Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Book Reviews of Never Let Me Go
Book Review: A Dystopic Novel That Slowly Comes Into Focus
Summary: 4 Stars
2 words that describe the book'Slow-dawning Dystopia
3 setting where the book took place or characters I met
* Setting: England, late 1990s
* Kathy H. is the narrator of this book, which is primarily about her experiences at a boarding school called Hailsham and some of the things that happened to her after leaving the school. When we first meet Kathy, she is 31-years-old and is looking back on her time at Hailsham in order to make sense of what happened during her time there. Primarily, she wants to examine the relationship that developed between her, a girl named Ruth and boy named Tommy.
* Ruth and Tommy were two of Kathy's fellow students at Hailsham, and the three of them develop a complex and complicated relationship amongst themselves that changes and morphs several times over the years. It is Kathy's need to make sense of this triangle that prompts her to look back on her days at Hailsham and the events that took place after Ruth, Tommy and Kathy left the school.
4 things I liked or disliked about the book
* I liked how Ishiguro doesn't lay all the cards on the table from the start. Much like Kathy, the reader gets bits and pieces of a puzzle that they need to assemble for themselves as the book progresses. Ishiguro keeps doling out the pieces of the puzzle one at a time--holding back a few key pieces until the end of the book. The puzzle starts on the very first page when Kathy matter-of-factly refers to the fact that she has been a carer for over eleven years. Of course, this term meant nothing to me. "A carer?" I thought to myself. "What the heck is a carer?" Then she starts tossing out other terms--like donations--that begin to create questions in your mind. But then Kathy's story takes on some rather humdrum elements and begins to seem like any other "young people dealing with relationships at a boarding school" book ... but then Ishiguro swoops in and lays another puzzle piece before you that has you wondering just what is going on.
* I liked how Ishiguro created a story that develops on two different levels. One is the story that Kathy is telling us--the story of her experiences and perceptions. But as we gather puzzle pieces and start putting them together in our minds, the reader begins to write another story--a much darker and frightening story than the one Kathy seems to be telling us. It is as if the reader becomes part of the story--filling in the gaps that Ishiguro chooses to leave blank. In many ways, I found the book to be almost an interactive reading experience. It was quite interesting.
* I liked how Ishiguro raises a host of ethical issues without addressing them directly. Instead, Ishiguro comes at things obliquely--laying out ethical dilemmas but leaving them unanswered or offering mixed messages based on how Kathy, Ruth and Tommy view their lives. It was an interesting way to tackle these issues, and I think it makes for a good discussion. My mom read this book at the same time as me, and we ended up getting in a rather lively discussion of the variety of topics raised by the book. It would be a good choice for a book club.
* I disliked not getting MORE details about the dystopic world that Ishiguro creates. Once I realized what was going on, I became thirsty for more information on how this society came about and the logistics of how it functioned. As much as I admire Ishiguro's approach to this book, it also left me feeling dissatisfied. I would have loved a follow-up to this book ... a sort of companion book that described the society that led to the creation of a place like Hailsham and a person like Kathy H.
5 stars or less for my rating:
I hemmed and hawed about what rating to give this book, but I finally decided to give it 4 stars. Although I didn't fall in love with the book, I admire how Ishiguro chose to tell the story. It was a different reading experience, and I have to say I liked it.
I went into this book fairly oblivious about what the story and subject matter was about (and I hope I've managed to avoid any spoilers in my review) so I spent a lot of time in the beginning being confused and uncertain. Now it is possible that I am a bit of a dim bulb and other readers (Amanda ... I'm thinking of you here!) are clued in as to what is going on from the very start. But I suspect that most readers might have the same reading experience I did.
Although this is the type of book that will confuse you, perplex you, frustrate you, annoy you and (sometimes) bore you, in the end, it satisfies you and sticks with you. In fact, I think I like the book better now writing about it a few weeks after reading it than I did when I first read it. If you like to take chances on your reading or would like to see a different approach to how to write a dystopic novel, I would recommend Never Let Me Go wholeheartedly.
Book Review: occasionally interesting but flawed and often tedious
Summary: 3 Stars
There's a line between understatement and tedium that comes too close to the latter in this novel. I understand the author wants to stress the ordinariness of the events as a cover for the evil or horror of what is being concealed. Shirley Jackson did that well. But in this novel it's overdone to the point that I think many people will not get past the overwhelming detail to the understated points. For that reason I can't see recommending this novel. The subtlety is nice, but you have to be motivated to keep on despite the blase events and characters that conceal the evil. The novel is often very very slow.
