Never Let Me Go

Feb 26, 2010 Esteban del Mal rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, novel, fantasy-horror-scifi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I had previously avoided this book, having heard it referred to as British science fiction. And when I hear "British science fiction," I think of Dr. Who. Then I think about all those childhood snuff film fantasies where Captain Kirk zaps him. (Phasers set to kill, dammit! Inter-dimensional traveling dandies in phone booths are the exception to Federation regulations. What is it about the British, anyway? A phone booth? That's Superman's bag, baby. Superhero envy much? The sun may have never set...more

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Nov 30, 2007 Trevor rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: almost anyone

Shelves: literature

It is a pity that people are told this is a science fiction book before they read it. I feel the least interesting thing about it is that it is science fiction. I mean this in much the same way that the least interesting thing one could say about 1984 is that it is science fiction. As a piece of literature I enjoyed it much more than Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and even more than Huxley's Brave New World.

The themes that make this book most interesting are to do with the social alienation o...more It is a pity that people are told this is a science fiction book before they read it. I feel the least interesting thing about it is that it is science fiction. I mean this in much the same way that the least interesting thing one could say about 1984 is that it is science fiction. As a piece of literature I enjoyed it much more than Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and even more than Huxley's Brave New World.

The themes that make this book most interesting are to do with the social alienation of groups of people on the basis of inherited genetic characteristics. In fact, as a critique of racism this book is utterly brilliant. Those being racially alienated are genetically identical (they are in fact clones) to those attacking them.

Plato believed those 'in the know' should tell lies to those 'who do not know' so as to protect them from the all too horrible truths about life. I have always hated this aspect of Plato, always finding it grotesque and frightening in its implications. Those implications are drawn out in all their disturbing horror here.

This book has much to say about the nature of 'illness' and how those inflicted with an 'illness' use the scars of that illness as the badges of truly belonging to the group. So that those 'less advanced' in the ravages of the illness don't really know or really belong to the group. As a portrait of victims adopting to being victims it says much about us as humans - thoughtful readers may find it says far too much. I write this on World Aids Day.

Ishiguro writes the most nightmarish novels I've ever read. In others, such as The Unconsoled or When We Were Orphans the nightmare feeling is due to the dreamlike oddity of the interconnection of events in the story. One reads these books in much the same way that one wakes from a disturbing dream, with feelings of disorientation and anxiety. Even though this is the most literal 'nightmare book' of his I have read - the world he creates being literally a nightmare, and made all the worse by being set in the recent past - it is a book totally lacking in that strange dreamlike quality so characteristic of these other novels. In this sense it seemed less of a nightmare than these others. If you struggled with these, you will not struggle with this in quite the same way.

He also has fascinating and quite painful things to say about the nature of love and how love has a proper time, a time that may be lost or missed. As someone who has loved, lost and missed I found this particularly challenging. The relationship between sex and love and illness is perhaps something people may find simply too much - not because this is handled in any way that is too explicit, but because I do believe we like to think that sex, as a manifestation of love, has curative and redemptive powers. A book that questions this, questions something we hold very dear and some readers may find this too much to ask.

This is also a book about betrayal. The betrayals we commit against those we love the most and yet that we barely can understand or explain after we have committed them - these are constant throughout the book. He is a writer all too aware of the human condition. The scene which gives the book its title is a wonderful example of the near impossibility of our being understood by others and yet our endless desire for just such an understanding.

There is nothing easy about reading this book - although it is written in the simplest of prose. It has an honesty of feeling that brands one's soul.

I loved this book and have thought about it a lot since I finished reading it and will think about it more. There is much more I would like to say, but there is no space. May we all be good carers before we complete.
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Feb 08, 2013 Seth Hahne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub

I'm always excited when I run across a novel that is, so far as I can tell, essentially perfect. Never Let Me Go is one of those. There is not a single thing wrong with this book. Ishiguro is a master craftsman and it shows here.

The novel's characterizations are pitch perfect. Its narrative flow reveals things in exactly the right order. Mystery is preserved until it no longer matters and then, under the light of revelation, we discover the mystery was never the thing that mattered. Ishiguro pla...more I'm always excited when I run across a novel that is, so far as I can tell, essentially perfect. Never Let Me Go is one of those. There is not a single thing wrong with this book. Ishiguro is a master craftsman and it shows here.

The novel's characterizations are pitch perfect. Its narrative flow reveals things in exactly the right order. Mystery is preserved until it no longer matters and then, under the light of revelation, we discover the mystery was never the thing that mattered. Ishiguro plays with the reader as he unfolds his exploration of what it means to live—but never does so unfairly or at the expense of his characters' right to dignity and reality (a right that he very much does grant his characters).

Never Let Me Go is narrated from nearly a decade before its publication. As Kathy quietly reminisces from her vantage in the late 1990s, she gradually comes to explore a life fraught with meaning and purpose—and fraught simultaneously with that kind of superlative meaninglessness that Ecclesiastes bemoans in all of its somber weariness. Kathy is a caregiver to recuperating donors and relates her special pleasure in the few instances in which she had been able to offer care to those who had been students at the exclusive (and, as it turns out, much envied) Hailsham, where she herself grew up. Memories of Hailsham water a fertile delta of memories through which we gradually come to understand both Kathy and the world she has inherited—a world filled both with much light and much darkness.

In other words, a world much like mine or yours. Still, Kathy's story is unique and it is in her own tale's peculiarities that our own is better revealed. Better explored.

Some may be tempted to see Never Let Me Go as ethical question and admonishment to this generation of readers and to the one that follows us. Certainly, that is there, but only as mise-en-scène to the larger panorama of a woman's quest to discern her past, present, and future from a glut of memories (some of which are only mostly trustworthy or even trusted) and how that journey sheds light on questions more important than mere ethical concerns. In Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro continues to play as he has in past works with memory and perception and how memory is so often the primary defense against perspicacity, yet as his narrator is acutely aware of her own remolding of history through nostalgia and forgetfulness, we are assured that perspicuity is not his target here.

No. I believe Never Let Me Go is much more a perfectly plotted meditation (and its style is itself quite meditative) on the human condition, the place of our own hands in shaping our destinies, and what it means to live. These could all be clichéd topics but Ishiguro approaches with such a vaguely detached sublimity that he breathes (through Kathy his narrator) a certain verdant spirit into these things. They are never treated as anything more than mundane, but it is precisely by that treatment that he gives his purpose such power and impact.(less)

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Apr 02, 2007 Michelle rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2007

I can see Never Let Me Go being great for book clubs because it will generate a lot of discussion.

That being said, I didn't care for the book, for a couple of different reasons. The writing style is very conversational -- very much like you're having a discussion with the protagonist. The thing that annoyed me the most about this was the fact that the things that happened (so bob and I went walking to the store and we had a fight about the tree at school) and then the writer would tell you abou...more I can see Never Let Me Go being great for book clubs because it will generate a lot of discussion.

That being said, I didn't care for the book, for a couple of different reasons. The writing style is very conversational -- very much like you're having a discussion with the protagonist. The thing that annoyed me the most about this was the fact that the things that happened (so bob and I went walking to the store and we had a fight about the tree at school) and then the writer would tell you about the tree and why it was significant, then tell you about the fight. This sort of device is interesting the first few times you see it, but it started to annoy me over time. Maybe because I talk like that, and get off into tangents and anecdotes.

