When I woke to the news that Kazuo Ishiguro won the world’s highest literary honor, only one phrase came to mind: “Happy birthday, Kenny Coble.”
To my great shame I haven’t read a page of Ishiguro. I haven’t even seen the film adaptation of Remains of the Day starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. But so far as I understand, Tacoma writer and King’s Books bookseller Kenny Coble has read everything the Japanese-British author has ever written times a million.
So, behold: a thoughtful and touching and funny and rambling and wonderful thread from one of Ishiguro’s closest readers:
My favorite writer, Kazuo Ishiguro, won the #NobelPrize2017 for Literature. I’d like to tell you what it means to me. https://t.co/tYlGwK8TnQ
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
It’s very early in the morning and I am very tired and when I saw my favorite writer trending on Twitter I assumed it was scary news so my thoughts may be a bit jumbled.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Kazuo Ishiguro is the first writer of Japanese descent to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since Kenzaburo Oe in 1994. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Ishiguro has never really been on the lists of writers who could potentially win the Nobel. Haruki Murakami is the only Japanese writer whose name usually is—and let’s be honest that was always a longshot. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
While Ishiguro is widely acclaimed as one of our finest writers, he also gets his fair share of criticism. He’s not won a few awards he should have. Awards aren’t everything. We all know that.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
I’ve always stored my love for Kazuo Ishiguro’s work in my heart and let it flourish there apart from what anyone else thinks of it. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
At the beginning of my bookselling career, twelve years ago, I worked for Borders Books & Music. Never Let Me Go was brand new in hardcover and I was new enough to all this that I had never heard of Ishiguro.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
I was immediately intrigued by his name. Kazuo Ishiguro. That’s a very Japanese name. I had been exposed to so few Japanese writers in my life.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
I may have told you this. One of the reasons I am a bookseller is because I was not given a book by an Asian writer until high school and I never want another kid to go that long without being exposed to a writer with their background.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Like many other writers of color around the world, writers of the Japanese diaspora are vastly underrepresented in the American book industry.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
And since this was before I trained myself to actively look for Asian diasporic writers, stumbling upon a name like Kazuo Ishiguro definitely caught my attention.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
What also caught my attention: Ishiguro was not only Japanese, he was also British. He carried two lands in his body. This made sense to me as the son of a Japanese mother and an American father.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Ishiguro was born in Japan but left at a very early age and Britain became most all he knew. Even when he writes of Japan he acknowledges he writes more of an imagined Japan than the true Japan.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
So anyway. I’ll try to stay on track. Remember, I’m tired! It’s early on the west coast and I’m only awake because of your one million KENNY WAKE UP tweets.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
I could not afford to buy Never Let Me Go in hardcover so I would read it during my lunch breaks at the bookstore. It made going to work every day thrilling. I craved the book and I craved the bookstore. And I still work in bookstores. A connection?
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Never Let Me Go is sad. We all know this. But the book has always made me happy. Even Ishiguro calls it his happiest work and I think I know why.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Never Let Me Go. Life batters Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy. It destroys every part of their bodies, literally. But these crushing things cannot crush some things, like their connections to each other.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Side note: I’ve read Never Let Me Go thirteen times now and only this year did I see that it’s also about how dominant powers will give privileges to certain subjugated groups in order to pit their subjugated groups against each other and maintain power over all.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
As an American of East Asian descent, the so-called model minority often propped up by White America over and against other people of color, this is something that’s given me a lot to think about.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
It is not lost on me that while, yes, Japanese Americans are one of the most prosperous ethnic groups in America, we were also only a few generations ago thrown into internment camps and atom bombed into submission. Prosperity has a cost.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Back to Ishiguro.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
I couldn’t tell you what Ishiguro book I read next. I read every one of his books relatively soon after finishing Never Let Me Go.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
The Remains of the Day is so utterly British. As a reader you can feel every muted emotion and unsaid word. You know what love could fix and you know why it can’t. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
A Pale View of Hills is one of two Ishiguro novels set in Japan. It’s sad and it’s stunning and M Night Shyamalan could make it into a movie and restore his career. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Read all of Ishiguro’s work and you will see themes repeated over and over. He’s even said he’s written the same book over and over. Before you try to slam him for this, read The Unconsoled. It’s like nothing he’s ever written—or anyone has ever wittten. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
An Artist of the Floating World really cemented Ishiguro as my favorite writer. Memory and impact and the power we wield. It is too often too much power. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Nocturnes was the first collection of short stories I ever read in full. It made me want every short story collection to be interconnected and not-connected. It feels like life. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
When We Were Orphans both proves Ishiguro can write genre fiction and that he cannot. I mean that as a compliment. It’s a detective novel and it’s so much more. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
The Buried Giant. We waited so long for this book, Ishiguro’s first novel after Never Let Me Go, ten years later, and despite the highest of expectations it smashed my soul. It changed the landscape of my heart. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Books are and are not living things. The Buried Giant is the ghost of what was a living and not living thing. It’s majestic and haunting and it follows me wherever I go, this ghost book. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Being a bookseller means I live a life in opposition to the very sage advice that you should never meet your idols. Booksellers and writers—we live together in a very small house.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
I’ve been yelled at by Margaret Atwood (in a good way), been disappointed Donna Tartt wasn’t rude (I wanted her to throw a drink in my face or something), hid from Jonathan Franzen (I deserve to be on his hit list).
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
When Ishiguro came to Seattle during The Buried Giant tour I worked the event. Every word he said was illuminating and magical, even more than I expected, but I didn’t want to meet him. I wanted to finally follow that sage advice.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
I almost made it out of the door but a Random House rep grabbed my arm and told me I wasn’t allowed to leave without meeting Ishiguro.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
The two times I have been stupidest in life have been standing in front of authors. The first time was when I met Claudia Rankine. I basically said this: Blaaadjnfjsjjshfhshsiloveyouwillyoubemybestfriendahshdhd.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
What did I say when I met Kazuo Ishiguro? Let me quote myself exactly: “_____________________________________________________________________________________.”
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
If Kazuo Ishiguro ever thinks of me, he thinks of me as that mute he met once in Seattle and, really, that’s enough for me.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
I think often of how Ishiguro’s work affects my own writing. It’s well known how much his work means to me and I wonder if people will be looking for him in my writing.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
The thing is, I look for Ishiguro in everyone’s writing. His sense of memory, of time’s power, of love’s relentlessness—they course through the veins of modern literature. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
Kazuo Ishiguro should win every award. #NobelPrize2017
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
As ecstatic as I am that Kazuo Ishiguro won the #NobelLiteraturePrize, the next ten winners ought to be women. The @NobelPrize committee has some catching up to do when it comes to representation. 100 of 114 Nobel Lit Laureates are men.
— Kenny Coble (@KennyCoble) October 5, 2017
If you’re in Tacoma, go buy an Ishiguro book from him—or any other kind of book for that matter. He’s exactly the person you want to talk to.
