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Rating:  -
My goodness, what can I say about this book? It is gloomy, sometimes funny, comtemplative, but no matter what emotion you have when reading this book, even the positive ones, it is tinged with a deep sense of sadness.
Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are students at an elite school in Hailsham and it is constantly stressed to them how special they are. Their school is also spoken of with great esteem and appears to be very well regarded. The students lives are characteristic of most boarding school kids. They study, fight with each other, gossip about their classmates and teachers and dream of the careers they will have when they leave school. But in all of this you will sense something odd that for a long time you can't quite put your finger on. One of the most puzzling things to me as I read, was the lack of mention of parents or guardians coming to visit. There was never really talk of "home", a common theme with kids at boarding school. Very, very slowly you begin to realize what is actually happening and then you are filled with horror. Indeed these children are special but not in the way we were all led to believe.
I do not want to say too much because I do not want to reveal anything important but I was left reeling after reading this book. Though I have not read any of Ishiguro's writing before this, I will definitely seek his work out because he is a brilliant writer. There were many times,I felt like I was physically in the book, as if I was experiencing the situations myself.
When the truth of the situation dawned on me, I kept wondering why the people involved never seem to contemplate the idea of escaping. The characters seem to be unaware of the idea of freewill, its like they have been programmed to accept their fate and never resist it. Kathy, our guide through this tale is sympathetic and tragic at the same time. At the end of the day regardless of the actual facts on the table, this book is about the unique relationship between these three friends and how it evolves over the years.
I HIGHLY recommend this book but be warned, its depressing.
Rating:  -
I cannot share the enthusiasm for this novel that some have expressed here. In my view, Ishiguro's plot is thin, his characters are flat -- take a look at the large-eyed young woman represented on the cover: is she a robot, a Stepford wife of the English variety perhaps? -- to the point that they come across as mostly inhuman, and the author barely explores the ethical issue -- are there limits on the uses of science that society should respect? -- which he raises.
Let's start with the open secret that this is a novel about cloned human beings. You will realize that long before the word "clones" is ever used, about twenty pages before the end, and that suggests a problem with the author's pacing or foreshadowing. The story is told from the point of view of Kathy, a young graduate of Hailsham (does that Dickensian name indicate the author's take on the ethical issue: will any good ever come from a sham?), an English boarding school now closed. Hailsham's students and graduates are unusually compliant souls. They do what they're told, which is strange considering that there is no mention of how they were socialized prior to their arrival at Hailsham. They accept their lot with a minimum of struggle or angst. Meanwhile, their "guardians" -- the teachers at Hailsham -- impose various rules, collect samples of the students' artwork for mysterious purposes, and wrestle with inner demons of their own.
The elegiac mood which some have praised in this work stems from the inevitability of its central characters' barren lives. There is little dramatic tension or movement in the novel. Once the secret is formally revealed, the book just fades away. To me this is a weakness, not a strength.
Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day was widely hailed -- there's that word again -- as a semi-outsider's rejection of the English class system and of its underlings' clinging to their place in society long after their place achieved any benefit for them. Never Let Me Go can be read for a similar subtext. Only a cruel and dying society would create human beings, with or without souls, to be exploited. For me there is too little insight in that vision, and Ishiguro's literary style is too unadorned to make up for his paucity of ideas.
Rating: -
There are two reasons why the story of "Never Let Me Go" is stunningly sad, immensely and heart-wrenchingly tragic. First, it is the context of the advancement in selfish, irresponsible, dehumanizing genetic technology, hailed as the best hope for humanity to conquer diseases and aging, yet ironically at the expense of the dignity of humanity itself, and the many precious souls who are the products of this God-less brilliance; represented by the main characters in this book; Kathy, Ruth and Tommy. Here the bigger picture is a depraved inhumanity; wherein though seemingly "very good, more scientific, and more efficient" and I should add, "more pragmatic" from the outside according to "Madame," but in reality "a harsh and cruel world" (p.272). Second, it is the vivid exposure of the natural humaneness that Ishiguro displays so exquisitely in the lives of those who are the victims of this horrid inhumanity. The atrociousness is exacerbated precisely by this natural humanness springing up from their personality, aspirations, and shattered dreams, which is even more ironically more humane than those supposedly the "real" human beings who are responsible for their existence intended to supply spare parts. The implications of this novel are huge. It wakes us up and asks ourselves the question, "What is a human being and what is his or her dignity?" I echo what Chuck Colson said in his review, "I recommend this book for adults and older teens (there's some material here that is not suitable for younger children), and I encourage you to share it with people who don't fully understand the cloning issue. Never Let Me Go is a powerful work of art that, by impacting the imagination, reaches us at the deepest level, which is often more powerful than the best scientific and political arguments."
Rating: -
Rivalling Aldous Huxley and others in terms of ideas and the themes of slavery, consumerism, science, medicine, art ... but I go on and don't mean to. Let's just say this work is ripe for appreciation by senior high school students so rich is it. More telling though is the skill of the writer in creating a credible voice for a 31 year old woman, and making that character believable, worth caring for, and interesting. In doing so the writer manifests one of the interesting themes himself by creating a meaningfulwork of art, a goal so desperately sought by the tragic figure of Tommy in his drawings of animals. A terrific read.
Rating:  -
*** NO SPOILERS - EXCEPT THAT THERE ARE NO WEREWOLVES IN THIS BOOK ***
I first heard of this book when it appeared as the most recent novel on TIME's 100 Greatest English-Language Novels list. So I read a description, "Children growing up in a nursing home... something's not right..." It sounded intriguing, so I gave it a whirl.
Regardless of what that 'sinister' thing is, it's merely a device to put more urgency on the rest of the events in the novel. And since the rest of the novel is a bunch of subtle and poetic observations and meditations on life and relationships as channeled through the lives and experiences of a group of friends, that makes the book a layered treasure trove of allusions to our own pains and joys.
The last thing you should know, is this book is gloomy, it's an elegy. I might even say it's lugubrious, but that's probably me injecting humor just to protect myself from the monumental sadness.
I don't know if I liked this book. But I will never regret reading it.
*** OK - A LAST MINUTE SPOILER ***
One nagging annoyance I have is why the character's rose to meet their fates, but not to change them entirely. Perhaps it's just Ishiguro's commentary on life coming through, perhaps it's something else. But they were all WAAAAAAAY to resigned to play by the system's rules.
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