Also, at the heart of the store is the purpose/fate of the main characters. I get the impression that the author wanted to drop clues about it, and then reveal it so that it is a shocking twist (who's Kaiser Soeze? ;) The thing is, the references really aren't that subtle, so by the time the twist is reavealed, it's not all that exciting. Not only that, but I had so many questions at the end. Like -- these people know their fate, but they never think to question it, and, in fact, seem to be glad for it.

This was supposed to be a coming of age story. Generally "coming of age" involves people growing up and moving forward with their lives; often they need to overcome some obstacle to reveal their potential. However, the characters seem to be stagnate the whole way through; their fate doesn't change. The blurb on the back of the book mentions that the characters, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, all have a shared background that's special, and implies that they're lucky. When two of the charaters confront someone to see if they can defer their fate (they don't even bother trying to change it), we find out a little bit of what makes their shared background special, but we aren't given anything to compare it to (we're just told that similar people have horrible existences, but not how). And they find out that they can't defer their fate, but they don't really seem to care; they don't even seem to be particularly glad that they tried.

I've seen a couple of reviews compare this to book to Aldous Huxley's classic "Brave New World" and Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale". Not even close. In both of these books we're exposed to an alternate reality, and we see how the main characters deal with their situations. Kazuo Ishiguro tries to sneak the alternate reality into the story, to take us by surprise.

I could go on, but I won't. Let's just say that I didn't care for this book and leave it at that.(less)

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Aug 25, 2011 Ian Graye rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, read-2011

Imagine a restaurant, London, mid-2003.

Publisher: Hey, K, we need another novel and we need it quick.

K: I know, I know.

Publisher: Another “Remains of the Day”. Something Hollywood can turn into a hit.

K: I’m working on it.

Publisher: Any ideas?

K: Well, I’ve been reading some Jonathan Swift.

Publisher: Who?

K: You know, “Gulliver’s Travels”.

Publisher: Oh, yeah, Jack Black. It's in pre-production.

K: Well, he had a modest proposal about how to stop the children of the poor being a burden…

Publisher: I’m...more

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Oct 18, 2010 Mariel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Impossible Souls

Recommended to Mariel by: Vesuvius

I both love and hate this book. I couldn't stop thinking about it when I read it in 2006. It was sorta a "random" find because I saw the book cover and thought it looked interesting. I'd read Ishiguro years ago, The Remains of the Day, and liked him. Didn't remember the name, though, so I'll categorize this in my mental list (I'm a mentalist) as an almost-never-was random read of mine. I almost wish it was a never was, because I've gotta keep a close watch on my moods lest I get to feeling too s...more I both love and hate this book. I couldn't stop thinking about it when I read it in 2006. It was sorta a "random" find because I saw the book cover and thought it looked interesting. I'd read Ishiguro years ago, The Remains of the Day, and liked him. Didn't remember the name, though, so I'll categorize this in my mental list (I'm a mentalist) as an almost-never-was random read of mine. I almost wish it was a never was, because I've gotta keep a close watch on my moods lest I get to feeling too sick and depressed. Never Let Me Go is one of those reads... Just saw the movie and now I'm disturbed by it all over again. Some of it resides in my mind like creepy memories, and some feels less cold because of how upset I got, which is better than how I felt when reading the book. It could be taken as a cautionary tale of wasting time, but not much moves me into action. I'm more likely to feel bad. It is creepy to see how Kathy got to that point. I sorta understand it, and I also rail against it. Noooo, don't let that happen, moods do go as they come and nothing is the only answer. (I need a comfort read.)
I get why Kathy H. did not run away. I don't agree that it was conditioning, however. They were not raised to do or not do everything. Were they told to fall in love with each other? No. Like how she does not fight Ruth for Tommy, she didn't fight for her right to live longer. Like how she doesn't make the most of the time she had, or care about toys or art or anything else anymore, she doesn't fight for her life. It was an interesting look at that kind of giving-up depression. The disconnect out of hopelessness. While others invented fantasies of ways out, Kathy did not. She even had a car. She could have gone somewhere else. With her last time before donating, she stares into a field. Not even really dreaming. Fuck. I'm afraid of ever getting to be like that. (One of the reasons why I regretted reading this.)
Tommy rages inside and then does nothing to fix his problems. It made sense that he did not run away either. What to do after you've gotten mad? Crying makes me feel sick, not better.
Ruth? At first she picks someone else to have power over, her school mate Kathy. Like many in prison will do to feel like they still have control over their lives, she finds power she can have over someone else. Still, they let her do this to them. I don't think it was conditioning that they gave up in this way but their personalities. If you make decisions of your own, you're not conditioned. They were not robots. In some ways, they still wanted things, even Kathy. It was like how being told you have six months to live or the Nazis are coming and some just watch tv and wait to die and others go off for a last minute trip to South Africa (or the exhibit in Epcot). Drink and smoke and fuck and drown out the feelings. Or take care of other dying people and pretend that you're just fine with it, fine with the fact that it will soon be your turn. Kill yourself rather than die feeling miserable in a hospital. Some do that, others don't. But it's not all do a and none do b. None of the above, even. Day to day lives are easily wasted like Kathy's were. (I can't say I did anything special today.) If you believe that upbringing a d genetics are the entire answer to a person's soul, than sure... Me, I can't accept that. I don't feel that Ishiguro made a good enough case, either.
I wish that they had made more of their own society in the institutions of schools and hospitals. Learned from each other. It's not like they didn't have other examples within their own group to watch, right? Their own little rules. They had a grapevine of news. I wish that someone had tried to fuck up their health by drinking or smoking cigarettes. Not everyone could have been like Kathy. Some could have studied books and watched tv shows and learned things. They made paintings? They had ideas? Still thought for themselves, if in their own terms that were not influenced by a society we know today. I wanted more of their own terms. (Hell, I needed them to have it.)
It was sick and horrible to make clones for organs (not that it is realistic. Humans don't have problems performing illegal trafficking for organs in today's world, or making people slaves, or genocide. Why make the effort to make more people?). People have done fucked up things to each other since like forever. Well, yeah, and then what? Do you let them dictate EVERYTHING? I don't believe that people are made to live like that all the time. The heart only lives in fear for so long before it gets used to do it. There's the sick cloud of depression, but not everybody is like that either. Not everyone in concentration camps accepted it as God's will. Not everyone waited. Some got to run away. Orders and conditioning isn't always true. I was told racist things growing up, I was told that I was dumb and ugly and no one would ever like me. Conditioning is not the entire answer. To the peope who answer conditioning, did you do everything you were told?
I liked the issues of quality of life over quantity. Everyone dies and living forever isn't really the point. It's what you do with the time you have, despite everyone else, despite a lot of things. Cathy didn't do much with hers. That's more tragic to me than how she died. Not what was done to her, but the other things she allowed to be done to her, like losing Tommy. I wish this book had touched on more than the easy giving up. What's human nature? I don't wanna to take a people do what they are told belief. People are not all the same, no matter where they start from. (And I'm a natural clone as an identical twin. I'm proof that starting out the same in the same environment does not breed exactly the same.)
I feel really bad about this.(less)

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Oct 30, 2012 Nandakishore Varma rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction

