As always, it depends on the reader, but yes -- "The Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go" would definitely work with a good reader.
ETA: I just checked on Audible; they have Dominic West reading "The Remains of the Day" and David Horovitch reading "The Buried Giant." Between the two, I'd go for "The Remains of the Day" because it's (IMHO) the much stronger novel and I also like Dominic West as a narrator. Though I'm a big fan of Mr. Horovitch's narrations -- I just listened to two of them practially back to back -- and he's the kind of reader who can even make a lesser book come across so it'll grab you. (The also have "We Were Orphans", another one of my personal favorites -- though not a popular favorite, I think -- read by Michael Maloney. I like Mr. Maloney as an actor, but I have no idea how he is as an audiobook narrator. So I can't really comment on that audio.)
My library has "Never Let Me Go", narrated by Rosalyn Landor and "The Remains of the Day" narrated by Simon Prebble, who I do like. I've never heard anything by Landor. Still, they're available at no cost so I think I'll give them a try.
My concern is that often "literary" fiction isn't suited to audio, because either it prioritizes style over story, which can be boring on audio, or because the story is constructed in such a nontraditional way that it's hard to follow on audio. These kind of books are usually better appreciated in the bound format. I wasn't sure if Ishiguro's work fits in that category of fiction.
In that sense, Remains is probably more "literary" than Never Let Me go. However, saying that, Remains does have a pretty straight story line - it is just that it is partly narrated in flashbacks.
I found Never Let Me Go ... disappointing. Having loved Remains and Orphans before coming to NLMG, it was such a break in his style. And there was a lot of hype around it, which I never understood because I always tended to compare this one to Atwood, and...
Anyway, I hope you get to try them both. :D
Re the break in style thing - it's something Ishiguro likes doing. He likes experimenting with his writing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. It does mean, tho, that few two books of his are the same, which is also rather exciting.
That sort of style is usually fine on audio, I find. Usually I have more of a problem when it's not very clear that the story is jumping around in time or when you have multiple POV and it's unclear whose POV or that it has changed. For those kinds of books I need to be able to flip back to earlier sections or to stop & ponder, to figure out where I am, who is talking, and where things are going. Obviously, you can't do that with audio, because you're being carried along at the pace of the performance.
Mostly I have a problem with audio for literary fiction that is simply style over story, because audio needs a good story to hold my attention.
There may well be. Ishiguro himself has described a writer's powers along the lines of a sort of bell curve -- growing in youth, peaking at between his 30s and his 50s, and then declining again -- and whatever one may think of that statement in general terms, if "The Buried Giant" is anything to go by, there seems to be some truth to it in his case. Obviously I hope that isn't true, but the books to get to know Ishiguro at the height of his powers IMHO are "The Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go", both of which he wrote years, and in the case of "The Remains of the Day", even decades ago (with the proviso that I've yet to read "The Unconsoled" and "An Artist of the Floating World," so can't comment on those). If "The Remains of the Day" and "Never Let Me Go" don't grab you, I'd say Ishiguro just isn't for you ...
The Nobel Prizes are hit and miss for me -- some (like Vargas Llosa and García Márquez) I wholeheartedly endorse, others (like Elfriede Jelinek) don't do a thing for me, and yet others (like Svetlana Alexievich) I confess I'd never even heard of before they were awarded the Nobel. So by and large, I've just concluded that my reading tastes seem to only partially coincide with what the Swedish Academy considers prize-worthy ... and I rejoice for every occasion when, according to my personal outlook, they've "got it right" for a change.
I guess I was looking at it from the point of getting the big one out of the way and having another one to look forward to. I seem to remember that the hard copy of The Unconsoled in my spare room is rather ... hefty.
Astonishing that it requires someone to be born in Japan to be truly British. Fabulous news. Ishiguro, I salute you!! I look forward to your next novel - if I could only get "Never Let Me Go" out of my head...Marx, like Kierkegaard, was a brilliant diagnostician. It's the prescriptions that are suspect....Ishiguro is the only British writer I can think of who is anywhere near deserving of this prize (and absolutely deserving he is). He's head and shoulders above McEwan, Amis etc. I had thought he wouldn't stand a chance for another ten years or so, so this news was a lovely surprise. But I would bet that there now wont be another British winner for years and years. What about Murakami...? Murukami hits the same beats in every novel, he hasn't evolved as a writer one iota over his many, very entertaining and well written books. His worst failing is in characterisation. All the male characters are basically slight variations on him, cat, jazz loving romantic loners. It gets a little tedious after a while. "Norwegian Wood" is fantastic though. Sorry for the digression.
Yes, I also would have thought that if the Academy finds Ishiguro deserving at all, they won't be awarding it to him for at least another ten years. Well, more power to him for collecting it now! For once, they really did get it right ...
ETA: I just checked on Audible; they have Dominic West reading "The Remains of the Day" and David Horovitch reading "The Buried Giant." Between the two, I'd go for "The Remains of the Day" because it's (IMHO) the much stronger novel and I also like Dominic West as a narrator. Though I'm a big fan of Mr. Horovitch's narrations -- I just listened to two of them practially back to back -- and he's the kind of reader who can even make a lesser book come across so it'll grab you. (The also have "We Were Orphans", another one of my personal favorites -- though not a popular favorite, I think -- read by Michael Maloney. I like Mr. Maloney as an actor, but I have no idea how he is as an audiobook narrator. So I can't really comment on that audio.)
My concern is that often "literary" fiction isn't suited to audio, because either it prioritizes style over story, which can be boring on audio, or because the story is constructed in such a nontraditional way that it's hard to follow on audio. These kind of books are usually better appreciated in the bound format. I wasn't sure if Ishiguro's work fits in that category of fiction.
I found Never Let Me Go ... disappointing. Having loved Remains and Orphans before coming to NLMG, it was such a break in his style. And there was a lot of hype around it, which I never understood because I always tended to compare this one to Atwood, and...
Anyway, I hope you get to try them both. :D
Re the break in style thing - it's something Ishiguro likes doing. He likes experimenting with his writing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. It does mean, tho, that few two books of his are the same, which is also rather exciting.
Mostly I have a problem with audio for literary fiction that is simply style over story, because audio needs a good story to hold my attention.
The Unconsoled is sitting on my shelf, as yet unread. Maybe tackling that one would be a fitting way to celebrate?
https://www.theguardian.com/books/video/2017/oct/05/i-thought-it-was-a-hoax-kazuo-ishiguro-on-winning-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-video
Can't blame him for thinking it was a hoax at first ... the way things are at the moment. :(
"But when the BBC called I started to believe it was true." I bet they loved hearing *that*!