review: A Pale View of Hills, K. Ishiguro | ★★★★☆

I'm a fan of Ishiguro's writing, having read Klara and the Sun, The Remains of the Day (my favourite from his) and Never Let Me Go, so I was pumped to read this book.
As usual with his books it's beautifully written and easy to follow. However, there are a lot of things hidden within the text that I'll admit, confused me as well, but I really enjoy the subtlety in the text, and I'll just poin out some of my favourites:
A) The mirroring between Etsuko (the narrator) and Sachiko. Subsequently there are also what I suspect to be, similarities between Keiko (Etsuko's daughter who committed suicide) and Mariko. The book is so open-ended, and given that Etsuko is made extremely clear to be an unreliable narrator, whether or not Sachiko and Mariko even exist, or if they are mere figments of Etsuko's imagination or even as they seem to be, a reflection of Etsuko and Keiko, is up for question. Personally, I believe the latter. There are so many indicators that personally lead me to believe this. Most obvious is the role the US plays for Sachiko, being the same role as the UK is to Etsuko- a way to escape Japan post-war. Second is the similarities between Mariko and Keiko. We know both the daughters weren't eager to migrate to a new country. We also know they did not like their respective step-fathers/new fatherly figures all that well. Mariko is often seemingly blanking out, Keiko's old room was blank, empty, devoid of any personality.
B) The 'foreshadowing' of Keiko's suicide, with the mentions of the little girl found murdered and hung back in Nagasaki, to the mysterious rope that finds its way wrapped around Etsuko's ankle when she's left to search for Mariko.
I think you can tell that this was the first published book of Ishiguro's. Compared to his others I've read, the subtelty is strong in this one. Again that's not a complaint but if you're like me you'll probably miss out on some stuff if you're not paying too much attention. That being said, I still enjoyed this book- maybe not as much as I did The Remains of the Day, but it would be incredibly hard for something to beat that, so that's fine.