Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Book Reviews of Never Let Me Go
Book Review: It's almost time for me to let go
Summary: 4 Stars
This is one of those books that I've "always meant to get around to." Knowing that the cinematic release is imminent is what finally moved it to the top of my towering TBR pile. I'm delighted to have finally read the novel, and I definitely enjoyed it, but I can't help feeling just a bit let down. I've been hearing raves for years, and my expectations were pretty high.
I don't even know what to say about a book that has already garnered hundreds of reviews. It's got a plot that supposedly has a big reveal, so I want to be careful what I write, but that was also part of the problem for me. What was supposedly the big secret was obvious to me from the beginning, either because I've unconsciously picked up chatter over the years, or, um, it was just obvious.
Anyway, it's a story told in reflection by Kathy, our 31-year-old first-person narrator. She's reflecting on the events of her life, thus far. The first lengthy section of the novel details her upbringing at an unusual British boarding school. There she formed the relationships that were pivotal in her later life, most notably with her best friends, Ruth and Tommy. She continues relating the events of her life after her schooling, and the continually evolving relationships she had with her friends as she slowly learns more about the world they're living in.
That was sufficiently vague. The story is interesting, disturbing, and very, very thought-provoking. There were a few problems I had, but I want to emphasize that despite minor complaints, I thought there was real brilliance to this book. My biggest problem was that every single scene, some of them very emotional, was related by Kathy. And her recounting, in hindsight, was always somewhat flat and removed. An example, "...for a while things were okay between us. Maybe, looking back, there was an atmosphere of something being held back, but it's possible I'm only thinking that now because of what happened next." It was literally a case of being told, not shown. Instead of being directly in a scene, we get everything through the prism of Kathy's eyes. It wasn't that she wasn't a sympathetic character, but somehow I had trouble channeling her emotional connection to the events of her life. I sort of got sick of her deadpan voice, and the constant foreshadowing got a bit old, too.
And my other complaint is related. Mr. Ishiguro is renowned for his beautiful prose. I have no doubt his reputation is justified, and I look forward to exploring more of his work in the near future. However, he so skillfully and consistently narrates in Kathy's voice, that all poetry is lost. That simply isn't who she is, and she tells her story in a straightforward and utilitarian manner.
It's the haunting nature of her story (to us, if not to her) that is so powerfully effecting. I had a friend tell me that he loved the novel up until the ending, but then felt it was a let-down. My feeling was the opposite. Had it gone any other way, I might have been disappointed. There was so much in this book to digest, I'm not sure that I've taken it all in yet. I'll look forward to the film to spark further discussion, contemplation, and debate.
Book Review: Haunting, anguishing reading
Summary: 5 Stars
What a book. The fact that you can easily blow through it in just a few sittings in no way diminishes its impact.
Before reading this book I had read a few of the reviews on Amazon and I knew that it was a book about a somewhat science-fictiony theme. (I won't spoil it here -- I think that even a general idea of what it's about spoils some of the darker elements of the story.) A lot of the reviewers would criticize the plot: Would the characters really behave that way? Is that how it would really happen? But to look at it like this, I think, misses the point.
It's significant that Ishiguro informs us on the first page that this story takes place in "England, late 1990s." This is not a cautionary tale, warning us not to let science take us down a certain road. In Ishiguro's fictional world, the road has *already been taken*. The decisions have been made, the outcomes have already transpired. All that remains is to ponder the meaning of the events he relates. As such, "Never Let Me Go" is not really even a science fiction book in the ordinary sense. What Ishiguro has done is create a powerful and haunting metaphor for the human condition.
We follow the Hailsham students from when they are children through adulthood. Along the way we experience all the major events of their lives. And yet, for these characters, some of the significant transformations of our own lives -- the discovery of sex, for instance -- are treated as no big deal; they happen and everyone moves on as if nothing has changed. There is another understanding they must come to, however -- a darker truth about the Hailsham students that is completely alien to our own existence. It is this brilliant stroke that allows Ishiguro to paint us a symbolic portrait of our own lives -- with all their mysteries and joys, the sadness of aging and loss and death, and the search for meaning -- in such a way that we can view it with entirely new eyes.
