Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Book Reviews of Never Let Me Go
Book Review: Sensitive, ultimately credible
Summary: 5 Stars
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a compelling portrait of people on the downside of a dystopia. Like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale or J G Ballard's Kingdom come, Never Let me Go is built around an abhorrent aspect of social organisation. Crucially, in all three books, the focus of the subject matter is merely an extension of a facet of our own society. Fertility issues provide the material for The Handmaid's Tale, while brainless consumerism fuelled Kingdom Come. Kazuo Ishiguro's subject matter has a medical focus that provides an essentially more credible idea than either of the two other works mentioned. Eventually Ballard's vision cannot be maintained by his scant material, whereas Margaret Atwood's is strengthened by the credibility of its own downside. Ishiguro's story line is strong enough in itself to maintain interest, credibility and drama from start to finish. There is real humanity in this story.
The book begins in Hailsham, an obviously special school set in an idyllic corner of the English countryside. But this is clearly no ordinary education. We follow the fortunes of three of its students, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy. We see them grow up, make their fumbling transformation from childhood to adolescence and then embark upon the stuttering unpredictability of young adulthood. Hailsham's students have to learn how to deal with their own shortcomings and how to manage their talents. They must cope with sometimes strained relations with their teachers, especially in the area of reconciling what they want to do versus what seems to be demanded of them, and thus what they are allowed to attempt. They become aware of sex and introduce themselves to its world in their own ways at different times, each of them reacting differently to their experience.
So what makes these people so special? Well, for a start they live protected lives. They never appear to need any money, nor possessions, for that matter, what little they do have being recycled ad infinitum via a system of almost formal barter. They seem to be protected from fashion, consumerism, family break-up, mass media and even street life. Surely there is something strange about them, despite their apparently normal physical, mental and psychological characteristics.
Not until about half way through the book does the reader start to fill in the blanks. But by the end the dreadful picture is complete, and rendered even more frightening by its complete credibility. To find out the nature of the plot, you will have to read the book, but, though I have stressed the importance of the overall concept's contribution to the book's success, it is not the subject matter that makes this a superb novel. It is the characterisation, the empathy that the reader develops with Kathy and Tommy and the sympathy that their tragedy eventually engenders. The context served to amplify these responses, not blur or confuse them. It is this quality that makes never Let Me Go a completely memorable and highly moving read.
Book Review: a book about many things - NOT SCI-FI
Summary: 5 Stars
Like the rest of Ishiguro's books, this novel can be read and interpreted at so many angles. There is an incredible number of alternative views the reader can take as to its purpose, meaning, symbols, structure, etc. which makes it unbelievably rich. It is a deceivingly short work of an unsuspected density.
As one would expect from this writer, the book seems to have been worked on over and over again so that the seemingly casual style can only be the result of careful planning, rather than fluid and thoughtless writing.
Contrary to some other masterpieces of his (mainly "An Artist of the Floating World"), Ishiguro doesn't blur here the line of time and events, probably so as not to have the reader worrying too much about the practical (sciencefictional) details of the plot.
Contrary to what has been said by many reviewers, I think it is a very wise and deliberate move to keep the practical questions out of the story. Because this way the book sticks out much more obviously as a metaphor for a number of human conditions. One is naturally drawn to the obvious parallelisms between the dilemmas that afflict the characters in the book and many of the unsolvable plights of humanity: death, fate, meaning of life, freedom of choice, love, sense of duty as an answer to the futility of existence, you name it.
The extraordinary circumstances of the characters on this book are in the end an extremely useful literary device to distill these problems to their essence, to bare them for the reader.
That's the way it worked for me, anyway. What I was able to grasp was:
A very subtle and nuanced allusion to religion as a force to determine collective decision making and group identity.
A statement about collective identity as the substance of personal identity (note the part when the main character walks behind a clown who carries a batch of balloons)
A mature reflection on the sense of duty as the essence of human nature and of collective action.
