Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Never Let Me Go
Book Review: Bizarre, beautiful, sad, haunting...
Summary: 4 Stars
Every now and then you'll come across a book that's written in a manner so hauntingly real you forget you're reading fiction. NEVER LET ME GO is one such example. In this cautionary tale, Ishiguro captures the voice of young Kathy H. as she navigates her childhood and comes to terms with her unusual fate. While the writing is not flowery or peppered with linguistic devices, its simplicity makes it all the more engaging and awe-inspiringly believable.
This book is best enjoyed when you know as little of the premise as possible, so I'll keep it cryptic. Kathy, Tommy and Ruth grow up in what seems to be an exclusive boarding school with an art-culture focus. However, as the narrative progresses, you notice eerie clues and sinister undertones - the students are "special" in some way and await an unspoken future. As the plot unfolds, the puzzle pieces come together and a harrowing picture emerges of a dystopian yet not altogether implausible future (interestingly, the story takes place in the past - 1990s England).
Once you've read it, pass it on to all your friends as you'll be itching to discuss it!
Book Review: A Great Read!
Summary: 5 Stars
I mainly read historical nonfiction, and relatively few novels. I heard a review of this book on NPR Radio, and it sounded fascinating. Ishiguro is an interesteding writer- he approaches the story somewhat obliquely, and for a time you wonder where the tale is going. But he and the story grow on you! After the first 20 pgs or so, it's very hard to put down. His style to me is quite similar to good jazz music- the stops and omitted notes are often as important to the piece to what is actually played; what he does NOT say, and what is hence left to the reader to speculate upon, make him a great writer and this novel, unforgettable. I liked it enough to read another novel of his, "The Remains of the Day", which was also quite good and highly recommended. Book Review: No spoilers, just some thoughts
Summary: 4 Stars
I will sometimes finish a book that will have a greater effect on me a couple of days after reading it than when I first finish it. This book is one of those. To try to explain without spoiling anything is difficult, but here goes:
The narrator and her friends are graduates of a boarding school in England, where they have some notion they are somehow different, and even among those who are different, are set apart for having attended the school (see how hard this is?). The narration is a bit disjointed, but I liked that, as it really felt like this young woman was sitting with me and telling me her story off the top of her head. I also got the impression that she was remarkably sensitive, and could read people's emotions well (or at least fancied she could). As she tells her story, you feel confused -- like the information is incomplete -- which is brilliant, because this is how the students feel as they're growing up.
This is a story about humanity, what it is to be human, what it means to be compassionate. As the truth is revealed, you may be shocked and think that there is no way that humanity could cross such a line, but think of the many ways people are dehumanized today.
I have to say, almost everyone in my public library's book club did not like this book, so I was in the minority. But I think if you are open to a different way of hearing a story, and are open to letting the story make you think a bit, you will find this book a worthwhile read.
Book Review: a complex view of humanity
Summary: 4 Stars
I was describing the plot of this book to a coworker, and he said, "It sounds like that movie, with Ewan McGregor," (The Island)
I said, "Yeah, except without all the explosions and car chases."
I could also have added "without the hope of change, without the hope for a brighter future".
This book really is heartbreaking. I found the characters' intensely analytical examinations of each other to be a symptom of their warped upbringing. The artificial environment of Hailsham, the lack of parental figures, and the strange emphasis on creativity produce these people who feel they need to study each other so carefully for cues to how to react. Their essential passivity, too, could be attributed to their very programmed upbringing.
I do find myself wondering how it can be economical to raise clones for the donation of 2, 3 or at the most 4 organs, although it is implied that the donation process continues after "completion" or death - that what remains of the clone is preserved and more organs are harvested. A grim, very disturbing idea, and the calm acceptance of it makes the novel so tragic.
Book Review: mesmerising
Summary: 5 Stars
Describing Never Let Me Go to a friend, I realised how prosaic it all sounded. These precious children, cocooned in the rarefied atmosphere of English public school ( so we are led to believe) and acutely attuned to any emotional discordance in their isolated groupings. Describing it as such, it all seems so snobby and trite. And yet Ishiguro somehow imbues it with such portent that it seems terribly weighty, as if more than the couplings of a few twenty-somethings is at stake. Which of course it is, we pity these individuals, for what society has done to them, for the situation they have been born into. That is Ishiguro's genius here, that the novel works on so many levels and invites so many interpretations. Is this a dystopian vision of the UK's future? A commentary on the class-blighted present? A critique of amoral scientific rationalism? The protagonists live, breathe and act as though entombed in a gigantic social test tube, which in one sense they are. This is a fascinating, important novel, that will outlive its age. Nothing Ishiguro has produced in the past suggested he was the new HG Wells, but after Never Ler Me Go, the comparisons will not desist.