Escaping from the Sense of Guilt: On the Cross-Cultural Insights in Kazuo Ishiguro-s A Pale View of Hills

Kazuo Ishiguro-s debut novel A Pale View of Hills is considered to be a skillfully written novel and it shows deep concern for reality. The seemingly unrelated three threads are actually woven together by the theme. The present article, beginning with analysis on its multi-thread feature, shows that this is an excellently constructed novel. Besides, the ‘disinterested- cross-cultural insights of the author is another merit of the novel and can be seen as a new connotation of his "international" writing. As a Japanese-British writer, Kazuo Ishiguro in choosing his standpoint succeeds in freeing himself from the limitation of his ethnic and national identity. Through telling a guilt-haunted story Ishiguro presents a moral predicament which confronts both eastern and western culture. Thus "I and Thou" as formulated by the German philosopher Martin Buber provides a possible way out.