‘I have to play to my strengths’ … Kazuo Ishiguro
On a cold and blustery day in central London, I met with Kazuo Ishiguro to discuss his writing, the future of fiction, and the impact of artificial intelligence on the manipulation of emotions.
Ishiguro, now 70, is the recipient of both a Nobel Prize in Literature and a knighthood. His flat presents a scene of quiet comfort, reflecting the attentiveness to detail evident in his work. From The Unconsoled to The Remains of the Day, Ishiguro has crafted some of the most memorable fiction of the last 40 years.
His sixth novel, Never Let Me Go, published 20 years ago, continues to captivate readers. The novel has been adapted into a major film and a stage production. Ishiguro credits the book with initiating a thematic inquiry that shaped his later works, The Buried Giant (2015) and 2021’s Klara and the Sun. These novels, he believes, explore the fundamental reality of human mortality and the simultaneous necessity to live as though we aren’t.
Never Let Me Go is set in a society where children are cloned to donate organs, extending the lives of others. The clones, after “donating” a few times, will “complete,” perishing. The novel’s emotional heart is this unfounded belief that escape might be possible through love.
“Somewhere, irrationally, we can’t quite accept our fate,” Ishiguro explained. “And we long for this special dispensation. I think that it’s not just because we want to carry on living on and on and on. I think it’s because we don’t want to face the pain and sorrow and loneliness that comes with death. We fear the loss of loved ones. We fear the parting.”
The novel’s title is a song that the narrator, Kathy H, plays repeatedly. It’s a talisman, an emblem of an earlier time, a plea for continuation and connection.
The Evolution of a Writer
Never Let Me Go took a long time to develop. The breakthrough arrived by combining societal interest in cloning and a change in writing that welcomed techniques of speculative fiction into literary novels.
“I gave myself permission to use what traditionally might have been called genre tropes… I think the climate around me changed; the next generation of writers… didn’t see anything weird about it,” Ishiguro said.
Ishiguro also identifies a relationship between Never Let Me Go and the emerging genre of young adult (YA) fiction. He says that the novel’s readership has exceeded that of his other works because it includes elements found in YA novels: school children, jealousies, and power struggles.
He recalls the insular world of literary fiction prior to the 1990s. Reflecting on his contemporaries, he remembers a sense of belonging to a “coterie” that frowned upon science fiction. But when the literary landscape shifted, Ishiguro was well-positioned to take advantage. A lifelong passion for music and film gave him a different perspective on mixing styles and genres. He cites Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, and Stanley Kubrick as influences.
The Power of Emotion and the Rise of AI
Ishiguro is aware of his own limitations. He prefers first-person narratives and creating distinctive voices, but he says, “You have to understand, I have to also play to my strengths and not to my weaknesses. I’ve never been a great writer of prose.” This frankness reveals his dedication to the craft.
Ishiguro is currently working on a new novel, set in a train compartment, which he describes as more lighthearted. It came about as an “antidote” to his travels promoting the film Living (adapted from Kurosawa’s Ikiru).
Ishiguro is concerned about the power of writers to provoke emotions in readers, especially in a post-truth world.
“In the post-truth Trump era, there’s this relentless attack on accredited news media… The whole status of what might be true has got very blurred lately. And so I feel that this power to actually cause emotions in people and create apparent emotional truths, is quite an odd thing.”
He believes that AI will exacerbate this issue.
“AI will become very good at manipulating emotions. I think we’re on the verge of that… very soon, AI will be able to figure out how you create certain kinds of emotions in people – anger, sadness, laughter.”
Ishiguro has called on the British government to protect artists from tech corporations, describing this as a “fork-in-the-road moment.”
Despite his concerns, he continues to write stories that resonate with readers. He reflects on his novels, saying, “They are my work, but I feel who I am is somewhere else.”
