Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
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Book Reviews of Never Let Me Go
Book Review: Quiet dystopian with compelling characters
Summary: 4 Stars
Kathy H. has been a carer for close to twelve years, but soon she will be a donor, just like the people she watches over. As Kathy approaches this point in her life, she recalls her childhood at Hailsham, an isolated school, and her friendships with the self-assured Ruth and the warm Tommy. Looking back, Kathy is able to piece together and understand moments from her childhood for the first time and come to terms with her relationships and place in life.
Unlike most books in the genre, Never Let Me Go is a very quiet dystopian. In fact, from reading summaries of the basic plot outline, it's easy to overlook the dystopian setting beyond a vague uneasiness with certain wording: "carers," "donors." This set-up is very much like the book itself, which is focused much more on relationships than the world in which the book operates. There is no open hostility, and there is no open rebellion; there is no villain and no real evil. Instead, there is Kathy, who relates her childhood matter-of-factly, working within her position in life rather than against it.
Nonetheless, the dystopian elements are always in the background, as the reader is "told and not told" what is happening. Throughout their time at Hailsham, Kathy and her friends have a vague idea of what is happening to them without fully understanding, and the reader undergoes the same experience throughout the novel. There is no big revelation when everything is finally understood; instead, small pieces form together throughout the chapters. This does mean there is sometimes an excessive amount of ominous foreshadowing, but overall, the mood felt appropriate.
It can be difficult to accept that the characters never once question their position in life. Certainly they are raised to accept what will happen to them, and, in fact, the book sets up a childhood in which the most difficult questions and assumptions are ignored rather than discussed, but I still imagine that every human being--at some point in his or her life--wants to know why he or she has been set on a particular course. For that reason I was a bit let down by the ending, which fits within the general tone of the book, but wasn't quite satisfying.
Although Never Let Me Go is quite different, Ishiguro's simple prose and attention to detail draws the reader in. By having Kathy narrate events from her childhood as an adult, Ishiguro gives his protagonist the gift of hindsight and the ability to understand things as only an adult looking back can do. I think that as most of us age, we tend to look back on our younger years with a mix of approval and regret, and I appreciated that connection with Kathy.
Never Let Me Go is very readable and would appeal to people interested in dystopian fiction but not ready to take the "hard-core" plunge into the genre.
Book Review: Plot revealed slowly, can be frustrating. Worth it in the end.
Summary: 4 Stars
Never Let Me Go is told in the first person narrative and this establishes a kind of intimacy between Kathy and the reader. Only when Kathy offers up information or explanations of what is happening in her life and her world, does the reader have the ability to see the plot and recognize the twisted sci-fi story that is unfolding. Kathy almost speaks in code and slowly reveals to the reader in bits and pieces what is occurring in her life and the value of her relationships. It is not until the very end that everything falls into place and the reader can see the whole picture. This was book was fabulous.
The plot, although revealed over the course of the entire book, was fantastic. At first I was aggravated as I felt I understood nothing that Kathy was explaining, but I grew to enjoy my planned ignorance, feed off the craving for more information and celebrate my gradual realization. The story was told in a continual series of flash backs and references to the present that jumped back and forth repetitively. Some parts I lost patience with the long winded set-ups to random stories and anecdotes, but the desire to know what was going to happen always drove me to continue on.
I would hate to ruin the plot for anyone who choose to read it, because coming to understand the plot is the purpose and journey of the entire book. However, if you don't care... here is the story. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, the three main characters, are from a school set up to raise clone children for the sole purpose of harvesting their organs for other people. The students are sheltered and brainwashed into accepting their roles as donors and never rebel against their purpose in life. There is a bit of a love triangle, but it is so real and raw that it reflects reality rather than a romantic love story. Kathy has feelings for Tommy and vice-versa, but Kathy holds back as Ruth and Tommy have a relationship despite Ruth's crude attitude and indifference. Not until after Ruth has apologized for keeping the two apart and finished her donations does Kathy and Tommy get together. It is a shame as Tommy is almost finished with his donations as well, and the two have little time to enjoy their relationship. Kathy and Tommy go in search of answers about their lives and come to find the reason for their creation and the inevitability of their early deaths. The acceptance of their donations and completion of their live is eerie and questionsable, but the characters never falter. The last few pages show Kathy reflecting upon her life, relationships, and her own donor completion.
I greatly enjoyed this and can't wait for the movie adaptation. Ishiguro has other famous and award winning books and I look forward to reading them as well.
Book Review: Explores human relationships under extreme circumstances
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a fine book, carefully written, with a disturbing social commentary that underlies a narrative that is primarily about human relationships. It would not necessarily be appropriate to classify this book as science fiction yet it is oddly futuristic and certainly is a commentary on the ability to create clones of humans and then to harvest the organs of the clones over time through a series of transplant operations. This aspect of the story gradually reveals itself through the lives, experiences, and relationships between three young people; Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy.