I loved this novel not so much for its gothic darkness, but for the questions it raised. It seems chillingly plausible that any cruelty, carried on long enough, will be accepted as the norm by humanity-especially if it benefits the majority (like providing an endless supply of organs). We manage this by dehumanising the victims. India's untouchables and America's slaves are just two of the examples. Even when we, as "enlightened" human beings, look back in disgust at such historical injustices,...more

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Aug 23, 2008 Amy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: didn-t-finish, science-fiction

I did not like this book, in fact I think I could say I hated it, I am sorry to say I even read the whole thing (except for all the pages I skimmed over because they were boring). The premise sounded interesting, intriguing... So I kept reading wondering when the author would drop the bomb, this is why I kept reading. Well it never came. For the most part he gave you bits and pieces the whole time but nothing really surprising. Maybe that is his style and his point but I didn't care for it. Afte...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Here's one interpretation of this novel: Ishiguro crafts an alternate reality in which human cloning is embraced in order to construct a pathos-laden metaphor about obligatory military service, dissecting the way that soldiers are dehumanized via representation as death stats, numbers...faceless nuts and bolts in the gears of democracy whose emotions, fears, loves, importance to others' lives and hearts, potential as valid contributors to the intellectual and artistic continuum, and whose overal...more Here's one interpretation of this novel: Ishiguro crafts an alternate reality in which human cloning is embraced in order to construct a pathos-laden metaphor about obligatory military service, dissecting the way that soldiers are dehumanized via representation as death stats, numbers...faceless nuts and bolts in the gears of democracy whose emotions, fears, loves, importance to others' lives and hearts, potential as valid contributors to the intellectual and artistic continuum, and whose overall selves are cast aside in the interest of the greater good for society (power, control, etc). By peering into the interpersonal relationships of three sheltered, misinformed, and tragically hopeful organ donor clones, Ishiguro critiques the way that heavily militarized countries deceive their people into thinking that the throwing around of human lives is acceptable, even brave (of not just the soldiers, but also their dispatchers), wrapping a ribbon around death and setting it at your door as if from a secret admirer. A lovely gift to the soldier, which he then passes on to his country through his untimely (albeit anticipated) demise.

Huh.

Unfortunately, this novel could be interpreted in all the following ways, as well: a Pro-Life tear-jerker for Christian housewives, anti-stemcell propaganda focusing on "the moral questions raised by scientific advancement," yet another half-assed attempt at critiquing the depersonalizing nature of the modern, industrialized world, a sappy rip-off of that ridiculous McGregor/Johansson movie The Island, a shoddy attempt at an Orwellian/Huxleyan rendition of The Secret Garden with the same ominous adults but where the main, youthful characters are anonymous, oppressed, and misunderstood mutations resulting from an evil, voracious culture (pure souls whose spirits are unconquerable regardless of their hostile, toxic environment, blubblubblub)...the list really goes on. I was incapable of properly anchoring the novel's themes to any discernibly solid message. The Sci-fi element seemed an afterthought, or rather, a flimsy framework to garner broader interest in what is otherwise just another sad tale of failed romance, confusion, and growin' up.

This is what I see: a coming-of-age tale of the love triangle between three young adults, which briefly touches upon each one coming to terms with inevitable death (this is mostly used, however, as salt and pepper pizzazz to mix it up in the aforementioned love triangle). The writing is dry, to boot. This is not what one would call a "quotable book," since it is basically one girl who is roughly 26 years old, recounting--in borderline "Dear Diary" fashion--a few all-too-familiar memories from her boarding school years, i.e. the kid got picked on because he was different but I couldn't help but understand him and was begrudgingly nice as a result so one day we fell in lurrrve, a favorite teacher got emotional with the class once and abruptly decided to "tell it like it is" and we all grew up a little on that afternoon, I started having crushes on *heee heee* boyeeeees and when Tommy played football it made my pelvis tingle in this new and totally exciting way...you know, shit like that.

...and yet it is still an absorbing tale of misunderstood and stifled passions with some keen observations about the intricate ways that people wiggle through the awkward years of getting to actually know themselves, and how the staggered and staggering transition into selfhood can leave children feeling obliged to deceive one another about what they know, what they have seen, where they have been, and (in short) who they are. Ishiguro addresses the complexities involved in lifelong friendships, such as competition for friends, lovers, influence, and favor, the ebb and flow of similarities in things like interests, habits, locations, and social circles, and the times of fretful clutching to before turning away from one another which seem to follow their own natural rhythms with people you can just never seem to really let go of. Oh, shit...I basically just said the title without meaning to. You win this one, Ishiguro-san.

Anyway, it's alright. I'm sure that Oprah loves it. I'll probably watch the movie someday.(less)

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Aug 23, 2010 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: TIME Magazine 100 Best Novels; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006 version)

Shelves: ex-1001, sci-fi, drama, booker

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. On September 15, 2010, a movie adaptation of this book will be shown, distributed by Fox Pictures, in the US. It stars Keira Knightley (Ruth), Sally Hawkins (Miss Lucy), Andrew Garfield (Tommy), and Carey Mulligan (Kathy). Two of my GR-TFG friends are currently reading this and a number of them have either marked this to read or added this to their wish lists. However, three of my GR American friends have read this and rated this 5 or 4 stars. Thus, for my Filipino friends, I have activated the...more On September 15, 2010, a movie adaptation of this book will be shown, distributed by Fox Pictures, in the US. It stars Keira Knightley (Ruth), Sally Hawkins (Miss Lucy), Andrew Garfield (Tommy), and Carey Mulligan (Kathy). Two of my GR-TFG friends are currently reading this and a number of them have either marked this to read or added this to their wish lists. However, three of my GR American friends have read this and rated this 5 or 4 stars. Thus, for my Filipino friends, I have activated the ***SPOILER ALERT***.

Never Let Me Go is my 2nd book by Japanese-born British author Kazuo Ishiguro (1954-). Like his 1989 Man Booker winner Remains of the Day, the writing is superb. It does not use big words and does not dish out deep profound ideas but when you are done reading till the last page, you always have the urge to go back and read again from the start. You think that you just breezed through the first part until in the end you realized that you made a mistake of just breezing through that part.

I almost did not give this a 5-star because early this year, I read and liked Neal Shusterman's Unwind (published 2007). Kazuo Ishiguro published his Never Let Me Go in 2005 so you know who inspired who. Both are dystopian novels although Shusterman made his book intended for young adult (YA) while Ishiguro's writing is, I think, intended for everyone. No wonder that this book is included in TIME Magazine's Best 100 Novels.

Both books are about young people being used as organ donors. In Unwind, they are those normal people who are not achievers. In Never Let Me Go, however, they are cloned from models. They are part of the government experiment to supply the organs of sick people and unlike in Unwind where the donor's organs are harvested one time, in this book, the harvesting is done one organ at a time until the donor is "completed" or dead.

It's that kind of novel that is ideal for a horror Stephen King movie. However, with Ishiguro's astute plot development and bewildering narrative, this will more likely put a tear in your eyes rather that scare the hell out of you.

There are many scenes that I was able to relate to. Kathy's hesitancy to buy the music tape was like that movie I saw with my father when he was still alive. For many years, I looked for that movie. Then in 2008, I saw a copy in Ohio (during my US trip) but I did not buy it. I felt, while holding the DVD copy, that the memories of sitting beside my father is enough and I did not need to see the movie to once again feel how happy I was munching popcorn while watching the soldiers and the Indians falling off the ravine.