In addition, you wonder if the setting is undeveloped to lead the reader to question, or if the author was just careless or lazy, not interested in putting in the effort to fully develop his theme. There's too much that doesn't fit. If the characters are not human and have no emotions, then why do they need the emotional support of "carers". Contrariwise, if society doesn't recognize that these are people, then why set up the system of carers for these donors? Why not warehouse and harvest the donors when adults as carelessly as they warehoused them as kids? And if these kids were warehoused during their formative years (except for those lucky few at progressive places like Hailsham) then why do these creatures need personal carers after a lifetime of institutionalism? Or why not go a step further and stunt their emotions so fully that they have no needs this way, or do the equivilent of a physical lobotomy. And if the creatures or donors do have full human emotions, why don't they rebel, try to escape their fate? Or contrariwise, why don't the ones who were raised in warehouse situation just turn out as sociopaths, who have no fellow feeling? Even the ones raised outside of Hailsham seem pathetic and sweet, nor sinister. Yet the administrators of Hailsham state that they find the young clones who were more humanely raised horrifying and are terrified of them. It would seem it would be more horrifying to "animate" their creatures (a la frankenstein), rather than warehouse them, yet that's what Hailsham endeavors to do, animating the monster they say they are already horrified of, making more human what they already find inhuman. Yet they don't act terrified of them when the novel reaches its cusp, more concerned again, with the mundane task of moving a piece of furniture than the supposedly "terrifying" students who broke out of the mold enough to seek out some answers. The whole scenario thus doesn't hang together at all. The characters, motivations and situations are neither one nor the other and the result is not very plausible. If the characters are so bland because they are subhuman and brainwashed, then why do the administrators also seem to suffer from similar lack of affect in crucial scenes -- leading one to believe the author just can't write emotion, not that it is the clones who are subhuman. And if the clones are not engineered to be passive, then where is the rebellion among at least some of the Hailsham students, or among the others less humanely raised, where is the rage or the sociopathic behavior? Particularly among the warehoused ones?
The disjointedness of the book I'm sure leads to lots of discussion among book groups, and questions in the reader's minds, but it seems these questions are not for the ethics involved but there mostly because of all the red herrings the author left undeveloped or unresolved. I'm never convinced that's good writing, even if it leads to endless discussion.
It's hard to know what message the author intended. The book ends not with a bang but a whimper, and since no one else in the novel seemed to care about these events or characters, why should the reader? For every person that finishes this book, many readers will drop along the wayside, drowned in detail or tedium. For those that do finish it, the sense is that perhaps they should have dropped out as well. The author needed to put more effort into making a statement one way or the other, creating a more plausible scenario, or even some definite emotions.
The events culminated in the main character feeling a little bit of revelation, and then going back to her quasilife, on to her next appointment, her path unwavering. The Hailsham administrators supposedly spent the whole of their lives trying to make a better environment for these children but when two show up on their doorstep having broken out of the "mold", the administrators are still more concerned with moving a piece of furniture. If there's a statement there, it's almost so existential as to be moot, that perhaps none of the 'humanity' in this novel, cloned or otherwise, had a real emotion, or knew what to do with one if they had it.
For a more engaging dystopian situation, read "This Perfect Day" by Ira Levin.
Book Review: Book Review: Never Let Me Go
Summary: 2 Stars
The Story Line
Kathy ("Kath") is a "carer." What, you ask, may that be? A carer is one who takes care of organ donors while they are recuperating. She is the narrator of this novel and shares with the reader her history at a school called Hailsham, located in England's countryside. At Hailsham, Kath is an observant young girl and very sensitive to the feelings of those around her. Her two closest friends are Tommy and Ruth, who eventually couple-up. Despite this coupling, Kath maintains a level of feelings for Tommy.
Kathy also recounts her time at The Cottages, where a portion of the students from Hailsham went to live upon their graduation from Hailsham. At The Cottages, these "special" students learn more from life experience than from the books they read at Hailsham. This is a time for them to form couples, learn to drive, and make some minor decisions about their future.
My Review
Confused? Yeah, I was too until I was 1/2-way into the book! I've read wonderful reviews of this book where the story-line is carefully avoided and a proper review conducted. The best review I've located on this book is at Books on the Brain and I believe that she liked this book. SPOIL ALERT: I'm not going to dance around the story line in this review. So, if you'd like a review which keeps the storyline well protected for future readers, click on over to Books on the Brain and read Lisa's review. Don't return to mine.
