Trevor's review
Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
I'm glad someone told me this was sci-fi before I started reading, because, if she hadn't, I wouldn't have made it past the first ten pages...
:P
I'm glad that no one told me anything about this book before I read it, as it became an intriguing discovery as I got more and more engrossed in the story. I am surprised that people even put this in the category of science fiction. I'd say it was "dystopian" instead.
Your review is so insightful. I read this book and really didn't think much of it honestly. But reading what you have to say about it makes me think about it in a whole different way, makes me think about it for the 1st time actually. Thank you!
I think I liked two things in particular about the book. One was the transparent simplicity of style which was simply a pleasure to negotiate. Nothing fancy. Appears simple and thus able to handle hugely complex ideas.
The other was the way it left me thinking almost endlessly about the characters and about what was going on.
One of the masterful things about the book is the way it effortlessly introduces its own terms and they are totally believable. So the idea that the individuals who have been cloned from other human beings are fascinated by human beings who might be their 'possibles' is wonderful. Completely 'true'.
And the idea that after four 'donations' one has 'completed'. That is marvellous too. There's a whole world simply in the acceptance and implementation of those terms.
I was fascinated by the narrator and by what she doesn't say, and also by what the novel doesn't do. If this were Orwell and 1964 we would see an attempt by the 'cloned' individuals to fight for their right to exist as individuals, even if that fight failed. But they don't fight. They wholly accept their role in life, and that makes them (and especially the narrator) feel curiously alien, and at the same time curiously real. It's in TV drama that people fight their fates. In reality, they are socialised into accepting them, no matter how unacceptable they are.
It is a terribly sad book. A tragedy.
I do think the weakness is in the last eighth of the book when Ishiguro explains far too much. He was so very good at leaving the reader to accept a world which could be imagined if not fully understood that he didn't need that artificial section at the end in which the teachers explained the world and the thinking behind it. But the short section on the field in high wind where Kathy and Tom have to cling onto each other to stand upright -- that is a marvellous image.
Somebody will make a film out of this novel and people will weep at the end.
Trevor -- the way you noticed the exploration of sexuality and illness -- yes, yes, -that too is so fascinating, and so taboo. And in this novel, subtly understated and therefore potent. Understatement is one of Ishiguro's great strengths. What the characters *don't* have is never underlined -- but they are fatally isolated. They have no families, no cousins or mothers or fathers or aunts. Their peer relationships are all they have, and even those relationships are deficient. It's like the 'real' side of the sitcom *Friends* where everything seems harmonious and at the same time unnatural, because our strongest relationships are rarely with our peers actually, except on tv and among the dispossessed. And also like the nostalgia for childhood novels -- the Enid Blyton novels set in boarding schools, where all the relationships are with other children and the teachers are slightly remote romantic characters.
I was fascinated by the way the characters remembered different details out of their shared past experience, and got slightly annoyed when their friends didn't quite remember it the same way. The past is treacherous in this respect. Baby, baby, never let me go. This novel doesn't let you go. You keep thinking about it. That's good writing for you.
Excellent - I couldn't help thinking that the life of the clones wasn't all that different to our lives. We all complete, really - they just have a certain structure that we lack. Their tragedy is our tragedy made plain. Which is why the 1984 response would be so hopeless - I've seen the people who fight against 'the inevitable' - they have faces that are so tight that they can't smile and they eat bird seed rather than food.
As Ani Difranco says, "I never thought I could accept all these dark colours, as just part of some bigger colour scheme" - but the dark makes the light so much lighter. The final tragedy of life isn't that we didn't fight against the dark, but perhaps that we never saw it was just as important as the light.
I'm glad to see someone else agrees that Ishiguro "revealed" too much at the end. It was a bit of a disappointment as I felt he was falling into the Hollywood "trap", where plots are carefully spelt out for the audience. Although perhaps he might have slightly balanced it out by revealing glimpses of Madame's curious personality.
I also agree with the previous comment about this book should be classed more as a dystopian. I knew nothing about the book when I read it and even when I finished it would never have thought to class it as science fiction until I read the reviews on Goodreads.