*Salutes* Ishiguro!

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Apr 23, 2008 Juushika rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: status-borrowed

As a child, Kathy H. attended Hailsham, an elite boarding school where children were raised to be both healthy and artistic and taught to believe that both their health and creativity were essential to themselves and to the world they would one day enter. Now an adult, Kathy reflects back on her life. She charts the very slow progression of her growth, her friendships with fellow students Tommy and Ruth, and her knowledge, as she herself gradually began to learn about her role in the outside wor...more As a child, Kathy H. attended Hailsham, an elite boarding school where children were raised to be both healthy and artistic and taught to believe that both their health and creativity were essential to themselves and to the world they would one day enter. Now an adult, Kathy reflects back on her life. She charts the very slow progression of her growth, her friendships with fellow students Tommy and Ruth, and her knowledge, as she herself gradually began to learn about her role in the outside worldand what this role dictates about her identity. A combination of heavy introspection and soft-scifi, Never Let Me Go has a thought-provoking premise and is brilliantly written, but fails to reach its potential, spending all its time in excruciatingly slow buildup and none of it in impact, theory, or debate. Enjoyable, but somewhat empty, and so moderately recommended.

This book's greatest strength is its writing style, but it is also one of the most irritating aspects. Kathy, the narrator, is intensely thoughtful and analytical, breaking down her personal history into eras, important moments, and developing themes. She walks the reader through the story of her life much in the way she lived it, slowly, very slowly, bringing to light her final realizations. In other words, there is a lot hidden in this book, and it takes the book's entire lengthliterally until the last fifteen pagesto reveal it all. In between are circuitous examples, where Kathy starts to talk about one event, goes back a bit to explain why the event was relevant, explains the event itself, and then goes on without having drawn a major conclusioninstead, she's just mapped another point on her gradual arc or argument. The resulting pace is excruciating, both artful, brilliantly thought-out and executed, and simply painful as the reader is lead along, disappointed, and lead along again. The book's pace bring the characters to life (although both Ruth and Tommy lack some dimension) and, with it, the life that they lived, through Hailsham and beyond. As such, it is the highlight of the book, worked like an artform, but it is also intensely irritating and makes the book (which actually reads quite quickly) seem longer than it is.

There are a near-infinite number of issues, from the ethical to philosophical, that could be brought to question and debate in this book. The very premise almost begs themboth the science of the base culture and the purpose of Hailsham itself. Unfortunately, however, none of these topics are brought to issue in the text. Instead, the book is consumed by the very slow progression of the story, the creep towards the "twist" revelations of who the children are and what purpose they serve. When finally revealed, these revelations are not all that bignot because they lack the potential to be, but because they pale in comparison to the immense buildup that leads to them. The characters just barely exceed the gradual revelation of the book's premise and are largely just passive carriers of the story, and so the other various issues, the possible debates, never enter into the text. So when other reviewers talk about the questions this book raises, what they're really talking about is the potential for questionsand that is not the same thing. The burden of meaning for this book, everything that the reader could take away and continue to think about, rests entirely on the reader, who must pull out the themes and ask the questions himself, carry on the debates himself. The author shirks his responsibility, and the book suffers for it, failing to live up to its potential.

My final complaint with this book is that the underlying concept seems, blandly, unrealistic. **SPOILERS** follow, so be warned: The fact that in the book's contemporary culture the clones are considered non-human despite looking, acting, and living like humans seems entirely impossible. Consider: Humans never viewed the first cloned animals as different than their original counterparts; indeed, we were amazed and drew attention to the fact that they were identical, that they were clones. So why would cloned humans be any different (especially that these clones pass in human society as normal and indistinguishable)? Outside of the huge wastefulness of cloning entire humans just to harvest their organs, the fact that the cloned humans were not considered humans seems unreal to me, no matter who the gene donors were, no matter what brief attempts Ishiguro (though Ms. Emily) makes to justify it. **END SPOILERS** This is the underlying basis of the book's conflict and plot, and so problems with this concept create problems throughout the book. They weaken the foundations, making it difficult to accept the book and, as a result, even more difficult to take on the work of finding and analyzing themes, which the author fails too do. In the end, Never Let Me Go has a thoughtful premise with heavy potential for thought, theory, and debate, and it is skillfully, even artfully written, but the book fails to live up to its potential: the author does not tackle his own themes, and no matter how interesting the premise, it is an unreasonable one. I wanted to enjoy this book, and I did, but I felt cheated at the end: the final product was surprisingly empty, with the burden of meaning placed entirely and unfairly upon the reader alone.(less)

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Apr 06, 2012 Tanu rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, emotional-drama, excellent-prose, really-good, favorite-protagonist, serious-literature, the-eternal-quest, well-developed-plot, coming-off-age, all-time-favorite

4.25 stars

There may be spoilers!

How would you feel if someone came up to you and very calmly started reminiscing about the time when, he/she had her fingers chopped off by this other person? There is no misery or fury or even regret in this person’s voice. He/she might as well be telling you about how someone spilled coke. I think that is what would make this person’s words more scary.

Kathy is exactly that kind of a narrator; she is excruciatingly calm and maddeningly passive. Perhaps that is...more

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Apr 15, 2008 brad rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Set in a late 1990s England, Ishiguro places us in an uncomfortably realistic, sci-fi scenario where cloning is normative and routine. We follow the lives of Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, students at Hailsham, a picturesque boarding school. Only about halfway into the novel is the nature of this society completely revealed, when we find that the students are clones, living as normal humans until their organs are needed.

Fortunately, the story never directly questions societal ethics of cloning. Doing...more Set in a late 1990s England, Ishiguro places us in an uncomfortably realistic, sci-fi scenario where cloning is normative and routine. We follow the lives of Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, students at Hailsham, a picturesque boarding school. Only about halfway into the novel is the nature of this society completely revealed, when we find that the students are clones, living as normal humans until their organs are needed.

Fortunately, the story never directly questions societal ethics of cloning. Doing so, even slightly, would have changed the tone to a political bent, shredding the tender story. And although he doesn't question cloning, he does, however, lead the reader to an underlying answer while maintaining a tight reign over the actual storyline.

Ishiguro broaches many topics, such as societal detachment and the struggle of a minority class, but its his focus on the aching to belong, an experience that, I venture to guess, most people feel or have felt at some point, that gives us real emotions filtered, only mildly, through prose.

Kathy is one of few students raised at Hailsham, where the caretakers focus on creative outlets; we discover later that the art is being preserved as possible evidence of students' humanity. Oddly enough, the caretakers miss the student's self awareness and emotional maturations, arguably the most human of all traits.

Through Kathy H., we see that the students are capable of ranging emotions, from sadness and forgiveness to lust and curiosity. She excels as a "carer" because she interacts with the dying on a personal level, interprets their moods, and calms them. As a human-like force, she doesn't embrace the horrific outcome of her life and list towards death like many of her peers, she focuses on her friends, repairing old mistakes and forming stronger bonds.

In spite of the sci-fi setting, the unique traits of Ishiguro's narratives, such as a languorous flow and inherent subtlety, allow him to slip rather significant items into the story without any grandiose epiphanies. You feel as though you're like sitting with a friend, listening to recalled events, some familiar and some new.

