
Kazuo IshiguroI actually dislike, more than many people, working through literary allusion. I just feel that there's something a bit snobbish or elitist about that. I don't like it as a reader, when I'm reading something. It's not just the elitism of it; it jolts me out of the mode in which I'm reading. I've immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I'm supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I'm pulled out of my kind of fictional world, I'm asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don't like that.
Kazuo IshiguroMemory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers.
Kazuo IshiguroI started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.
Kazuo Ishiguro