Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Never Let Me Go
Book Review: A horrible truth
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a masterly allegory and a profound meditation on the way of the world, art and the real nature of man.
It slowly reveals a horrible truth: man has set up a macabre production system of willing, sterile human clones in order to use them as organ `donators' when they are grown up.
The institution where they are brought up functions as an art school: `we thought you art because we thought it would reveal your souls ...we did it to prove you have souls at all.' But unlike Bartolome de las Casas's defense of the Indians, here the proof comes too late. With the support of `cabinet ministers, bishops, all sorts of famous people', this was what the world noticed the most: `all these ways to cure so many previously incurable conditions. They preferred to believe these organs appeared from nowhere.'
The major theme of this book is the same as the one of the first masterpiece in world literature, the Gilgamesh epic and its search for eternal life. The search here turned into a horrifying massacre of copies of human beings ... for the benefit of the originals.
It shows how deep mankind has fallen. But there is a sprinkle of hope in the form of one dissident among the originals, who defends the viewpoint that the clones should `made aware' of their sinister destiny.
For Kazuo Ishiguro, we should never let her go, the `old kind world', and never replace it by a more scientific, efficient, but harsh and cruel one.
Although some will not like the slow progress, the piecemeal revelation and the indirect suggestive style, Kazuo Ishiguro wrote a dark, but formidable masterpiece.
Book Review: Interesting Concept.....
Summary: 4 Stars
I will NOT, like other reviewers, ruin it for you & tell you the whole story. The book starts out in a "school" but you quickly figure out it is not a "normal" school. IN fact for the first 1/3 of the book I wasn't really sure where it was going - which compelled me to keep reading.... AS you get into the book there is an aha moment where you say - got it! The concept of the book is quite interesting. I personally DID like the style which is almost "conversational". I guess it really could only end one way which you more or less figure out. Overall, it was a good read, one that I enjoyed. Stephen King recommended this book to my friend & he was RIGHT on along with a couple other recommendations such as THE RUINS & CAUGHT STEALING. 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: A good idea muddled in verbose idiocy
Summary: 2 Stars
I was so disappointed. I love Ishiguro's earlier work. But this story almost bored me to tears. There's none of the suspense and hunger a reader feels when they pick up The Handmaid's Tale. The narrator Kathy is by far one of the worst story-tellers in existence. All the dialogue reads like it's the same person speaking over and over again. The narrator downright refuses to ever get to the point therefore each section is drug out page after page without the reader learning anything but frustration. Didn't anyone edit Ishiguro? Or do they stop doing that after you win a Booker Prize?Book Review: don't read the library of congress info
Summary: 4 Stars
It's a shame that I accidentally read the library of congress info in the beginning of the book, because some of the major plot points which are carefully and gradually revealed are spelled out right there in a few terse words. Otherwise, it's an excellent book with a few relatively minor plot flaws which are quickly evident to anyone who can think critically about the finer points of the plot.