Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.48 You Save: $8.52 (57%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.10 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Never Let Me Go
Book Review: Essentially a precocious adolescent's mega-extended letter
Summary: 3 Stars
I read 'Never Let Me Go' simply because of the movie adaptation that's due out soon. I'd never read any of Ishiguro's work. Admittedly, I was probably a little intimidated from a distance; his reputation is, as any good reader knows, something to be admired and respected. However...
However this novel was an ordeal to get through. I could not wait to put it behind me. I am a dedicated reader, and I really had little desire to finish it. But I did. And regardless of the author's rep, I'm still going to review as usual.
'Never' is an anti-story told in a casual, conversational, anti-storytelling way. It is the thesis presentation of why there's so much merit in the writer's adage 'Show, don't tell.' Now, I get that this was precisely the way Ishiguro wanted to tell the tale. I also get that as a stylistic approach, it had its strengths, and is a considerable accomplishment, pulling off this consistently-rendered task.
But despite the powerful premise, what was presented on the page brought me a bounty of almost exclusively negative responses. Frustration. Anger. Discomfort. But more than anything else, annoyance rendered the experience one of, as I've said, endurance; probably the least enjoyable novel I've read (keeping in mind the writer and his oeuvre), one I would not recommend to anyone, under any circumstances. I felt nothing for the characters, grew resentful at the dearth of actual story, and ended up having little tolerance for just about everything associated with the habits of Kathy H, from whose perspective it is that we learn everything. (I will say this: Ruth, one of the other primary characters in 'Never'? The word that describes what she is rhymes with 'bunt'. I could have strangled her. Then drowned her. Then thrown her in front of a train.)
There was a lovely story in there. Somewhere. And the settings and their particulars were relayed in a reserved, yet powerful-from-out-of-left-field sort of way, given to us in achingly simple ways. But despite the provocative nature of the premise, despite kudos having been earned by Ishiguro for maintaining the narrator's voice (no matter how grating), 'Never Let Me Go' was a sustained disappointment, leaving me constantly hoping for more, while continually breaking my heart...and checking to see just how many more pages I had left.
I have no doubt that there are many readers (and critics) who found this novel to be something special. I could not; ultimately, it was not a story I had much of any desire to read. Now I need to clean my palate...and wonder just how much better the film will be.
Personal rating: 7/10
Book Review: Page Turning
Summary: 4 Stars
Sometimes you can judge a book by how long it takes you to read it. I denied myself some sleep for two nights to get through this. I read bits and pieces on the rail, but I completed from start to finish in about four days. That's pretty fast for me, given that I have a wife and two year old daughter to mind.
The book is told from the point of view of it's main character, Kathy. The style used by "her" was terse and straightforward. Ishiguro himself disappears into the background, and any criticisms of the "writing" I feel aren't warranted. "Kathy" may not be the best writer out there, but I certainly felt like I was reading her work, and not that of Ishiguro. In that he was a success.
He used a device throughout the book which started off as fascinating, but became tedious near the end. In order to keep your attention, the narrative would lead to an abrupt "cliffhanger" sentence. The lead-in would be immediately explained in the next chapter, but I found it lead to some choppy structure. It's as if I were to write about my entire day, then say... "but nothing prepared me for what happened on the subway." The chapter ends, then the next one details what happened on the subway. Once or twice it was interesting. A dozen times becomes boring.
The characters themselves are fascinating. It does take a little patience to figure out what's going on. Once I did, it allowed me to think about the deeper issues the book was presenting. Why didn't the characters just remove themselves from their situation? Why don't they go public or challenge the courts about their fates? Why don't they care more than they do?
People tend to believe what they are told and progress along their lives without challenging the status quo. This book raises those issues to the forefront, the characters accept what is told to them without violent opposition. Their lives are mapped out for them, and they accept it.
In this book, there are no heroes, nor happy endings. In many ways it's a wake up call for the reader and a reflection of our own modern lives.
You think the characters are different from you? Well, if you are like me - full-time job, mortgage, car loan, kids... my life is mapped out for me and is it really, entirely of my own choosing? I'm not so sure. It's what people here in America do. We choose our lives by *not* choosing a different path.
An interesting read for me in this period of my life, when I am growing increasingly dissatisfied with my future outlook and the American way of life.
Book Review: Clones clinging to humanity in the face of mad science.
Summary: 4 Stars
British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) won the 1989 Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day. Never Let Me Go was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005, and Time Magazine named it the best fiction novel of 2005 and included it in All-Time 100 Greatest Novels. Although it is set in the late 1990s, it has science fiction qualities giving it a futuristic tone.
Initially Ishiguro's novel reads as mainstream, coming-of-age literature, rather than science fiction. The protagonist, Kathy H., attends Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school, where students are encouraged to create various forms of art. Because students are subjected to frequent medical checks, Hallisham does not seem like a typical boarding school. Gradually, by the end of the first part of Ishiguro's three-part novel, it is clear that Kathy and her classmates are clones created to become organ donors. Eventually they will be required to sacrifice their lives as donors in a process known as "completion." Hallisham is an experiment in mad science.
