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 [Larger view] | Never Let Me Go
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Average user rating:  | |
| 4 but a surprisingly weak one | |
| Never Let Me go is a difficult book, I'd actually say, impossible book to review without discussing what isn't revealed fully until almost a 100 pages in. That's not really such as problem as some pretty heavy-handed references to the "surprise" come in the first few pages, many readers will figure it out in the first few dozen, and Ishiguro himself says he has no problem with reviewers revealing the premise as he "wasn't writing a mystery." But for those who prefer not to know, I'll keep the next paragraph spoiler-free then skip a line and give a spoiler alert before continuing.
Never Let Me Go is narrated by 31-year-old Kathy H, a soon-to-retire "carer" who looks back at her time at Hailsham, a strange and isolated English private school where she lived her entire youth. Moving back and forth in time, she revisits the school's strange rules and traditions, the oddly reticent live-in teachers or "Guardians", and especially the relationship she had with Tommy and Ruth--her two best friends. The book's strengths are its clear, clean prose; its muted voice, its shifting back and forth in time, its steadily accreting sense of poignancy. Its weaknesses are several scenes that would read much more tritely were they not bolstered by the weight conveyed due to the as-yet-to-be-revealed-in-this-review premise, a sometimes annoying repetition of qualifiers and reminders that memory is not 100 percent, and a sense that the world created hasn't really been fully thought out or fully stocked. The book can be moving, but lags in some places and annoys in others. And that's the vague review you get when the premise can't be discussed: a mildly pleasing book that disappoints somewhat in the end. Anyone who doesn't want the premise revealed should stop here. Spoilers below: It doesn't take long for the reader to figure there's something weird about Hailsham and it isn't that far into the book that the main premise is revealed, that Kathy, Tommy, Ruth and the other "students" are clones created to become organ donors. Kathy has been a "carer" (for the clones who donate) for over a decade and is soon to become a donor herself. She has reunited recently with Ruth and Tommy, both of whom became donors much earlier and both of whom are moving steadily towards their "completion" (death) which usually happens after the fourth donation. The premise is what gives the book the added weight some of its scenes desperately need. On the surface level, the book is a not-so-original "my life at boarding school story". Kathy recounts the usual angst of adolescence: the fear of being isolated, cliques, the exploration of sexuality, the cattiness of friends, the way friendships shift between rivalry and loyalty (especially when there is a triangle involved), the dominant girl and the more passive girl, etc. All of these scenes are handled deftly and smoothly, but not particularly originally. There isn't much spark to them, nothing we haven't seen a thousand times before. What rescues the book from cliche or from triteness of course is the chilling ever-presence of the premise. These are not normal pre-teens and teens. The fact that they are clones, that they are basically farm animals bred to be slaughtered, that they will almost all "complete" at a relatively young age (Kathy at 31 is pretty old in comparison to most it seems)--all of this adds weight to each would-otherwise-be-trivial scene. When Kathy talks about how the kids "collected" small, basically worthless items to mark their individuality, it's nothing more than all pre-teens do, except of course that in this situation it is, and one can't help but feel the echo of similar behaviors in the concentration camps. The same is true for the mysterious focus at Hailsham on producing art, on being creative. One of the earliest signs of something amiss is that the best kid at football is not honored for his athleticism but mocked for his lack of artistic talent. The guardians have full knowledge of the truth and it is slowly revealed to the students, but timed Kathy later suspects so that they were never really old enough to fully internalize what they were being told about their fate. Some adults show revulsion toward them, some pity, some regret, some anger. Among the three kids, Ruth is the dominant one, Kathy the more passive, and Tommy is caught in between, becoming Ruth's boyfriend but also clearly pining for Kathy, who as a young woman would like to return that affection but doesn't. Why she doesn't, what happens when the three reunite as adults, what they further learn about Hailsham are all points better left undiscussed, as they drive much of the plot in the last quarter of the book and they, at least, are meant to be somewhat suspenseful or mysterious. As mentioned above, the strengths of the book are its prose and its premise. As one expects from Ishiguro, the writing is sharp and efficient, smoothly tailored to its intended effect. The premise permeates the book and is disturbing not simply for its horror but also for the triviality of its presentation. This is no horrific dystopic vision like 1984 or the Handmaid's Tale. What chills here is the banality of the presentation, of the setting and the seemingly trivial activities of the children/teens. This is both strength, however, and weakness, for it's a very fine line Ishiguro is trying to walk, and if the banality of the conflicts and dialogues and "crises" serve to make the premise more chilling, they are also banal and for me at least they never completely escaped that banality. I see the chilling effect, I understand it, but a part of me kept reacting to the triviality of yet another teen angst book with two teen girls liking the same boy, with boys ganging up on another boy, with girls being mean to each other, etc. Kathy's voice was also somewhat problematic for me for it was a bit too muted, too matter-of-fact, at least until the very end. And there was the annoying frequency with which she would qualify her memories by saying something along the lines of "of course, memory isn't failsafe", or "Ruth (or Tommy) didn't remember it this way", or "I thought this was how it happened but now I find I'm unsure . . " and so on. I didn't mind the idea so