The Unconsoled is the story of a man named Ryder. He is a pianist of international renown who, as the novel opens, has arrived in a European city he cannot identify to give a concert he cannot remember agreeing to give. In the days before the concert, he is led in and out of the lives of seeming strangers, but his fleeting recollections of them and of his purpose among them are invariably overwhelmed by their inexplicable knowledge and expectations of him. What they want of him (what they may already have) may be revealed somewhere amid the physical and emotional landscapes he finds himself traversing: by turns eerie and comical and, always, strangely malleable - as a dream might be, or a nightmare, or the day-to-day reality of a man whose public self has taken on a life of its own.
From the universally acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day comes a mesmerizing novel of completely unexpected mood and matter--a seamless, fictional universe, both wholly unrecognizable and familiar. When the public, day-to-day reality of a renowned pianist takes on a life of its own, he finds himself traversing landscapes that are by turns eerie, comical, and strangely malleable.
Description:
The Unconsoled is the story of a man named Ryder. He is a pianist of international renown who, as the novel opens, has arrived in a European city he cannot identify to give a concert he cannot remember agreeing to give. In the days before the concert, he is led in and out of the lives of seeming strangers, but his fleeting recollections of them and of his purpose among them are invariably overwhelmed by their inexplicable knowledge and expectations of him. What they want of him (what they may already have) may be revealed somewhere amid the physical and emotional landscapes he finds himself traversing: by turns eerie and comical and, always, strangely malleable - as a dream might be, or a nightmare, or the day-to-day reality of a man whose public self has taken on a life of its own.
From the universally acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day comes a mesmerizing novel of completely unexpected mood and matter--a seamless, fictional universe, both wholly unrecognizable and familiar. When the public, day-to-day reality of a renowned pianist takes on a life of its own, he finds himself traversing landscapes that are by turns eerie, comical, and strangely malleable.