What I am most disappointed about was the lack of what could have been great content to this story. Here's the premise... humans are being "created" in laboratories to serve as organ donors. As they are created in a lab, it is my impression that they are viewed as non-human and "soul-less." After some time had passed, some felt that it was their duty to pull the more "gifted" donors from these labs/farms and raise them in a protected environment in which they could have some semblance of a childhood and young adulthood. All the while, they would be schooled to the fact of what their life purpose was to be... to be an organ donor for the "real humans" (you know, us, the one with souls!). Ugh.
Let's start with what I did like. The premise of the book is a good one. It's highly thought provoking. I mean, what is it exactly that makes us human? When does God breathe a soul into us? What are the characteristics of human nature that reflect that we have souls and aren't just these electrically charged mechanisms with the ability to have critical thinking? Another thought... is the life of one worth less than the life of another? And, then there's the question of what makes a life complete? What needs to happen in your life for it to be complete, for your life to be exhausted?
Stay with me. Here's why I didn't like the book. With such an AMAZING premise, much could have been done with this book. This book could have been written with such depth. But, for me, it was BORING. Perhaps if the reader didn't have to get 1/2 way into the book to understand what the book was about, it may have meant more while reading it. To me, this book was "soul-less." The characters were too shallow for me and their motives confusing. The author tries to incorporate a test by which the "guardians" of these donor children of Hailsham would show they actually had souls. They did this by judging their art and poetry. What? So, if I suck at art, I have no soul? Whatever!
The author gets into details about the donors' sexuality, but never explains why it is that they can't have children. I mean, if they can grow lungs and a spleen, why not an uterus? Are they "fixed" at birth/creation? If so, why? The book never really divulges how these donors derived from their "models," which I found disappointing.
I think that I could go on for days about what I didn't like about this book. For the positives about it... it did have a thought-intriguing story line (once you understood it). The book was well-written. Oh... that's it for me!
On Sher's "Out of Ten Scale":
As you can summarize from the review, this book was NOT my cup of tea. But, one person who reviewed it made a comment on Lisa's review. She stated that this seemed to be the type of book where you either loved it or hated it. I didn't actually "hate" it. But, I definitely did not love it. Let's just say that I would have rather cleaned out the hall closet than read this book. And, I despise my hall closet. Strictly from my PERSONAL viewpoint, I am awarding this book for the genre Fiction: (God Knows What SubGenre), a 5 out of 10.
Book Review: A Novel Menagerie's Perspective on Never Let Me Go
Summary: 3 Stars
The Story Line
Kathy ("Kath") is a "carer." What, you ask, may that be? A carer is one who takes care of organ donors while they are recuperating. She is the narrator of this novel and shares with the reader her history at a school called Hailsham, located in England's countryside. At Hailsham, Kath is an observant young girl and very sensitive to the feelings of those around her. Her two closest friends are Tommy and Ruth, who eventually couple-up. Despite this coupling, Kath maintains a level of feelings for Tommy.
Kathy also recounts her time at The Cottages, where a portion of the students from Hailsham went to live upon their graduation from Hailsham. At The Cottages, these "special" students learn more from life experience than from the books they read at Hailsham. This is a time for them to form couples, learn to drive, and make some minor decisions about their future.
My Review
Confused? Yeah, I was too until I was 1/2-way into the book! I've read wonderful reviews of this book where the story-line is carefully avoided and a proper review conducted. The best review I've located on this book is at Books on the Brain and I believe that she liked this book. SPOIL ALERT: I'm not going to dance around the story line in this review. So, if you'd like a review which keeps the storyline well protected for future readers, click on over to Books on the Brain and read Lisa's review. Don't return to mine.
What I am most disappointed about was the lack of what could have been great content to this story. Here's the premise... humans are being "created" in laboratories to serve as organ donors. As they are created in a lab, it is my impression that they are viewed as non-human and "soul-less." After some time had passed, some felt that it was their duty to pull the more "gifted" donors from these labs/farms and raise them in a protected environment in which they could have some semblance of a childhood and young adulthood. All the while, they would be schooled to the fact of what their life purpose was to be... to be an organ donor for the "real humans" (you know, us, the one with souls!). Ugh.
Let's start with what I did like. The premise of the book is a good one. It's highly thought provoking. I mean, what is it exactly that makes us human? When does God breathe a soul into us? What are the characteristics of human nature that reflect that we have souls and aren't just these electrically charged mechanisms with the ability to have critical thinking? Another thought... is the life of one worth less than the life of another? And, then there's the question of what makes a life complete? What needs to happen in your life for it to be complete, for your life to be exhausted?