After reading the last chapter, I honestly didn't know how to feel. Tapped out emotionally, I just desperately needed a hug. It's a rare occasion that instead of reading a novel, I experience it; a testament to Ishiguro's skill in crafting a story, not just words.
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Apr 30, 2008 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: did-not-finish

The style of this novel put me off from page one. Once again, Ishiguro was very effective at conveying the mind of the character he was attempting to draw. Perhaps I just didn't like that character very much. I found her very disorganized and difficult to understand. I found his prose far too sterile. Polished, clean, shining.... but shining like a hospital corridor under the light of faint fluorescent beams. It resists all human connection, even while relating ostensibly poignant vignettes from...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone

Recommended to Mike by: Goodreads Group Literary Exploration

Shelves: speculative-fiction, contemporary-english-literature, booker-short-list, arthur-c-clarke-award-short-list, time-100-best-english-language-nove, time-best-novel-2005, ala-alex-award, philosophy, science-vs-morality, 2012

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro's Examination of Science and Morality

It was a warm spring afternoon, late in the semester. The windows of Ten Hoor Hall were open. The swarms of honey bees could be heard, hard at work in white blooms bursting from the hedge of abelia that ran across the front of a concrete and brick neo-classical building that housed the history, philosophy, and speech departments on the Campus of the University of Alabama.

That was the day I determined not to pursue my intended c...more

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Mar 02, 2008 notyourmonkey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-read, fiction, scifi, library

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Hm. Let's see. It's by the guy who wrote Remains of the Day, so it has a bit of a "modern literature, good-for-you, subtly subtle investigation of people and their motivations, with people going into rooms and going, 'Oh! I, oh, well, oh. I didn't know you were in here.' 'Yes, Sebastian, what is it? I am moving books slightly to the left.' 'Oh. Well. I guess I'd better leave.' 'Yes, I guess you'd better had.'" sort of thing going on, which I find interesting when well-done (which I find very rar...more

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Nov 16, 2008 Krenzel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ala-notables, 1001

In "Never Let Me Go," a fictional story focusing on three classmates from a unique boarding school, author Kazuo Ishiguro deals with questions of loss and mortality that each of must eventually confront. As we get older, as we lose our friends and family, as the environment around us changes and things once familiar to us disappear or become unfamiliar, as we cling to our memories of how things used to be, how do we come to accept the fact that our lives are finite and attach some meaning to our...more In "Never Let Me Go," a fictional story focusing on three classmates from a unique boarding school, author Kazuo Ishiguro deals with questions of loss and mortality that each of must eventually confront. As we get older, as we lose our friends and family, as the environment around us changes and things once familiar to us disappear or become unfamiliar, as we cling to our memories of how things used to be, how do we come to accept the fact that our lives are finite and attach some meaning to our limited existence? These are questions that the narrator of "Never Let Me Go," Kathy H. copes with as she recounts the disjointed memories that comprise her life. Sorting through these memories, she finds comfort in her friends and her career, eventually coming to terms with the meaning of her life and her ultimate fate.

Reflecting upon her life, Kathy devotes most of her time to thinking about her friends from Hailsham, a secluded boarding school where she grew up. Because contact with outsiders at Hailsham is limited, one of the school’s big events is the quarterly Exchange, where students are given tokens they can use to buy other students’ artwork. As this is the students’ only way of accumulating material possessions, they grow dependent on each other for their "personal treasures" and learn to value others’ work, forging unique bonds with one another. Kathy’s two best friends are Ruth, an extroverted leader at the school, and Tommy, a shy introvert who gets bullied due to his lack of creativity and inability to produce substantial work. While they depend on each other throughout their time at Hailsham, like a lot of friends they drift apart after leaving the school. Looking back at the petty argument that led to the group’s break, Kathy comments, "It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven, could unravel and separate over a thing like that." Kathy regrets the loss of her friends, but doesn’t do anything about it until she hears that Hailsham is closing: "[I]t started to dawn on me, I suppose, that a lot of things I’d always assumed I’d plenty of time to get around to doing, I might now have to act on pretty soon or else let them go forever." Realizing that her time is limited, Kathy decides what is important to her – what she doesn’t want to let go of – and reconnects with her old friends, Ruth and Tommy.

In addition to her friends, Kathy’s career has a special meaning in her life. Kathy begins the book by identifying herself as a "carer." Although a lot of carers "are just going through the motions waiting for the day they’re told to stop," Kathy enjoys her work, the long drives and the solitude, and she knows she is good at what she does. As a carer, she helps look after patients, assisting as they recover from "donations" and keeping them calm. She knows that she is a good carer, which is important to her: "[I]t means a lot to me, being able to do my work well." However, when she becomes Tommy’s carer, he questions the meaning of her work, asking her if she really considers her job to be important since all of her patients are going to "complete," or die, anyway. Kathy responds, "Of course, it’s important. A good carer makes a big difference." When reflecting upon her life, Kathy decides not only that her friends are important to her, but she also considers her job important, believing she makes a difference by helping others.

However, as the book begins, Kathy only has eight months left as a carer, and then she will begin the last phase of her life. Initially, Kathy does not accept this fate, hoping to get a "deferral." When the headmaster of Hailsham tells her a deferral is not possible – Kathy cannot escape her ultimate fate any more than the rest of us can – Kathy wonders what the purpose of her life has been: "Why did we do all of that work in the first place? Why train us, encourage us, make us produce all of that? If we’re just going to give donations anyway, then die, why all those lessons? Why all those books and discussions?" In fact, one of the Hailsham teachers, Miss Lucy, had made this same argument when they were children, believing it was more important that they know their ultimate fate than worry about creating artwork and developing their sense of culture: "If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you." But this is not true, the Hailsham headmaster counters, addressing Kathy and Tommy: "Look at you both now! I’m so proud to see you both. You built your lives on what we gave you. You wouldn’t be who you are today if we’d not protected you." Ultimately, Kathy comes to agree with the Hailsham approach. When she meets a patient who did not go to Hailsham, but wants to hear all about her time there so that he can replace his own memories with Kathy’s, Kathy realizes "just how lucky we’d been." Without being warned what lay ahead – as Miss Lucy had wanted – Kathy had been free to live her own life; even if it was messy, it was hers. As the novel concludes, Kathy drives to Norfolk, where she had shared her happiest memories with Tommy: "I imagined this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was standing in front of it." Instead of hanging on to those things and people she has lost, Kathy realizes that this is as far as her fantasy can go: "I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, and drove off to wherever it was I was supposed to be." Like most of us, Kathy knows her life is limited, and the best we can do is go about our everyday lives, doing what we are supposed to do. She will never let go of her memories of what she has lost, but she has accepted her fate.

