There’s always a childlike thrill on discovering a link between two of your heroes, especially if you imagined that they belonged to different worlds and their paths could never possibly converge. I felt that thrill on reading, on this page, that Kazuo Ishiguro thinks Bob Dylan’s "writing voice in Chronicles: Volume One is almost as magnificent as his singing voice". I wonder how Stevens, the butler from Remains of the Day (or practically any of Ishiguro's protagonists for that matter), would react if Bob D started croaking "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" to him.
Also interesting that another of Ishiguro’s book recommendations is Alex Garland’s Coma, because from what I’ve heard about that book, it’s similar in some ways to Ishiguro’s own The Unconsoled, a great surrealistic novel. Ishiguro himself describes Coma as "a weirdly disorientating illustrated novella...a bold step towards the creation of a new genre, perhaps even a new art form". I’ve put it on my own reading list queue now.
On another note: it’s fun to glance through celebrity recommendations for books of the year, but if you’re sceptical about such lists here’s another link for you.
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