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Big Breakfast #2: thoughts on “come rain or come shine”

Here are some random thoughts on the second of Ishiguro’s stories in Nocturnes. Again, it was written in haste and probably riddled with mistakes. Furthermore, it’s not meant to be an essay, just a collection of things I thought of, so don’t go expecting very much. It’s for the book club, as you know, but the book club may soon meet its demise. Meanwhile, here goes.

In “Come Rain Or Come Shine”, we are presented with a story about unfulfilled potential. It is a tale that uses the idea of what could be and what is to illustrate the nature of life in terms of how we find—or fail to find—meaning and completeness in living.

What was perhaps most striking to me about the story at first is that it’s steeped in artificiality. Characters, for instance, keep the truth from one another. Charlie adds something to Raymond’s room every time he visits, but the addition is typically superfluous and therefore pointless. The apartment seems to us contrived, bought, manmade. Charlie also makes up excuses to visit the dentist, as you will recall. One may even argue the way in which Raymond is used “as a tool to express your rage and frustration” (and more) carries with it a certain sense of falseness. Initially, no one wants Raymond there just because they want Raymond the person there. He is simply an apparatus for Charlie and later Emily.

At first glance, this appears to be used in order to criticise hypocrisy and dishonesty, in terms of how people lead their lives. For one thing, the deterioration of Emily—forgive me the avarice to say so—and Raymond’s increasing age seem to make their lives appear even more hollow when placed side by side with all of these deceits.

Interestingly, however, the story is concluded with a lie. Raymond has to pretend that he has forgotten about the music he used to listen to for the sake of his friends. The entire resolution is supposed to hinge on this. It all works out, but it then that asks the question of what is more true: that Raymond tells the truth and remembers all that music in front of Emily or his friendship and the sacrifice that he ends up making. The truth, it seems, might have kept Ray from truly fulfilling himself. A lie can be more than a lie; in this case, it can reveal Ray’s true nature, intentions, and the things that are important to him.

This sort of doubling effect occurs throughout the entire story. Ishiguro provides an early indication of this through his descriptions of music—a line that is sung ironically; Georgia as being a place and a girl; and Ray Charles singing the happy lyrics of “Come Rain Or Come Shine” as “pure heartbreak”.

In a similar way, Raymond somehow threads the fine line between being a friend and a lover to Emily, and if you look at it, it’s a little hard to divorce Raymond from Charlie. The two of them define one another. Charlie is what Raymond ought to become, with all of his success and money and all that, but he doesn’t; Ray has the one thing that Charlie can never have, a supposedly good taste in music. They’re only complete with one another, and it’s little surprise, then, that Ishiguro picked the names—ahem—Ray and Charles for his two leading men.

This raises the important notion that something can be described in two seemingly opposite ways simultaneously without a contradiction. “Come Rain Or Come Shine” can be both happy and heartbreaking. Similarly, the people in this story have to juxtapose what could be and what is, because it is only thus that they become complete.

In a sense, it can be argued that the greatest juxtaposition occurs between the unfulfilled potential of the people within and the reality of what they already have.

There are so many things in the story that are presented as things that could have been. A child never comes along for Charlie and Emily, for example, and Raymond never gets to be godfather. Speaking of Raymond, he is a guy who is essentially a failure. Charlie even comments on him and tells him what to do and what not to, but he just never gets to it. Meanwhile, Charlie has a pursuit of the “other” him, or maybe we can just say that he’s just interested in someone else, even knowing that it is never going to work. Emily too has similar dreams, hoping that one day she will find the ultimate guy, someone even more successful than Charlie.

This extends to the images used. Notably, there is the image of the roof terrace, complete with two picture-perfect lovers in the imagination of Raymond. Then there is Emily’s party image, where you’re dancing and the people don’t go away as you’d expect them to. It is an image made for a motion picture, and perhaps that is precisely why it fails to materialise.

And ultimately, Raymond has to become less than he could be—by feigning ignorance—in order to help his friends.

In summary, the folks within this story are always left to rue what could have been, which also explains why they always seem to be looking for some more. The irony is, these are people who keep looking, just barely realising that they’ve always had what they needed. Raymond the Prince of Whiners is really the best friend that Emily has and the sort of friend that she needs. Emily is the girl for Charlie, always has been, even if he’s convinced that there’s an “other” him. Similarly, Emily knows she’s always loved Charlie, even as she looks at men with even more success.

So look at it this way: “Come Rain Or Come Shine” is not a story about artificiality. It is also simplistic to suggest that it is a story about tearing up the constructed and manmade beauty of the apartment to get to the truth—the metaphorical destruction of artificiality, if you will. It is clear that life is rarely black-and-white, but Ishiguro takes us further into a meditation on the nature of life.

In this story, lies become necessary, living is characterised by failure, and the world around us seems almost entirely artificial. It is tempting to think that the story describes life in this sort of miserable way—albeit with a sense of humour. Yet, remember that Ishiguro still provides a measure of hope, because while these people (and we) never actually find the perfect things and fulfil the perfect destinies, they find love and friendship. Perhaps it is in this way—a combination of idealism and reality, aspiration and failure—that we complete the human experience. Life is, after all, more than a single thing at any one time.

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© 2010 a modest odyssey.