DREAMING OFF KEY

posted by James Reel

    Concert pianist Jeremy Denk, Joshua Bell’s frequent recital partner, hates it when his friends narrate their not-so-fascinating dreams, but he can’t help recounting one he just had, a colorful performer’s nightmare. Denk is particularly well read; I wonder if he’s ever encountered Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled, a nightmare novel about a quasi-amnesiac pianist who finds himself in a strange city, facing the prospect of a concert for which he’s totally unprepared. Fans of Ishiguro’s British character study The Remains of the Day were mystified by the the later book’s surreal chronicle of Kafka-esque frustrations, but I think The Unconsoled is the superior novel—if you have the patience to hear about somebody else’s bad dreams. Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

The Unconsoled is at once a gripping psychological mystery, a wicked satire of the cult of art, and a poignant character study of a man whose public life has accelerated beyond his control. The setting is a nameless Central European city where Ryder, a renowned pianist, has come to give the most important performance of his life. Instead, he finds himself diverted on a series of cryptic and infuriating errands that nevertheless provide him with vital clues to his own past. In The Unconsoled Ishiguro creates a work that is itself a virtuoso performance, strange, haunting, and resonant with humanity and wit.