This article offers both an appraisal of trauma theorists who emphasize social or collective memory over the individual traumatic experience as well as a detailed reading of Ishiguro's novel A Pale View of Hills that stresses the problematic nature of memory narrative. The reader of Ishiguro's novel must recognize the central character's struggle to work through her own traumatic memory as she tries to contextualize and understand her past within a larger social order. However, in the process, the reader must also allow for memory blind spots in which traumatic memory precludes or disrupts the prospects of such contextualization. The novel, then, places the reader in a problematic ethical position in which he or she must recognize that the standard modes of narrative that apply to storytelling exist within a clear social context. The traumatic memory, in contrast, does not operate within that social order and is defined by uncertainty and proceeds with distortions, hallucinations, displacements, and other contingencies.View full textDownload full textKeywordsKazuo Ishiguro, trauma, Cathy Caruth, Dominick LaCapra, Geoffrey HartmanRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2010.494258
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