much as how often it was thrown at me. Plot-wise, the ending seemed a bit forced--the search for a particular truth and the way a lot of information is revealed at the end in monologue form by an old woman in a room, much of the "mystery" summed up in a few pages of pure speech. But by far the largest problem I had was how the whole world premise felt only half-baked. While the self-contained world of Hailsham was well-presented, there were a lot of nagging questions with regard to what was happening elsewhere. The clones move freely in and out of society once they graduate from Hailsham, but there is little reaction to or from them with regard to "normals". Where are the inevitable extremists from either side--those who would protect them from their fate and those who would want to destroy them? Who are the organs for? Why does no one rebel, take a car and just drive away? How does nobody try to get word to the kids at Hailsham about what they really are and what their future is? Ishiguro has one Guardian break down and hint/reveal but it's handled more sentimentally than with any anger or sense of rebellion. One has to imagine there would be others who would take more active roles. Not that they had to be on-stage but rumors of such things, brief references to them would make the world seem more real. Even Tommy, who is noted for his frighteningly extreme temper, never rebels. The analysis that his temper was a subconscious reaction to the sensed truth of his life--"maybe on a level you knew before any of us"-- might explain 8-yr-old Tommy throwing a tantrum but not why 13-yr-old Tommy doesn't do worse. Or why 20-yr-old Tommy doesn't just take off once he's free of Hailsham's restrictions. In the end, the half-nature of the created world, the muted narrative voice, and the surface triviality of the kids' relationships combined to bleed the book of some of its power. Not all of it. As I've said, there is a sense of chill throughout, and the end is quite moving, as is the book as a whole. But if the book is greater than its parts, it isn't so by much. Recommended, but not with a lot of excitement. | |
| "You were bought into this world for a purpose" | |
| Never Let Me go opens with the young narrator Kathy H. telling us that she has been a "carer" now for eleven years, and that the authorities - whomever they are - have been generally pleased with her work. Then she talks about her "doners" and their "impressive recovery time," even before the "fourth donation." Kathy tells us that she's a graduate of Hailsham; a type of exclusive boarding school, "a privileged estate" set in the tranquil English countryside, presided over by a mismatched group called the "guardians."
Hailsham is no ordinary school. Like most boarding schools, Hailsham exists in its own enclosed world, with its own philosophy, and its own faintly odd traditions. But there's never any mention of parents or a home life, and daily existence is permeated with strange customs, names, and an esoteric terminology. Former students are known as "veterans" and a mysterious "Madame" drops by occasionally to collect artwork for something called "the Gallery." Obviously something strange is going on and it all looks obliquely sinister, but this hardly matters to Kathy and her best friends Tommy and Ruth, as they think they are living some sort of idyllic existence, having the best time of their lives. In Hailsham they had their own "lost corner." "We knew a few things about ourselves - about who we were, how we were different from our guardians, from the normal people outside. We perhaps new down the line there were donations waiting for us, but hadn't yet understood what any of it meant." In reality, the students are clones and have been bred specifically for harvesting their organs. After they do this, and their series of donations are finished, they'll be "complete" and presumably die. Of course, this is all kept mysteriously quiet, although the kids have a hint of their purpose. In one instance, a frantic Miss Lucy - one of their kinder guardians - blurts out that even before they're middle-aged they'll have to start to donate vital organs - their first donations, and "if your to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you." Ishiguro, in very careful increments, lets the children know, and through them us what Hailsham is really for - an exclusive institution where the children are reared for one soul purpose. For them death is not only inevitable, it's almost desirable. Kathy, Ruth and Tommy often discuss big plans for the future, but because of their preconceived role they stay fearful of the world around them - "unable to quite let each other go." Ishiguro takes a rather icy, restrained, and dispassionate look at this issue, but he does it from the point of view of the donor, rooting the reader firmly in the mind of Cathy. We get to see her thoughts and views of the world, and throughout, a picture emerges of a passionate, intelligent, perceptive, and also a remarkably sensitive woman, who is unfortunately regarded by the society around her as "not quite human." Never Let Me Go portrays a new world rapidly becoming more scientific; there are more cures for the old sicknesses, and there are now vast human banks rich in deposits of hearts and lungs and livers. But it's become also a harsh and cruel world full of scientific objectivity, where the donors are housed in government run institutions and where societies are exhibiting a resoundingly deep moral blindness towards the issue. It's a scenario that is chilling, compelling, otherworldly, and also deeply disturbing. Beautifully written, with exquisite warmth and tenderness, Never Let Me Go is often disquieting and worrying, but it will also fill you with the bright light of understanding and leave you absolutely enriched for the experience. This gifted author has created something astonishing, not so much a novel, but a passage into the heart of the human soul. Mike Leonard May 05. | |
 A MASTERPIECE | |
| I finished this book a few weeks ago and can't stop thinking about it. The subject is, ostensibly, biothics, but it reminded me that every life is, essentially, a genetic experiment. Kathy H understands no more and no less of her own fate than anyone does, and the last image of her standing before a barbed wire fence clotted with trash is unforgettable. |
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