Some stirring questions about the purpose of love, art and life itself.
An ethical interrogation about the appropriate reaction to totalitarian regimes and, more specifically: do attempts to reform "from the inside" amount to colaboration? What when resistance is not feasible?
If I were hard pressed to point any weakness in the book, I would mention Ishiguro's seeming difficulties with economics: Many of the economic data of the book just don't add up.Maybe he was aware even of this, since he appears to have thrown an economic joke in, not very explicitly: That's when he describes the fuss made by the school guardians about a proposal for a change in the pricing system of a barter market between the students: The only plausible reason for the stir seems to be that the system wouldn't balance... But its never said. And, on the other hand, the economic sloppiness could also be intentional, like the lack of detail in other practical aspects
Book Review: The dream world of Hailsham and all its bitter truths ~
Summary: 5 Stars
Stunning in its sublime reality; the way the novel twists on its underbelly exposing the terrible truths for these poor dears, "Poor creatures," as penned by Mr. Ishiguro; asks the bigger question regarding ownership of all of life's creatures; and in the end, are we ever free; isn't everyone in the end, a clone of some sort, simply marking time?
It is as if running through a field with all your best flowers; flowers you have created; whether grown, plucked, painted, sculpted, sung, or written; as if running towards the future with all your best flowers and seeing there is still an opening in that small closed up fist of a future we call life, we call success, we call meaning; there is still yet time to make a break for it; and when they do; make the great and courageous run, or rather, when Tommy makes that run, saves up all his best and gives his best, allows the tether unleashed upon his dreams of having some semblance of a life with the girl he loved the most all along; with Kath; it is as if the sludge of the sky moves over him in great and awesome smudges; smudges over all his little animals; smudges over all his brightest soul; and Kath still swimming madly to the finish line; if she can just keep caring; and Ruth, unable to cope with the reality of what has become crawls as of a beaten animal into the tiny soft part of herself; retreating further into the hidden room; these three warriors raised with such lies, such lies! ; and in the end the sheer futility of it all; as if life is just one great big wind up jack in the box, it's only a matter of time before he Pops! Out of the box and startles you into the dreary picture; no extra ticket will be rewarded and the cold metallic taste of a hospital settles over the land as if it had been there all along, tugging at the corners of their laughing mouths; dragging the notes of longing down down down until they disappeared forever in a cloud of desperation; how can such memories come alive, how can they be erased; how dare this life and these false hopes even start to try; run! run! - dare to paint the water color elephants. A triumphant novel that is not so far away from the bitter destitute realities of today; if one but takes a look around the world, and seeing that organ harvesting does and continues to go on; and one takes a second to wonder at the bigger picture of it all; the literal madness of which life gets to be saved first; who deserves to own the passage of time on their own life; and this magnificent picture of waiting, questioning and yearning created so deftly by Mr. Ishiguro is not so different from the hordes of people dying from all manner and form of disease; nor from the way we raise and harvest animals; everyone everyone all around dying the early death; no, not so different, not so far removed; close enough to feel Tommy's breath and watch Ruth and Kathy try to sort it all out if only for one more greenest day at Hailsham.
Book Review: Model Citizens, Tragic Adulthoods [T]
Summary: 5 Stars
Even though the topic of this book was nothing like what I anticipated, I loved the book.
Ishiguro's "The Remains of the Day" is a matter-of-fact novel dealing with the isolation and conscripted-like existence of a man servant during the period of World War I through and past World War II. This book, which commences with the protagonists's declaration that she is a good "carer" made me believe this novel would delve with a similar topic, but of a woman in the 1990's.
Ishiguro - an Asian by descent who was raised in Great Britain - does that great novelist's trick: writes in the first person of someone of the opposite gender. Other masterpieces which triumph in this include: Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha"; Iris Murdoch's "Under the Net" or Alexander McCall Smith's Ladies' Detective Series. And, so I thought this would proceed to go into the details of the young woman and her childhood - boy is this novel so much more.
