Short story review: ‘Summer After the War’ (1983) by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Hi everyone. As the title of this blog post suggests, I am reviewing a second short story from author of the month, Kazuo Ishiguro. This time I am reviewing his 1983 short story ‘Summer After the War’. The short story follows the narrator who has a closeness with his grandad. Every morning he gets up to sit outside in his grandad's garden, just to watch what his grandad does. He also sits and talks to his grandad when his grandad is immersed in a steamy bath. This repetitive nature creates a special bond between them and as a reader was rather charming for me to read.

When things disrupted the normal order it changed how I saw the story going. I was worried I would get an unhappy ending. When I did get to the ending, I was surprised because I I found it unexpected. The short story is entitled ‘Summer After the War’ and there was a consistent mentioning of war throughout. I thought that somehow, something related to the grandad's war life would have seeped through.

That did not matter for me. I still liked the short story, though I did not love it. While it was nice to read, it did not dazzle me the way some works of fiction do. It did not captivate me as much as ‘A Family Supper’ (1983) did. For these reasons I am giving it a 7/10.


Until next time,


Thomas.

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