Though her life hasn’t been perfect, Kathy, reflecting upon her memories, finds that her life has been meaningful – having had close friends, an important job, and an idyllic childhood, she considers herself "lucky." But has she, in fact, led a decent life? Has her life been purposeful and meaningful? These are universal questions we may all ask of ourselves – how to accept our own mortality and assign purpose to the limited life we have been given. However, these big questions of how to deal with loss and mortality also become a source of frustration and disappointment for readers because, while "Never Let Me Go" builds these questions up, it never seems to fully resolve or answer them. Fortunately, though, it does provide some clues. One of the recurring items of the book relates to a song Kathy plays as a child called "Never Let Me Go." What makes the song special for Kathy is that she assigns her own meaning to the lyrics; instead of listening to the actual words, she imagines her own version of the song: "Even at the time, I realized this couldn’t be right, that this interpretation didn’t fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn’t an issue with me. The song was about what I said." At one point, when Kathy is dancing to the song in her mind, Madame, a Hailsham leader, catches her and starts sobbing. Later Madame confesses that, when she saw Kathy that day, she imagined Kathy was holding onto the old world, a "kind world," which was being replaced by a "harsh, cruel world," but now Madame realizes her interpretation was wrong: "It wasn’t really you, what you were doing." Soon after Madame catches her playing the tape, the tape is lost, her friend Ruth tries to replace it, and later, with Tommy’s help, Kathy finds another copy of the tape. The symbolic implications are clear: just as she assigns her own meaning to the song, Kathy assigns her own meaning to life. Sometimes she may be lost, sometimes others like Tommy may help her, and sometimes others like Madame may assign a different meaning to her life than she does, but Kathy is the final author of her life. While others may deem her life meaningless, she herself is content, if not happy. "Never Let Me Go" may not provide a universal answer for some of the big questions it poses about loss and mortality, but the ultimate message seems to be one of hope: as the authors of our own lives, it is up to each of us to take what we are given and make the most of it.
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Aug 17, 2011 oliviasbooks rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary_fiction, scifi-dystopian-apocalyptic, e-version, read-2011, scb-challenge-2011, adult-fiction

In short (maybe I find the time to elaborate later, maybe not): Right now I feel like I've got a wyvern in my guts - shredding tissue like mad. Not because of particularly graphic horrbile scenes, not at all, but because of the narrator's complete complacency and serenety while relating the - to us - nightmarish story of her life. All the while making it perfectly clear that to her no alternative life plan would have been thinkable.

Street Corner Bookers’ Pile Reduction Challenge 2011, #21 (chall...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Silletta rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: e, narrativa-inglese

Quando ero in quarta elementare litigai con la mia migliore amica per un motivo che adesso non ricordo più bene, ma mi pare fosse riconducibile alla sfida tra la Barbie e la Tania. Poi facemmo pace, dopo qualche anno si aggiunse una nuova migliore amica, all'inizio delle scuole superiori faticammo per anni per tenere in piedi il nostro rapporto contro le sfide del mondo, ma inesorabilmente cominciammo a perderci di vista, per quanto volessimo restare attaccate alla nostra amicizia passata. L'ho...more Quando ero in quarta elementare litigai con la mia migliore amica per un motivo che adesso non ricordo più bene, ma mi pare fosse riconducibile alla sfida tra la Barbie e la Tania. Poi facemmo pace, dopo qualche anno si aggiunse una nuova migliore amica, all'inizio delle scuole superiori faticammo per anni per tenere in piedi il nostro rapporto contro le sfide del mondo, ma inesorabilmente cominciammo a perderci di vista, per quanto volessimo restare attaccate alla nostra amicizia passata. L'ho rivista l'altro giorno, mi sembrava felice, le ombre dei nostri litigi erano sparite, ops no, poi sono tornate, guarda come ha arricciato il naso quando le ho detto quella cosa, ah no, mi sono sbagliata, è di nuovo la mia amica di una volta, o forse no. Adesso sì. Adesso no. Ora mi faccio qualche altra paturnia e poi di nuovo sì.
Storia avvincente, eh? Troppe emozioni tutte in una sola volta? Troppo, dite? Scusate.

Questo è quello che ho provato leggendo questa storia (nonostante la scrittura dell'autore sia notevolmente migliore della mia). Lo scenario fantascientifico o distopico del libro è una fregatura. Anche se poco utilizzato, poteva comunque essere un buon pretesto letterario intorno a cui costruire la storia peculiare dei personaggi, e invece no: sembra scelto a caso, chiamato in causa ogni tanto senza un reale beneficio, e non dona il benché minimo spessore alla trama che resta inconsistente. Scenario e personaggi sembrano seguire completamente vie parallele per buona parte del romanzo, incrociandosi a fatica solo nella parte finale, che però non basta a salvare quanto è già stato scritto. Allora a che pro, sia l'una che l'altra parte, visto che restano quasi completamente slegate? I personaggi si muovono in una storia che, senza uno sfondo, risulta profondamente piatta, poco coinvolgente per quanto ci si sforzi di voler partecipare. E non perché i temi siano poco interessanti, ma perché lo sono tutti solo potenzialmente, restando quindi solo abbozzati, poco approfonditi. Senza un degno approfondimento, senza una reale introspezione delle dinamiche, si rimane con una storia dal sapore decisamente troppo adolescenziale, a dispetto delle premesse.(less)

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Jun 05, 2011 Victoria rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia, contemporary-fiction, boarding-school

I finally finished reading this book. Finally - is the key word. At first I thought the problem was with me - too busy to read, but now that I've finished it, I realise that the book itself was the problem. I've never read any Kazuo Ishiguro's works before, but this book is just pure boredom.

Now don't get me wrong, the idea, the story, the characters are amazing. But the writing itself is simply horribly tedious. Right after finishing the book I downloaded the movie based on it. It's one of thos...more

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Oct 05, 2008 Will Byrnes rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I was quite surprised at this book. That it was a Booker prize candidate was a shock. It has a very been-there, done-that feel. See The Giver, by Lois Lowry, The Island, a film of recent vintage in which the subject matter is very close indeed to the underlying concept here. In a closed, prep-school-type setting, a group of young people interact with themselves and their teachers and guardians. It takes no time at all to figure out what their role is, and in fact the ease of that made me wonder...more

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Dec 04, 2007 Louis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sciencefiction, bookclub

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The book was written in 2005, and opens in Britain, late-1990s. It starts out in a co-ed boarding school following the story of Kathy, a young student. At this point she and her close friends are essentially early high school age. It is a very closed school, where liberties are very sparse and minimal contact with the outside world. The students are often reminded how special they are, and how important it is that they take care of their bodies. Their lives revolve around their classmates and th...more The book was written in 2005, and opens in Britain, late-1990s. It starts out in a co-ed boarding school following the story of Kathy, a young student. At this point she and her close friends are essentially early high school age. It is a very closed school, where liberties are very sparse and minimal contact with the outside world. The students are often reminded how special they are, and how important it is that they take care of their bodies. Their lives revolve around their classmates and the staff, whom they know as guardians. Another of the centers of their lives are the donations, where the students can put up things they have created for exchange for tokens. The highest praise comes from art works that are selected for the Gallary by the Madame.

The book takes Kathy and their friends through school, then to the next stage of their lives, the Cottages. From here is you find out they are preparing for the real world, and to be carers then donors. And as the book goes on, through little hints throughout the book, it dawns on the reader that these children are all clones (not of each other, but of someone on the outside), and they were bred to be organ donors. From the cottages, they are sent out to organ donor centers throughout the countryside. During the time they are donors (usually three, sometimes four times before they are 'completed'. After the fourth time, with that many organs removed, they are kept under, and any other organs possible are also removed) they are under the watch of 'carers' who provide personal care, usually friendship and companionship much like counseling. Carers tend to be other clones, who spend time as carers before becoming donors themselves.