Trevor's review
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Trevor's review
rating:
recommended for: almost anyone
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 frigh...more
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 frigh...more
I'm glad someone told me this was sci-fi before I started reading, because, if she hadn't, I wouldn't have made it past the first ten pages...:P
I'm glad that no one told me anything about this book before I read it, as it became an intriguing discovery as I got more and more engrossed in the story. I am surprised that people even put this in the category of science fiction. I'd say it was "dystopian" instead.
Your review is so insightful. I read this book and really didn't think much of it honestly. But reading what you have to say about it makes me think about it in a whole different way, makes me think about it for the 1st time actually. Thank you!
I think I liked two things in particular about the book. One was the transparent simplicity of style which was simply a pleasure to negotiate. Nothing fancy. Appears simple and thus able to handle hugely complex ideas.
The other was the way it left me thinking almost endlessly about the characters and about what was going on.
One of the masterful things about the book is the way it effortlessly introduces its own terms and they are totally believable. So the idea that the individuals who have been cloned from other human beings are fascinated by human beings who might be their 'possibles' is wonderful. Completely 'true'.
And the idea that after four 'donations' one has 'completed'. That is marvellous too. There's a whole world simply in the acceptance and implementation of those terms.
I was fascinated by the narrator and by what she doesn't say, and also by what the novel doesn't do. If this were Orwell and 1964 we would see an attempt by the 'cloned' individuals to fight for their right to exist as individuals, even if that fight failed. But they don't fight. They wholly accept their role in life, and that makes them (and especially the narrator) feel curiously alien, and at the same time curiously real. It's in TV drama that people fight their fates. In reality, they are socialised into accepting them, no matter how unacceptable they are.
It is a terribly sad book. A tragedy.
I do think the weakness is in the last eighth of the book when Ishiguro explains far too much. He was so very good at leaving the reader to accept a world which could be imagined if not fully understood that he didn't need that artificial section at the end in which the teachers explained the world and the thinking behind it. But the short section on the field in high wind where Kathy and Tom have to cling onto each other to stand upright -- that is a marvellous image.
Somebody will make a film out of this novel and people will weep at the end.
Trevor -- the way you noticed the exploration of sexuality and illness -- yes, yes, -that too is so fascinating, and so taboo. And in this novel, subtly understated and therefore potent. Understatement is one of Ishiguro's great strengths. What the characters *don't* have is never underlined -- but they are fatally isolated. They have no families, no cousins or mothers or fathers or aunts. Their peer relationships are all they have, and even those relationships are deficient. It's like the 'real' side of the sitcom *Friends* where everything seems harmonious and at the same time unnatural, because our strongest relationships are rarely with our peers actually, except on tv and among the dispossessed. And also like the nostalgia for childhood novels -- the Enid Blyton novels set in boarding schools, where all the relationships are with other children and the teachers are slightly remote romantic characters.
I was fascinated by the way the characters remembered different details out of their shared past experience, and got slightly annoyed when their friends didn't quite remember it the same way. The past is treacherous in this respect. Baby, baby, never let me go. This novel doesn't let you go. You keep thinking about it. That's good writing for you.
Excellent - I couldn't help thinking that the life of the clones wasn't all that different to our lives. We all complete, really - they just have a certain structure that we lack. Their tragedy is our tragedy made plain. Which is why the 1984 response would be so hopeless - I've seen the people who fight against 'the inevitable' - they have faces that are so tight that they can't smile and they eat bird seed rather than food.
As Ani Difranco says, "I never thought I could accept all these dark colours, as just part of some bigger colour scheme" - but the dark makes the light so much lighter. The final tragedy of life isn't that we didn't fight against the dark, but perhaps that we never saw it was just as important as the light.
I'm glad to see someone else agrees that Ishiguro "revealed" too much at the end. It was a bit of a disappointment as I felt he was falling into the Hollywood "trap", where plots are carefully spelt out for the audience. Although perhaps he might have slightly balanced it out by revealing glimpses of Madame's curious personality.
I also agree with the previous comment about this book should be classed more as a dystopian. I knew nothing about the book when I read it and even when I finished it would never have thought to class it as science fiction until I read the reviews on Goodreads.
