These lists seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Either I read less, or I’m running out of good books. No, wait, I remember now: the Unconsoled, that triple-damned piece of literary diarrhea by Kazuo Ishiguro, put me off reading for at least four months in early 2011. There, all his fault.
The Brooklyn Follies – Paul Auster
Excession – Iain M. Banks
The Mirror of Her Dreams – Stephen Donaldson
A Man Rides Through – Stephen Donaldson
Past Imperative – Dave Duncan
Present Tense – Dave Duncan
Future Indefinite – Dave Duncan
The Last Dragonslayer – Jasper Fforde
The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro
Sailing to Sarantium – Guy Gavriel Kay
Lord of Emperors – Guy Gavriel Kay
The Lions of Al-Rassan – Guy Gavriel Kay
Gerald’s Game – Stephen King
Misery – Stephen King
The Stand – Stephen King
A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. Le Guin
The Tombs of Atuan – Ursula K. Le Guin
The Farthest Shore – Ursula K. Le Guin
Tehanu – Ursula K. Le Guin
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner – Stephenie Meyer
Snuff – Terry Pratchett
The Alphabet – David Sacks
Nine Princes in Amber – Roger Zelazny
The Guns of Avalon – Roger Zelazny
Sign of the Unicorn – Roger Zelazny
The Hand of Oberon – Roger Zelazny
The Courts of Chaos – Roger Zelazny
Verena Kyratzes 
Oh where to start…
The Unconsoled is a postmodern piece of crap. Think characters crossing a street and changing not only their motivations, but also their personalities five times before they reach the other side. Think places changing their interiors while a scene is taking place. Think, and here’s the real offence, page-long speeches (not dialogues) in which nothing, nada, nil, nichts is said. Reading the phonebook is more stimulating. And it’s all so *deep*. You’ll read reviews on the internet in which people try to tell you that it’s about the ravages of Alzheimer’s or that the novel is set in a virtual reality that’s slowly breaking down around the characters. Or maybe the protagonist is a time traveler, right? That would explain everything. Because a book by Kazuo Ishiguro couldn’t possibly be crap! But it is. Utter, horrible, mind-numbing, diarrhea-grade crap.
I once had an acquaintance who, upon seeing an interpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet in which the characters walked over dinner plates for the entirety of the play (breaking hundreds of them), said that she hadn’t understood any of it, but she was sure it was *very* deep. That’s what this novel is.
It’s just postmodern drivel from an author who couldn’t be bothered to write a proper novel.
Sigh. A proper blog post will have to follow. Obviously I’m still traumatized.
What’s so bad about The Unconsoled? o.o
Must’ve been really horrible to warrant that kind of reaction…