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From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.
Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special–and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. Suspenseful, moving, beautifully atmospheric, Never Let Me Go is another classic by the author of The Remains of the Day.
Kazuo Ishiguro is the author of five previous novels, including The Remains of the Day, which won the Booker Prize and became an international best seller. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. In 1995 he received an Order of the British Empire for service to literature, and in 1998 was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year. That’ll make it almost exactly twelve years. Now I know my being a carer so long isn’t necessarily because they think I’m fantastic at what I do. There are some really good carers who’ve been told to stop after just two or three years. And I can think of one carer at least who went on for all of fourteen years despite being a complete waste of space. So I’m not trying to boast. But then I do know for a fact they’ve been pleased with my work, and by and large, I have too. My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as “agitated,” even before fourth donation. Okay, maybe I am boasting now. But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit about my donors staying “calm.” I’ve developed a kind of instinct around donors. I know when to hang around and comfort them, when to leave them to themselves; when to listen to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it.
Anyway, I’m not making any big claims for myself. I know carers, working now, who are just as good and don’t get half the credit. If you’re one of them, I can understand how you might get resentful—about my bedsit, my car, above all, the way I get to pick and choose who I look after. And I’m a Hailsham student—which is enough by itself sometimes to get people’s backs up. Kathy H., they say, she gets to pick and choose, and she always chooses her own kind: people from Hailsham, or one of the other privileged estates. No wonder she has a great record. I’ve heard it said enough, so I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty more, and maybe there’s something in it. But I’m not the first to be allowed to pick and choose, and I doubt if I’ll be the last. And anyway, I’ve done my share of looking after donors brought up in every kind of place. By the time I finish, remember, I’ll have done twelve years of this, and it’s only for the last six they’ve let me choose.
And why shouldn’t they? Carers aren’t machines. You try and do your best for every donor, but in the end, it wears you down. You don’t have unlimited patience and energy. So when you get a chance to choose, of course, you choose your own kind. That’s natural. There’s no way I could have gone on for as long as I have if I’d stopped feeling for my donors every step of the way. And anyway, if I’d never started choosing, how would I ever have got close again to Ruth and Tommy after all those years?
But these days, of course, there are fewer and fewer donors left who I remember, and so in practice, I haven’t been choosing that much. As I say, the work gets a lot harder when you don’t have that deeper link with the donor, and though I’ll miss being a carer, it feels just about right to be finishing at last come the end of the year.
Ruth, incidentally, was only the third or fourth donor I got to choose. She already had a carer assigned to her at the time, and I remember it taking a bit of nerve on my part. But in the end I managed it, and the instant I saw her again, at that recovery centre in Dover, all our differences—while they didn’t exactly vanish—seemed not nearly as important as all the other things: like the fact that we’d grown up together at Hailsham, the fact that we knew and remembered things no one else did. It’s ever since then, I suppose, I started seeking out for my donors people from the past, and whenever I could, people from Hailsham.
There have been times over the years when I’ve tried to leave Hailsham behind, when I’ve told myself I shouldn’t look back so much. But then there came a point when I just stopped resisting. It had to do with this particular donor I had once, in my third year as a carer; it was his reaction when I mentioned I was from Hailsham. He’d just come through his third donation, it hadn’t gone well, and he must have known he wasn’t going to make it. He could hardly breathe, but he looked towards me and said: “Hailsham. I bet that was a beautiful place.” Then the next morning, when I was making conversation to keep his mind off it all, and I asked where he’d grown up, he mentioned some place in Dorset and his face beneath the blotches went into a completely new kind of grimace. And I realised then how desperately he didn’t want reminded. Instead, he wanted to hear about Hailsham.
So over the next five or six days, I told him whatever he wanted to know, and he’d lie there, all hooked up, a gentle smile breaking through. He’d ask me about the big things and the little things. About our guardians, about how we each had our own collection chests under our beds, the football, the rounders, the little path that took you all round the outside of the main house, round all its nooks and crannies, the duck pond, the food, the view from the Art Room over the fields on a foggy morning. Sometimes he’d make me say things over and over; things I’d told him only the day before, he’d ask about like I’d never told him. “Did you have a sports pavilion?” “Which guardian was your special favourite?” At first I thought this was just the drugs, but then I realised his mind was clear enough. What he wanted was not just to hear about Hailsham, but to remember Hailsham, just like it had been his own childhood. He knew he was close to completing and so that’s what he was doing: getting me to describe things to him, so they’d really sink in, so that maybe during those sleepless nights, with the drugs and the pain and the exhaustion, the line would blur between what were my memories and what were his. That was when I first understood, really understood, just how lucky we’d been—Tommy, Ruth, me, all the rest of us.
.