The school was part of a grand debate. And it was this, were the clones really human? These clones were created to give healing to people with otherwise incurable diseases, cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases; through their organs. And it was easier to forget that these organs came from someone. And easier to think that these sources were not really human. While some of the clone centers were much like factories a la The Matrix or Brave New World, this school was set with the premise that these clones could have real childhoods. And the Gallery was that, works of art that could be shown to people of influence, to demonstrate these children had souls. Not to determine if the children were in love, but to show they were human, even if their end was to be sources of human organs. But as Kathy and her friends were growing up, there was a scandal, and the battle was lost, and her school and others like it closed, with only the more factory-like places left to raise future generations of clones. And Kathy finds the Madame and one of the other guardians, lonely and defeated in this battle, with society deciding that the clone children were not truly human, that the clones were only incubators for their organs. They (Kathy and friends) hear the story, and Kathy and her friends go on their way. Kathy's friend goes in for his fourth donation, and is 'completed.' And at the end Kathy is thinking of all the friends who have gone, and the school. And a life that in the end, has no future.

It is a completely different perspective on the question of what it means to be human, of the hopes and fears of the cloning debate, and medical ethics in general. Not from an abstract philosophical perspective, but a life of one who is grows up thinking that this is proper and right future, to be harvested for her organs and nothing more. Fascinating reading even as it is disturbing. (less)

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Dec 08, 2011 Angus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-100-novels, reviewed-and-blogged, 5-stars

Original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

Intro

There’s something endearing about the title of this novel. It sounds like the ultimate request of someone who is deeply in love, which when not granted, would render the person incapable of going on.

This novel spurred a lot of attention by holding the reputation of being the most recently published book in Time Magazine’s list of 100 Best Novels. It’s exactly that reason it got me reeling. I thought that it should be The Remains of the Day instead, although...more

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Oct 15, 2010 Nikki rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: speculative-fiction, dystopia

(You may consider this review spoilery, if you read all of it. I state something explicitly that is below the surface of the book, at any rate.)

This book is a bit like having a one-sided conversation with the narrator. In consequence, it kinda feels like it rambles a bit -- they digress to talk about something else and then a couple of pages later, wrench it back to the original point. In some ways that makes it feel very natural, like someone talking, but to read it, it gets irritating.

There's...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Tatiana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001, 2010, favorites, contemporary, dystopias-post-apocalyptic

Let me start by saying that my review might contain some plot spoilers. However I personally don't think that knowing the plot in advance will in any way diminish the enjoyment of this story. The beauty of this book is not in the plot, but in its execution.

Another friendly warning: Never Let Me Go is for some reason often classified as science fiction. This is why so many readers end up disappointed I think. This novel is literary fiction at its finest. So if you look down on literary fiction an...more Let me start by saying that my review might contain some plot spoilers. However I personally don't think that knowing the plot in advance will in any way diminish the enjoyment of this story. The beauty of this book is not in the plot, but in its execution.

Another friendly warning: Never Let Me Go is for some reason often classified as science fiction. This is why so many readers end up disappointed I think. This novel is literary fiction at its finest. So if you look down on literary fiction and consider books written by authors like Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, and Jose Saramago pretentious, this is not a story for you.

Now to the novel itself. Kathy, now 31, is a former student of an English boarding school Hailsham. Hailsham is a school for kids with special purpose. All education in this school is geared towards conditioning its student to accept their "special" destiny as a given. As Kathy is getting ready to make her first donation while being a carer for other donors, she recounts her life in Hailsham and on her own, mostly in a form of anecdotes about herself and her best friends Ruth and Tommy, their rivalries, jealousies, and affection for each other. There is nothing particularly shocking, gruesome, or intense about Kathy's story, and yet it leaves you with a sense of being a part of a nightmare.

After reading quite a few reviews of the book, I can say that I loved the aspects of it that many abhorred. What other readers say about Kathy - her detachment, her lack of fire and rebellion, about broke my heart. What can be more heartbreaking than witnessing human lives wasted? Let me tell you - witnessing lives taken away from people who do not even realize what is being taken away from them, people who do not understand the value of their existence, people who do not know they have a right for more.

There is of course, much more to the story. The novel explores the futility of human life, its un-bargainable eventual "completion" and how we all choose to deal with the inevitable end. But for me personally the pain of Kathy's quiet resignation to her fate was what stood out and touched me the most.

In many ways Never Let Me Go reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Only Kathy is a step further from Offred. If Offred knows what horrors she is subjected to, but has no strength or will to change her circumstances, Kathy doesn't even know that her life "purpose," her destiny is inhumane. This work is also, to me, very reminiscent of Ian McEwan's Atonement. McEwan is a master of subtle build-up to an almost unbearable, life-shattering moment, but Ishiguro is a master of subtle telling without telling, foreshadowing, and emphasizing the gravity of the unsaid.

What else can I say about this novel? Never Let Me Go is a masterfully written work of fiction which raises questions of what it is to be human, what you choose to do in the face of an impending death and what happens when science is not accompanied by ethics. Subtle, eerie, chilling, and poignant. One of the best books I have read this year.(less)

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Jul 04, 2008 Stephen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: overrated, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 26, 2008 Rose added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

This book certainly made me think, but perhaps not quite as I was intended to. I like my fiction in line with Philip Pullman's view of things:

"...If I'm reading something I happen to know and gets it wrong, I just don't trust the book any more. What I ask of a novel I'm reading is that it should know a fraction more about the things I know than I do. When I'm writing...I ask myself: would I be convinced by this if I read it? If I knocked against this bit of scenery, would it feel solid?"

Unfortu...more This book certainly made me think, but perhaps not quite as I was intended to. I like my fiction in line with Philip Pullman's view of things:

"...If I'm reading something I happen to know and gets it wrong, I just don't trust the book any more. What I ask of a novel I'm reading is that it should know a fraction more about the things I know than I do. When I'm writing...I ask myself: would I be convinced by this if I read it? If I knocked against this bit of scenery, would it feel solid?"

Unfortunately, "Never Let Me Go" failed me on this front. For example, what were the four organs they were capable of donating? Why didn't they stick everyone on life support after the fourth donation so they could keep on harvesting? Why did they clone random lowlifes to get the organ donors, rather than considering tissue types (for example, cloning from people with the most common tissue types)? Why did the organ donation follow a fixed pattern? - For example, if someone needed the heart of a particular clone, did they have to wait until the clone had been through the previous rounds of donations? (It didn't seem like they could have an absolutely essential organ taken at the first few donations, because they always seemed a bit surprised when donors completed before their 4th time). Why didn't they maximise use of the clones by taking other bits, like using them as blood donors? Why did they think art was the only thing that could show the clones had souls? (I'd have thought it would be much more effective to, say, get clones to talk to people). Why did they list diseases that could be cured thanks to having clones, such as motor neurone disease and cancer, which I really can't see organ transplants curing?

I know that some find Kathy's obsession with mulling over the smallest detail at great length to be meaningful and a beautifully drawn consideration of the details of social interactions. For me, though, that was just boring, and the writing style was far too self-consciously "a girl relating her story as if to another person", as a result of too many uses of "as I say", "I don't know how it was where you were", and similar phrases.