Is destiny assured? Are our fates inevitable, or can we do something to change them? And if we could, would we have the courage to do it? What is the nature of human relationships? Is every human being born equal, or are some more worthy than others? For that matter, what does it mean to be human? Are we the products of a loving creator, or are we ultimately all alone?
This is a moving, masterful book, told with deceptively simple language. But be warned: It is by no means a feel-good story. Come to it prepared to think about uncomfortable truths, to be teased into drifting back through your own half-forgotten memories, and to ponder the inevitable.
P.S. I often hear this book compared to Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," but I don't think that's quite accurate. While some of the themes are similar, Atwood's novel really *is* a speculative, cautionary science fiction book about a possible future; in this case, an America transformed by exaggeratedly fundamentalist religious ideas. Ironically, if I had to compare "Never Let Me Go" to any other book of recent memory, the one I might compare it to is Atwood's other science fiction novel, "Oryx and Crake." The stories aren't much alike at all, but somehow the mood seems similar.
Book Review: Compares to Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale
Summary: 4 Stars
By happenstance I read this less than a month after my long delayed reading of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library). Both books have difficult material that could easily slot the books into hack sci-fi were the writers not so skilled.
Both books are written using the voice of a female trapped in the system. Both narrators are in relatively "good" environments in relation to others in their respective situations. Both books are set in a recent past that seems like a future.
In Atwood's dystopia the narrator is one of many healthy women held as breeder for the elite. She shows the trauma of those cannot conceive, the rigid code of behavior, the loneliness, the boredom, and recounts the events that unveil the hypocrisy of those in control. In Atwood's book, the narrator defines the injustice which leads you to outrage for the treatment of the breeders. Ishiguro's narrator, Kathy, has been raised in a bubble, has friendships and been encouraged in the arts. She is observant of those around her, and reports what she sees and hears in euphemisms. She doesn't evaluate her circumstance and doesn't hint that she sees any injustice. This makes a much more nuanced story and leaves the reader to frame the moral issues.
Both pace their descriptions and ultimate revelation of their respective dystopias in a way that holds the readers' interest. Ishiguro is masterful. He presents the most benign euphemisms such as "carer" and "donation" before he reveals what they are. Later he presents the more ominous "possible" and "completion", and again, their meaning is slowly revealed. The reader understands the lives of Kathy and her peers as she comes to understand them, herself.
I withheld a star because Ishiguro never illustrates an important premise: the lack of rebellion. The "students" don't seem motivated to leave in the slightest, whether they are at Hailsham, from one of the more difficult residences, or are living in the Cottages or at a "center". Despite the empathy assumed to be intrinsic to their role, carers are not shown to discuss the reality of the situation with donors; Nor do donors, despite their living together in centers such as Kingsfield, discuss it among each other. The most they challenge the system is in dreaming of a 3 year reprieve from donating. The "students'" acceptance of their fate is a key element that is not explored. Atwood, by contrast shows how information, networking and resources are withheld to make escape an impossibility.
Without revealing what the Ishiguro reader will learn, in the end the reader is challenged to face the ultimate questions of human survival and whether a happy face can really be put on some of the things that humans might do to extend their lives.
I read Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills which has very different content, but has a similar style in pacing significant information. This is a far more complex work for both the author and the reader.
Book Review: Eerie and Intriguing
Summary: 5 Stars
It's very unusual for me to read any books with science fiction themes. I'd also call this a post-modern book except that Ishigoro states that it takes place in the 1990's. However, this novel wowed me. I could not put it down once I'd started it.
The story is about a tight-knit group of students who go to a boarding school in England called Hailsham. On the surface, Hailsham is like any other posh place. However, once you look under the surface, there is something very odd lurking. The students have never been out of Hailsham and they are unfamiliar with the 'ordinary' world except for what they learn from their teachers or textbooks. There is no internet nor is there any computer learning. The students are preparing to be 'donors'. They know this but they don't really know what it is. As the book says, they are "told but not told". They are children raised by their teachers at Hailsham who are called guardians. They don't have families or parents. They have been created through some sort of cloning for the purpose of giving their organs to others once they reach a certain age.
