I like to write in first person.  There is an immediacy to it that I enjoy, that need to get deeply into the head of a single character.  I also appreciate the limitations of it — being forced to only report on what a specific person can sense works for me as a writer.  It makes me more focused and creative when my options are limited.  (Similarly, I often find myself drawn to projects that take place over a short period of time or in a limited geographical area. )

Recently, someone I know was told that writing in the first person is the sign of a beginning writer.  Yeah, buddy, well I’ve got two words for you.

Kazuo Ishiguro.  (What words did you think I was going for?)

Ishiguro has written two of my favorite books, The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both told in first person.  I can pick up an Ishiguro novel, flip to any random page and find a sentence I wish I had written.  But his brilliance, in my opinion, is in the stories he chooses to tell and his pitch-perfect ability to capture his characters.

The Remains of the Day was of course made into a great movie, which is surprising in its own right, given that the subject matter is the repression of all emotion as practiced by the proper English butler who tells the tale.  His inability to admit even in his innermost thoughts that his unrequited love was even love to begin with is a master class in character development.

Ishiguro does not feel the need to provide closure in his work.  Nor does he shy away from ambiguity.  Take the final paragraph of The Remains of Day, which comes almost immediately after the main character tells us about watching the person who should have been the love of his life leave forever with tears in her eyes:

It occurs to me, furthermore, that bantering is hardly an unreasonable duty for an employer to expect a professional to perform.  I have of course already devoted much time to developing my bantering skills, but it is possible I have never previously approached the task with the commitment I might have done.  Perhaps, then, when I return to Darlington Hall tomorrow - Mr. Farraday will not himself be back for a further week - I will begin practicing with renewed effort.  I should hope, then, that by the time of my employer’s return, I shall be in a position to pleasantly surprise him.

This is a man who should be filled with regret but has decided to focus on the work that is his essence.  Some might find that an unsatisfying ending.  I think it is truer to the story that a carriage ride off into the sunset together.  But what is most impressive is capturing how he has changed without changing the circumstances even in his own head.  This is ultimately a novel-length portrait of a trapped man.

Never Let Me Go is also a book about characters who are trapped in their circumstances, though the speculative canvas for this book is far more expansive and therefore requires a bit more work to understand, and then appreciate, Ishiguro’s conceit.  Set in the 1990s, the book is nonetheless a science fiction novel about an alternate reality.  Here is a passage from the first page of the novel:

So I’m not trying to boast.  But then I do know for a fact they’ve been pleased with my work, and by and large, I have too.  My donors have always tended to do better than expected.  Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as “agitated,” even before fourth donation.  Okay, maybe I am boasting now.  But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit about my donors staying “calm.”  I’ve developed a kind of instinct around donors.  I know when to hang around and comfort them, when to leave them to themselves; when to listen to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it.

I don’t want to tell you what this is all about.  Part of my enjoyment of the book was how the full horror of the main character’s situation slowly came to light for me.  But I love the way that these few lines capture the character’s voice — a young woman struggling to understand and be proud of her place in an unjust world — as well as the way Ishiguro’s choice of language knocks the reader off balance.  The use of the words “carer” and “donor” sound innocuous or even noble, yet somehow we all know that they hide a chilling reality below.  The use of “agitated” and “calm” as possibly clinical terms being applied to the donors speak volumes.

One other thing you’ll notice about these passages is the recurring theme of duty.  Both of these characters, though their voices and circumstances could not differ more, find themselves searching for meaning in the work that they do, even when the work itself is the very thing that condemns them to victimhood in their respective worlds.

Oh, and did I mention both books are in first person.  And they couldn’t be written any other way.