The Poetics of Trauma, Time, and Memory in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Early Novels

Kazuo Ishiguro’s adherence to high modernist principles of composition is well documented: critics such as Patricia Waugh, Barry Lewis, Mark Currie, Yugin Teo, and Jason Tougaw have identified (high) modernist thematic and stylistic traits in his fiction. This article discusses Ishiguro’s first two novels, A Pale View of Hills (1982) and An Artist of the Floating World (1986), arguing that his concern with traumatic memories and time is deeply rooted in the high modernist tradition. In both novels, the issues of collective and individual trauma and memory lead to cognitive displacement, the merging of memory with fantasy, and the bending of time. By employing the methodology and terminology of trauma studies, I aim to unpick not only Ishiguro’s treatment of themes such as guilt, confusion, and unhomeliness, but also a narrative strategy that draws openly on the displacements, lyricism and unreliability that are shown to result from traumatic experiences and the conscious mind’s inability to confront them.