These three young people were reared in a special school that educated the clones in the arts, music, sports, and basic education. Hailsham seems to be a progressive educational institution, yet because critical information is not fully revealed to the young people at Hailsham, multiple plots and conspiracies develop in the minds of the young people. The book thus explores the social bonds and relationships that develop among parentless children. Not having parents means that the teachers in the school, the Guardians, are the only real adult role models for the kids. Therefore the kids form cliques and groups that include or exclude others and develop a society and social structure similar to that seen in middle schools across the nation. Some kids are in and some kids are out. Ruth is a struggler to remain always in the right crowd. Tommy is explosive and transparent and thus is usually a victim and is considered to be on the outside. Kathy is an introspective reflective loner who forms bonds with Ruth and Tommy, whom she carefully observes and understands. Eventually the characters graduate from Hailsham and move to the Cottages which appear to be for high-school and college age clones, awaiting training first as carers and then as donors. Other clones were not as lucky where little resources were expended on them and they were expected to begin making organ donations upon reaching biological adulthood.
The futuristic medical establishment is never revealed and the teachers for the clones and the doctors and nurses who harvest the organs never refer to the large medical infrastructure that would support such a system as this book implies.
The book focuses more on the creation of family among those who have no family and the subtle nuances of tone, body language, choice of phrase that all imply how far we are into or out of a relationship with another. At this, the novel soars and is far more an anatomy of relationships than it was an anatomy of the body organs that these young folks eventually willingly give up as their fate in life. Beautifully written, this book is of the highest merit.
Book Review: Drowning Out the Sound of Death
Summary: 5 Stars
A good book is rarely about what it's about, if you know what I mean. If Moby Dick was just a story about some one-legged guy hunting a whale, do you really think it would be considered a classic?
Prior to its release I heard an interview on NPR with the author of Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro. I was surprised that he spoke openly about the novel's subject matter because, when you read the book itself, the fact that these school children are clones, raised to donate all their organs to others, is not revealed up front. It was then I realized that this was no cheap M. Night Shymalan stunt and that Ishiguro had a more universal meaning in mind when he wrote this. I suggest that potential readers ignore those critics who see this book as a dystopian vision of medical science gone awry. It's not that, trust me.
Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are students at Hailsham, a boarding school in some remote corner of England. Hailsham is also an orphanage of sorts, because the children have lived there all of their lives, having been raised by their "teachers." The reader understands pretty quickly the nature of their future role in society and, as such, the entire novel seethes with an underlying mood of bleak horror without ever getting truly mired in it until very close to the end. One reads with a kind of grim fascination as these kids obsess over the minutiae of their lives - what pop album to buy at the semi-annual Sale held at the school, whether or not their artwork will be chosen for display in the mythical gallery, their petty squabbles and school yard romances. Even after they learn the truth, these things still matter to them, leading the reader to wonder why. How can they care about such nonsense when faced with such a dire and inescapable fate?
But isn't that life?
Don't we all fill our lives with meaningless clutter in order to avoid contemplating death? The kids at Hailsham are living their lives, facing the inevitability of death and coping in the same way we all do. Ultimately, it doesn't matter the manner in which anyone dies - the simple fact is, we all die and we all spend our lives trying to drown out the thought of it with the clamor and clatter of the mundane. Toward the end of her story, the narrator, Kathy, finds love with a fellow student and they attempt to bargain their way out of their fate, but this episode is hardly depicted as an angry rebellion against an evil and cold-hearted government, but rather a simple questioning, in the same way a dying person questions or bargains with God.
This is a thought provoking book, quiet in its power. Read it before you see the film. Better yet, read it instead of seeing the film.
Book Review: The Truth Between the Lines
Summary: 5 Stars
Set in the 1990's, Kazuo Ishiguro's quietly disturbing novel aims to make us question the ethics of science even though the author never directly raises the topic. The narrator of Never Let Me Go is Kathy H., a woman who introduces herself as a "carer" mere months away from becoming a "donor," as though we should know what these terms mean. This nearness to ending one stage of her life to entering another causes her to reminisce about Hailsham, the school in the English countryside where she grew up with her two closest friends, Tommy D. and Ruth. The three form an unlikely trio: Ruth is headstrong and imaginative; Tommy has an uncontrollable temper; and Kathy is steady and observant in the subtleties of human behavior. It is this last quality belonging to Kathy H. that sets the tone of the novel. Everything is precisely told in an even, matter-of-fact voice that never questions the strange terminology and conversations that alert the reader to something more grave lurking under what seems, on the surface, to be an ordinary story about three childhood friends. As the three grow up, they begin to face moments more important than the minor disagreements of childhood.
Ishiguro's richly textured description of the relationship among the three supplies all the details without confronting the larger issues. As Kathy tells us, the guardians at Hailsham both tell and not tell the students the truth about Hailsham and their lives--exactly what Ishiguro does to the reader. The truth is doled out in increments, over the course of the entire novel, requiring the reader to understand what is implied as much as what is told. The frightening side to all this is that the characters never question the course of their lives. No one runs, or questions why they are the ones to make the ultimate sacrifice. One of the most poignant moments comes near the end when Kathy says, "Why should we not have souls?" By this point, it has been apparent to the reader that Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth are human in every sense of the word, with talents and intelligence and foibles and complex emotions, and yet are regarded as both freaks and disposables by the "normals." For the reader, these characters are anything but expendable.
Ishiguro's literary style of examining small moments might disappoint readers who expect a strong plot. Although the premise may belong to science fiction, this novel is more concerned with characterization and theme. If you like writers in the tradition of Ian McEwan, Marilynne Robinson, Chang-Rae Lee, and Margaret Atwood (whose The Handmaid's Tale creates a different dystopia), you'll be immediately swept into this alternate world where the past is also the future.