However, I did like the ruthless contrast between Kathy's minute dissection of the smallest social interaction and her complete lack of introspection about her life and her fate. The characters' acceptance of what lies in store for them is chilling, and in some way both hard and all too easy to imagine. I would just have liked it if a little more thought had been given to believably fleshing out the world the clones lived in.(less)

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Leajk This is exactly how I felt about the movie! So many interesting questions left unanswered. And for me it was obvious there would be no deferals I was...more
Aug 10, 2012 12:26am

Sara Rose My theory, on the clones,is that they are modelled from each, individual human. I know that Ruth says they at modelled from the dregs of society, but...more
Mar 28, 2013 08:46am

Mar 03, 2008 Shannon (Giraffe Days) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, fiction, 2008, dystopian

It's very important, if you're intending to read this book, that you don't read any reviews or listen to any talk about it first. I had no idea what this book was about before I read it - and the blurb gives you a very different impression, actually - and so I slipped easily into a story that was as engrossing as it was revealing.

If you know something about what to expect, though, I don't think you'll enjoy it nearly as much. It's a bit like an art installation that requires audience participati...more

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Jan 11, 2011 Lucy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, i-feel-bad-for-not-liking-it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I think mostly I really wanted to be blown away by this novel and I wasn't. It was good, very good. The writing was beautiful, especially in the beginning, but at the end there was a certain amount of limping that took away a lot of the luster.

I'm pretty sure everyone who picks up this novel knows what it's about, which fits in just fine with how the students, or rather clones (and I did quite like the substituting of students with clones even in adult conversations later on), find out about wha...more I think mostly I really wanted to be blown away by this novel and I wasn't. It was good, very good. The writing was beautiful, especially in the beginning, but at the end there was a certain amount of limping that took away a lot of the luster.

I'm pretty sure everyone who picks up this novel knows what it's about, which fits in just fine with how the students, or rather clones (and I did quite like the substituting of students with clones even in adult conversations later on), find out about what they are. They pretty much know, but they don't know. Their education about who and what they are is so gradual that acceptance comes with it in the same degrees. Where you or I would kick and scream, their sense of power and control is so gently usurped that they can't seem to struggle against it. Some people had issue with the level of acceptance the students experience, but they expect this to be their lot in life from so early on that I found it reasonable, even understandable, for them to react this way. The majority of the characters' hesitation to rock the boat even with plausible loop holes is another sign of this acceptance that helped build into the believability for me.

The novel had other significant problems, at least for me. I didn't feel the romance between Tommy and Kathy was particularly moving or epic. I didn't even find it particularly romantic. They liked each other and sort of wanted to have sex at some point, but Tommy was almost always occupied and Kathy never managed to voice her feelings. I don't think even their sexual tension was written out well. It mostly felt like two people who would've been inclined to have a pleasant time with each other, but never epic love. I don't think their romance warranted Ruth making uncharacteristic confessions and apologies. If anything I'd buy Ruth's apologies more because she knew her time was short and she wanted forgiveness rather than to put anything 'right' for Kathy and Tommy -- they just weren't that important to each other or to me as a reader (both separately and as a pair.)

It was brave of Ishiguro to do this memoir-styleish without resolution or to have the character play a significant role in anything really. It was a memoir, an understated autobiography told by one of many clones, but it was a little disappointing to know how unimportant Kathy was. It was like a fictional version of Anne Frank's diaries, just one unimportant girl who is important for when she lived and what she was born as rather than anything she did or accomplished, but you never really love Kathy as so many people have loved Anne. I suppose some of it is Anne Frank having really lived, but really I should have been able to have similar feelings had the author done his job right. Kathy should have been alive for me and I should have shed a tear or two for her, but I didn't feel a lot. I thought in the end she didn't do much of anything.

The ending was abrupt and the book lacked important details that would have made the world it was written in better built. I would have liked to know more about how clones came to be. We do get a vague why in the very end of the book, most of it is guess work. I would have liked to know what the four surgeries involved because even with a limited understanding of biology I don't see how four 'donations' were possible with living and mostly not-disfigured clones was possible.

Kathy and Tommy's final goodbye is as lackluster as the rest of their romance. I'm going to give it a three because there was some beautiful writing and story telling going on here, but the characters and the direction it took would have been better served in another author's hands.

I know I'm a heathen.(less)

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Mar 12, 2011 Amanda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This resplendent novel was set around three lives. Three that are everlasting together; through friendship. Made on the soul purpose of someday giving their whole lives away. They didn't know it from the start, but they figure it out soon enough. Doesn't it make you think that we all do not have this fear. We are afraid of death, because it's distant, it's close, it's the only way out, the only way we can say, this person lived a life. They lived it the way they chose to. it's the passing of our...more

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Amanda oh yes, I do know that kathy and her friends do not want to actually help people by donating their entire body. But it's like people are forcing them...more oh yes, I do know that kathy and her friends do not want to actually help people by donating their entire body. But it's like people are forcing them to do this, they are born as clones, but they have emotions and they grow to become humans. The word clone is obviously saying they were made from others, but for certain reasons. And thus this is what they were made for, made for other people, and other clones as you said so they can live longer. It's like playing with fate in this case also, because people put on the donor list, do not always get their wish. And it's creating others to have people live longer and get treatment immediately. Is that what being human is? Using someone elses body as a copy of what you have already had inside of you? I see that you are saying, human is have restrictions on life but the restriction of these students is unhuman, it's something that does not actually happen in 'reality' but just a story line that shows how people develop and how futures are not always as we want them to be. Yes! I agree with if they were asked why they do not run away, they would say that it is wrong. But that is how they are raised, because they are sheltered, so they do not blend. Another reason why love is so tampered with. How they do not know things from living, they have to read them in books, or mindlessly hear about them. They cannot live a life they have created. Have you ever noticed how, of course, children learn from their parents. They know the difference between right and wrong from living, they say the same things as their parents, they think that they know everything. We look up to our parents, and elders. It's as if, every movement is watched over these students and its unbearable. Reason why it isn't real, life is not restricted that much to be confined and they do not have a longevity as we would have. I see what your saying with the "from above," but I just can't grasp or agree with the fact that people don't see the realizations of life, or that even if these are just characters does anyone realise, that they can't let others rule their life, or tell them how to live. I have heard the statement that, it takes an entire life to learn how to live, but in the middle, we have to decide for ourselves and we have to grow into our lives. It just isn't fair for them, like many people in life, but whatever happens to us, we should not let it control us or let people control us. In the "according to the author" does he mean literally? or just in the book? I feel like that could go in so many ways, a contradictory. I mean, if you do die young, you do see the simple thigns, the simple aesthetic of our entire world only to what you are able to see. But if you live long, you continue to see things and to learn, you never stop learning, you live until your body shuts down. And yes I would also agree with your statement, "It is sad if your friend or relative dies, but this is going to happen anyway." Even if you weren't going to die soon, we and all people should not take people for granted. To only appreciate someone because we we are dying or they are dying is no real relationship. We may not show it as much as we want to, but we all do love people underneath it all.
In a way, I could disagree with the authors ideas, but I feel like he only says the things he does because of the novel. It is a wonderful novel, with much potential to several ideas, and it's just like, we can take any ideas out of it. Not just what he puts into it, but what we make it.
Sorry about the late reply also!(less)
May 21, 2011 06:44pm

Amanda Well yes I see the whole point, I won't go against that.
Sorry for the inconvience, even from what I wrote you should still read the book if you haven'...more
Aug 01, 2011 10:52am

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