Fredegonde said in the opening of the "Comfort Reads" thread that, "Her books are like brain chocolate", referring to Georgette Heyer. Well, I've never read any Georgette Heyer, and I didn't entirely understand the simile, but having just finished "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro, I think I've finally got it. The text is so smooth its almost invisible - it didn't feel like I was reading, the words just slip silently into your mind. Not something I've really experienced before.

Fabulous.

Brain Chocolate. What a great term!

Colin M

I agreed with this description of Heyer. It think it's that her world is comforting and familiar and has happy endings, but also clever, sharply-observed, subtle, interesting, first-rate history, etc. etc.

I was interested that Ishiguro says, 'I'm not a great prose stylist'... Whereas, I agree with you, Colin, his prose is gorgeous. I suppose what it isn't is flashy.

Emma

I read John Banville's "The Sea" because all the reviews hailed it as being brilliant prose. I didn't think so. I thought it was over-complicated and "clever" and made the story sit behind the words. Ishiguro's "non-flashy" prose is pure and simple - so much so that you don't notice it.

I'll have to buy "The Remains of the Day" and see if it's in the same style.

Colin

Two other writers who this description reminds me of are Alice Munro and Jane Smiley. No flash, but plenty of substance. Effortless reading.

I agree with Alice Munro - she's the sort of writer I'd aspire to being even close to in ability. When you read these sorts of authors, they make writing seem so easy, and yet to try and write in their style, without the sorts of affectation people like Ian McEwan have come to rely on, is so difficult!

Colin
I've also just finished 'Never let me go' and thought it was excellent.
But even though the prose is, as you say, beautifully smooth, did you feel really unsettled by the book, as I did?
I found it the more disturbing, because it was written in such a low-key way.
I've had a bit of a phase of 'dark' books lately: just before NLMG was Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis, and before both of them I read We need to talk about Kevin, by Lionel Shriver! All three stayed with me in a sometimes unwelcome way.
I think I'm in serious need of a comfort read...now where was that other thread.....

Yes. It's one of the most disturbing books I've read; not just in the subject matter, but in the delivery and the way the main characters accept their situation without question. I think the strongest point of the book is when the narrator goes on to mention what happens to someone who has "completed". Horrible. The stuff of nightmares.

Currently reading a short novel by same author. An Artist of the Floating World. Again, nice smooth voice, but a completely different novel; for me, an insight into another world.

I've only read The Remains of the Day, which was also brilliant, but more bittersweet than downright disturbing.

I also found the 'completing' business really chilling.

I'm reading Piers Morgan's diaries now, which is very much light relief!

Just finished "An Artist of the Floating World". It's a book you really need to read in a very short space of time because most of the novel is little vignettes that go off here and there at tangents, and then again from those tangents, but it never gets confusing (although I would imagine it might if I read it over a few days). Calm. Relaxing. Fun.