Status Updates From Surullinen pianisti

“I could see the piano in the middle of the empty stage, dimly lit from above by just one or two lights” (Ishiguro 518). 🎹💡

“Without waiting for a reply, I pushed my way past the break-fast trolley out into the corridor” (Ishiguro 517)🍳🏃

Ishiguro couldn’t have said it better when he called this novel an anxiety dream. The experience has made me question several existential concerns, especially alienation and its relationship to language. One thought that has lingered: to address one’s own alienation may itself be an act of alienation—often fueled by language and its inability to convey to others one’s genuine meaning—only to create an uneasy circuit.

“I appear to have neglected a number of things I was very much looking forward to doing’” (Ishiguro 505).

“‘If only it were a matter of hard work. But some of us, we’re just not born with the gift. We haven’t got it in us” (Ishiguro 480).🎁🥀

Wow! The Porter’s Dance is remarkable—the contextual contrast, the relationship between Ryder and other audience members, the symbolic layering, and dancing in defiance of my role as reader all contribute to this profound closing. My experience of this novel has me questioning the meanings of lack of closure, alienation, letting go, the messiness of communication, and emotional stasis. On to the conclusive Part 4!

Ishiguro, you are so creative! My gut feeling of what has been going on finally clarified in the previous chapter. This is an utterly unique, mind-bending, disquieting, and uncanny method of storytelling. Holy shit—and I know the twists are nowhere near over.

Okay, Ishiguro, now you're just being mean. You're not overtly breaking the fourth wall, but you're _definitely_ messing with me as a reader—making me acutely aware of myself in this role. Man, are you clever!