Stay with me. Here's why I didn't like the book. With such an AMAZING premise, much could have been done with this book. This book could have been written with such depth. But, for me, it was BORING. Perhaps if the reader didn't have to get 1/2 way into the book to understand what the book was about, it may have meant more while reading it. To me, this book was "soul-less." The characters were too shallow for me and their motives confusing. The author tries to incorporate a test by which the "guardians" of these donor children of Hailsham would show they actually had souls. They did this by judging their art and poetry. What? So, if I suck at art, I have no soul? Whatever!
The author gets into details about the donors' sexuality, but never explains why it is that they can't have children. I mean, if they can grow lungs and a spleen, why not an uterus? Are they "fixed" at birth/creation? If so, why? The book never really divulges how these donors derived from their "models," which I found disappointing.
I think that I could go on for days about what I didn't like about this book. For the positives about it... it did have a thought-intriguing story line (once you understood it). The book was well-written. Oh... that's it for me!
On Sher's "Out of Ten Scale":
As you can summarize from the review, this book was NOT my cup of tea. But, one person who reviewed it made a comment on Lisa's review. She stated that this seemed to be the type of book where you either loved it or hated it. I didn't actually "hate" it. But, I definitely did not love it. Let's just say that I would have rather cleaned out the hall closet than read this book. And, I despise my hall closet. Strictly from my PERSONAL viewpoint, I am awarding this book for the genre Fiction: (God Knows What SubGenre), a 5 out of 10.
Book Review: Simply Brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
WARNING: This review contains "spoilers," information that reveals key plot details.
This novel works beautifully on multiple levels, giving it a quality that kept me thinking about its plot, characters and themes long after I finished its final page. On the most obvious level it is a sort of alternate history that depicts a dystopian society in 1990s England that breeds human clones to become organ donors for "the normals." In that aspect, it brings to mind Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where humans are created in test tubes and have fixed functions that they grow up to perform in society.
However, Never Let Me Go is more subtle than either Huxley or -- another obvious comparison -- George Orwell's 1984, in that the oppressor is not specifically depicted and there is no one person or group that is in obvious conflict with Ishiguro's main characters. There is nothing overt that keeps them in their places, whether that place is at school when they are children, or at "recovery centers" while their internal organs are being systematically plucked out. I kept wondering why the two lovers, Kathy and Tommy, didn't just pick up their stuff, get in her car and take off for parts unknown, eventually blending in with the "normal" population.
And that brings me to the next, deeper level, of the novel, which is about the nature of humanity. All of this novel's characters seem to meekly accept their fates, even Tommy, who has a temper and often throws fits of rage when frustrated. They are also hyper-sensitive to one another, reading motivations and emotions into each small gesture and remark, as though every utterance and movement each one makes is deliberate, premeditated and loaded with significance. To me, human behavior is much less reasoned than that, with much said and done that has no rational basis. (Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.)
In that regard, perhaps the clones (euphemistically called "students" in the novel) really are not human beings with souls, but beings bred for a specific function, which strong emotions tend to derail. If that is the case, perhaps the students' creators bred human emotion out of them in order to facilitate their end purpose. Most "normals" seem to view the "students" as sub-human, which is of course necessary if the "students'" organs are to be harvested in good conscience. This brings to mind a host of justifications for deplorable acts and practices throughout human history, from slavery to the contemporary killing of the Great Apes.
Ishiguro reveals to his readers that the students' adult "guardians" believe they are human beings with souls, and the "guardians" spend a great deal of time and effort trying to prove this to the other "normals." This takes us to yet another, deeper question posed by the story: Can members of a privleged class save those who are less so, or must the oppressed save themselves?
The actions that the "guardians" take on behalf of their "students" do not change the ultimate fate of the latter. They do, however, change the conditions in which the "students" are reared. So, in the end, the main "student" characters are well-read, cultured and, as children, had more creature comforts than many of their peers. But they also have false hope that some outside force may "defer" their fates, and in the end those dashed hopes may be more painful to endure than if they never had hope at all.
Essentially, the "guardians" are reformers of the Jane Addams type, who move in with the oppressed and try to help them. But the final outcome is not changed, and one is left wondering about the validity of a reform movement in the first place. Perhaps the only real way to make institutional change of the magnitude required in this novel's world is for the "students" to embrace their true identity as clones and start focusing on how to stay alive.
Ishiguro does not offer opinions on any of these issues, rather presents the questions in powerfully compelling ways that make us stop and think about our assumptions and the way the tasks of daily life tend to distract us from considering deeper issues.
While it's always true that a great novel will mean different things to each person who reads it, I believe that this is particularly the case with Never Let Me Go. There is so much thought-provoking stuff packed inside this relatively short novel that its title becomes prophetic -- you won't stop thinking about it for a long while.