On page 81, he leads us to learn that these students at the school named Hailsham (A fake calling?) are different when Miss Lucy (their favorite guardian - a term used to mean teacher) tells her students, "Your lives are set out for you. You'll become adults, then before you're old, before even middle-aged, you'll start to donate your vital organs. . . You were brought into this world for a purpose, and your futures, all of them, have been decided."
We learn that these children are clones. They come from "models." They think their models come , ". . . from trash. Junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps." No one knows for sure. But, they are mellowed by the comforting environs of Hailsham - which delivers an idyllic childhood to make amends for their conscripted adult lives where they mortally deliver their vital assets to those who were born "the old fashioned way."
We learn these cloned kids are reared to be carers and donors. Usually, first being carers for those who are older and who are donating their organs. Then, slowly each carer is eventually determined to have ended his or her duties - sometimes as the carer is just not good at the job or because he or she does not like continuing an obviously frustrating adulthood. We learn, all carers become donors. And, usually, after a few donations, the clones, as donors, are "completed." The term death is never used in this book.
Many ethical issues abound, but Ishiguro does not delve deeply onto these. Slight references to the same are discussed in the end - but he leaves most of such matters to the reader's personal discretion.
This book reminds me a great deal of futuristic views of man's inhumanity to man portrayed in Margartet Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." In fact, I could easily see a collegiate English course including this book and "Handmaid's Tale" with "Fahrenheit 451", "1984", "Children of Men", and "Brave New World". He is in good company.
Book Review: Ishiguro goes Huxley, with limited success
Summary: 3 Stars
On the surface of it, this novel has several things in common with Ishiguro's masterpiece, "The remains of the day": a small group of people living in an oppressive microcosmos, their lives guided by mysterious rules, always fussing over very small things, and eventually finding themselves part of something portentous that far surpasses their confined living sphere. In contrast to RotD, however, "Never let me go" is pretty depressing, and even though the characters in this book live in England, too, it turns out not be England as we know it, but a sinister version of it in some parallel universe. Think "Brave new world" meets "Soilent Green".
We meet Ruth, Kathy and Tommy, students at what appears to be a boarding school called Hailsham. We follow them through the years to find that they are not ordinary students, and that Hailsham is not an ordinary school. There are no teachers, but guardians. A surprising amount of time is spent on making art, and great importance is attached to it. Occasionally, we get a hint of extreme worry over the students' health. A teacher who thinks the students are not "taught enough" suddenly vanishes. And who is the mysterious 'Madame' who comes in regularly to take away the art made by the children?
Until more or less halfway through, there are enough tantalizing hints and exactly the right lack of answers to keep you turning the pages. Even so, you may well feel occasional exasperation at the amount of paragraphs lavished on single gestures, glances or words, on a drawing, or on a lost audio cassette. After the students leave Hailsham and enter the world outside, it doesn't take a very astute reader to quickly piece together the puzzle and guess what is going on (well, after reading some of the reviews here, you'll know all about it before you even start). Which unfortunately means that the second half of the novel doesn't add much to what went before, and tends to drag. Too many questions remain unanswered: who is governing this world? Why are the rules the way they are? What happens if somebody breaks them? Why do the protagonists, even after they found out what situation they are in, not show the least sign of resistance? Clearly, Ishiguro wants us to think about moral implications, but he gives us too little to go on.
There is an attempt to make this, too, a story of love and friendship budding, blossoming, and falling apart. But the characters are weighed down by the main plot and the unrelieved humourlessness of the story, and despite all the detail of what they think, feel and do, they remain curiously flat and uninvolving, even somewhat irritating. One consequence of this is, again, that it doesn't really invite the reader to engage with their predicament on a moral level. A strangely cold book, in all, that might have made a good novella, but lacks the substance to warrant its 282 pages.