The main characters in the book are Ruth, Tommy and Kathy. Kathy is the narrator and the novel is told through her eyes. Ruth is the ringleader of their group, and her moodiness and opinions often set the tone for how the others feel. Tommy starts out as a young boy who is angry all the time, filled with tantrums and acting out. As he matures, he learns to control his anger and fit in with the rest of the students. Kathy is a pleaser. She wants everyone to get along, to make things right with others.
The students are encouraged to be creative. About four times a year they have 'exchanges', a time when they are able to choose items that they or other students have created - poems, paintings, drawings, sculptures. However, before the students get to pick their choices, a mysterious 'Madame' comes to the campus and gets to go through the artwork first. The students have a rumor that she has a gallery somewhere. For creating this artwork, the students are given tokens and these tokens serve as their currency to buy things at 'sales'. About four times a year, a white van pulls into Hailsham and the students are given an opportunity to buy items that it delivers. I was struck that the most modern item mentioned is a CD headset.
Throughout the book, their is an undercurrent of doom and gloom, conspiracy and intrigue. The students never are privy to anything in the ordinary world. They are not allowed to have hopes and dreams. Their future is set. They are to be either donors or carers. Usually, once they are in their late teens, they start as carers and then they become donors until they 'complete'. The word 'death' is never mentioned in this book.
This is a book to immerse oneself in. I grew to care for the protagonists and had a sense of their world, eerie as it was. I felt for their lost hopes and dreams, their wonderment about where they came from and who they really were. I highly recommend this book.
Book Review: Awesome Author + Wildly Polarized Reviews = Must Read
Summary: 5 Stars
(a mild spoiler ahead, nothing too bad...i bet all of you know it anyway)
I had recently finished Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, and having come away deeply impressed and moved by the book, was glancing through his other offerings on amazon, trying to decide which of his novels to tackle next. When I read about Never Let Me Go and saw the wildly polarized reviews, I knew I had to read the book; something from an author I respect that inspired such emotion couldn't be bad, I thought. I was right.
A quick plot summary: Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy are students at an isolated boarding school called Hailsham. They have no parents or last names or any connection with the outside world, all they have is one another. Over the years, the three characters become more and more entwined through ties of friendship and, as they grow older, love. After they graduate, they begin to realize their special fate, why they were raised at this isolated school, and it is this heartbreaking realization that colors the rest of their short time together. The entire story is told by Kathy poignantly looking back on it all. Quintessential Ishiguro.
FIrst, I must say that I am baffled at all the negative reviews of this book. What did you expect when you picked it up? Some sort of Blade Runner-esque thriller? I think perhaps readers were drawn in by the "science fiction" premise, and expected something totally different than what Ishiguro provides. This book is not about cloning or its ethical ramifications, although I guess some of this is inevitably present. I believe Ishiguro only frames the story with these quietly horrific issues in order to put a magnifying glass to the lesser ways we are all guilty of the same thing that Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are: passivity.
The book is a beautiful meditation on the idea that in some way or the other most of us don't go after what's really important in the time that's given us - true love, that American Dream, our dream profession, whatever we value most - and how our own self-delusion makes breaking free and pursuing our own happiness so damn hard. It's not beautiful in a conventional way - you won't find any stunning turns of phrase or verbal pyrotechnics - but that's not Ishiguro's style. Rather, on a larger scale, every scene is perfectly fitted with the next, every tidbit revealed about the character's lives absolutely essential, every memory blurred with exactly the right amount of doubt, so that the entire novel shimmers with the gleam of complete truth.
While Never Let Me Go is not a page turner in the traditional sense, I, for one, could not put it down and I finished it in a day and a half. If any of the subject matter I discussed above interests you in the least, you won't be able to put it down either and I will bet that in the days following, your thoughts will also be haunted about how much your life might be like those of the students at Hailsham, about the paths you haven't taken in your own life. Highly, highly recommended.