While at Hailsham, Kathy becomes friends with Ruth and Tommy. Kathy dreams of one day becoming a mother, though because she is a clone, this will be impossible. She sings and dances to a song by Judy Bridgewater, "Baby, never let me go," imagining the song is about a mother singing to her daughter. Tommy is a troubled boy, and often the target of bullies. Ruth is opinionated. In the second part of the novel, the three young adults, move to the residential Cottages, where they are exposed to the outside world. While Ruth and Tommy develop a short-lived romantic relationship, Kathy experiences unfulfilled sexual desires. In the third part of the novel, Tommy and Ruth serve their purpose as donors, and Kathy becomes a "carer," caring for both Ruth and Tommy during their "completion."
By the end of the stunning novel, it becomes evident that, although they are mere clones, Kathy, Tommy and Ruth possess human qualities nonetheless. At times they even seem more human than the human characters in the novel. The novel's title comes from the song of Kathy's childhood dreams and aspirations, and becomes the central theme of the novel: never letting go of our humanity (intellect, creativity, the capacity to love) in an indifferent, scientific world of emerging medical technology. Never Let Me Go is equally suspenseful, compelling, and heartbreaking.
G. Merritt
Book Review: A crushingly sad tribute to the indomitable human spirit
Summary: 5 Stars
Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" is a powerfully resonant yet quietly understated modern work of fiction about the human condition. Hailsham, a diferent kind of school located in the English countryside for "donors and carers", far away from the madding crowd, is a special community comprising people guarding a secret and others who, we are soon to discover with growing horror, are the secret. Yet these mysterious donors and carers - who are they anyway is a question that constantly nags at you - don't behave like humanoids, robots, freaks or characters from "The Stepford Wives". To most readers' puzzlement perhaps, they seem to exhibit all the traits you'd expect of normal human beings.
Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, the trio at the heart of the novel, are all products of Hailsham, who become fast friends from the time they discover one another and eventually find their relationship stretched, tested and strained by feelings of possessiveness, jealousy, one-up-manship, etc. But there's also genuine tenderness as between Kathy and Tommy, and finally deep compassion and love amongst all three that we can all identify with. Surprisingly too, while bred for a specific purpose and in a hothouse environment, there's no escaping the fact that these donors and carers are naturally drawn to activities that allow them to express their own innate sense of creativeness. If there's a message in Ishiguro's crushingly sad tale of people relentlessly seeking hope in a world where none exists, it's to remind us of the indomitable human spirit, the unextinguishable flame that lives even in the hearts of these manufactured human specimens. What more of real human beings ?
Ishiguro is one of that rare breed of fast disappearing modern writers who eschews bombast and linguistic pyrotechnics in favour of simplicity because he truly understands the power of good writing and the efficacy of utilising a directness in his plaintively incandescent prose to make that instant connection with the reader. Trust me, you will be hard pressed to find even the occasional big word that requires consultation with the dictionary. Ishiguro has rediscovered the lost art of creative writing, a craft that assures him a place among the greats in contemporary fiction.
"Never Le Me Go" is arguably the best among last year's Booker candidates. It's superior to John Banville's "The Sea" and should in my opinion have gone on to win the prize. One of the best novels to have been published in 2005. Highly recommended.
Book Review: Madame's Mysterious Gallery
Summary: 5 Stars
Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki in 1954 and came to Britain at the age of five. He was awarded the OBE in 1995 and the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1998. "Never Let Me Go" is his sixth novel and was first published in 2005. Like his previous books "An Artist of the Floating World" and When We Were Orphans", it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize - an award he won with "The Remains of the Day" in 1989.
From the book's beginning, it's clear that things are operating under slightly different rules than those we're used to. The story is set in England and is told by Kathy; although she spends much of the book looking back over her life, the 'current' date is somewhere in the late 1990s. Kathy has been working as a carer for eleven years, though she will probably be stepping down within the next twelve months. As a carer, it's her job to look after organ donors. Given that her donors tend to have excellent recovery times, it's something she seems to be very good at. However, it's also clear that the donors she cares for donate repeatedly. In fact, from early in the book, there's the suspicion that her patients are only 'allowed' to stop donating when they die - or 'complete', as Kathy puts it.
Kathy studied at Hailsham : more or less a boarding school, apparently quite prestigious, though also a little unusual. There's an air of familiarity between the pupils and the staff - who are referred to as guardians, rather than teachers. The pupils don't appear to follow the standard curriculum - there's no mention of GCSEs or A-Levels. (For that matter, there's no mention of summer holidays or family either). In recent years, Kathy has been able to choose some of the patients she cares for. Two of the patients she has selected are Tommy and Ruth, friends from her days at Hailsham. "Never Let Me Go" sees Ruth looking back over her life with Tommy and Ruth, from their earliest days at Hailsham together right up until the present day. In doing so, it becomes clear what role she, Tommy and Ruth play in society and why Hailsham was so unusual.
This was the first book by Kazuo Ishiguro I read, but I'll certainly read more by him. Although very sad, this is easily the best book I've read this year and is one I can see myself re-reading several times. Sometimes, when a book has left its mark on me, I find myself wondering what has happened to a character after the final page : Kathy is a character I found myself wondering about.