Driving around the country now, I still see things that will remind me of Hailsham. I might pass the corner of a misty field, or see part of a large house in the distance as I come down the side of a valley, even a particular arrangement of poplar trees up on a hillside, and I’ll think: “Maybe that’s it! I’ve found it! This actually is Hailsham!” Then I see it’s impossible and I go on driving, my thoughts drifting on elsewhere. In particular, there are those pavilions. I spot them all over the country, standing on the far side of playing fields, little white prefab buildings with a row of windows unnaturally high up, tucked almost under the eaves. I think they built a whole lot like that in the fifties and sixties, which is probably when ours was put up. If I drive past one I keep looking over to it for as long as possible, and one day I’ll crash the car like that, but I keep doing it. Not long ago I was driving through an empty stretch of Worcestershire and saw one beside a cricket ground so like ours at Hailsham I actually turned the car and went back for a second look.
We loved our sports pavilion, maybe because it reminded us of those sweet little cottages people always had in picture books when we were young. I can remember us back in the Juniors, pleading with guardians to hold the next lesson in the pavilion instead of the usual room. Then by the time we were in Senior 2—when we were twelve, going on thirteen—the pavilion had become the place to hide out with your best friends when you wanted to get away from the rest of Hailsham.
The pavilion was big enough to take two separate groups without them bothering each other—in the summer, a third group could hang about out on the veranda. But ideally you and your friends wanted the place just to yourselves, so there was often jockeying and arguing. The guardians were always telling us to be civilised about it, but in practice, you needed to have some strong personalities in your group to stand a chance of getting the pavilion during a break or free period. I wasn’t exactly the wilting type myself, but I suppose it was really because of Ruth we got in there as often as we did.
Usually we just spread ourselves around the chairs and benches—there’d be five of us, six if Jenny B. came along—and had a good gossip. There was a kind of conversation that could only happen when you were hidden away in the pavilion; we might discuss something that was worrying us, or we might end up screaming with laughter, or in a furious row. Mostly, it was a way to unwind for a while with your closest friends.
On the particular afternoon I’m now thinking of, we were standing up on stools and benches, crowding around the high windows. That gave us a clear view of the North Playing Field where about a dozen boys from our year and Senior 3 had gathered to play football. There was bright sunshine, but it must have been raining earlier that day because I can remember how the sun was glinting on the muddy surface of the grass.
Someone said we shouldn’t be so obvious about watching, but we hardly moved back at all. Then Ruth said: “He doesn’t suspect a thing. Look at him. He really doesn’t suspect a thing.”
When she said this, I looked at her and searched for signs of disapproval about what the boys were going to do to Tommy. But the next second Ruth gave a little laugh and said: “The idiot!”
And I realised that for Ruth and the others, whatever the boys chose to do was pretty remote from us; whether we approved or not didn’t come into it. We were gathered around the windows at that moment not because we relished the prospect of seeing Tommy get humiliated yet again, but just because we’d heard about this latest plot and were vaguely curious to watch it unfold. In those days, I don’t think what the boys did amongst themselves went much deeper than that. For Ruth, for the others, it was that detached, and the chances are that’s how it was for me too.
Or maybe I’m remembering it wrong. Maybe even then, when I saw Tommy rushing about that field, undisguised delight on his face to be accepted back in the fold again, about to play the game at which he so excelled, maybe I did feel a little stab of pain. What I do remember is that I noticed Tommy was wearing the light blue polo shirt he’d got in the Sales the previous month—the one he was so proud of. I remember thinking: “He’s really stupid, playing football in that. It’ll get ruined, then how’s he going to feel?” Out loud, I said, to no one in particular: “Tommy’s got his shirt on. His favourite polo shirt.”
I don’t think anyone heard me, because they were all laughing at Laura—the big clown in our group—mimicking one after the other the expressions that appeared on Tommy’s face as he ran, waved, called, tackled. The other boys were all moving around the field in that deliberately languorous way they have when they’re warming up, but Tommy, in his excitement, seemed already to be going full pelt. I said, louder this time: “He’s going to be so sick if he ruins that shirt.” This time Ruth heard me, but she must have thought I’d meant it as some kind of joke, because she laughed half-heartedly, then made some quip of her own.
Then the boys had stopped kicking the ball about, and were standing in a pack in the mud, their chests gently rising and falling as they waited for the team picking to start. The two captains who emerged were from Senior 3, though everyone knew Tommy was a better player than any of that year. They tossed for first pick, then the one who’d won stared at the group.
“Look at him,” someone behind me said. “He’s completely convinced he’s going to be first pick. Just look at him!”
There was something comical about Tommy at that moment, something that made you think, well, yes, if he’s going to be that daft, he deserves what’s coming. The other boys were all pre- tending to ignore the picking process, pretending they didn’t care where they came in the order. Some were talking quietly to each other, some re-tying their laces, others just staring down at their feet as they trammelled the mud. But Tommy was looking eagerly at the Senior 3 boy, as though his name had already been called.
Laura kept up her performance all through the team-picking, doing all the different expressions that went across Tommy’s face: the bright eager one at the start; the puzzled concern when four picks had gone by and he still hadn’t been chosen; the hurt and panic as it began to dawn on him what was really going on. I didn’t keep glancing round at Laura, though, because I was watching Tommy; I only knew what she was doing because the others kept laughing and egging her on. Then when Tommy was left standing alone, and the boys all began sniggering, I heard Ruth say:
“It’s coming. Hold it. Seven seconds. Seven, six, five . . .”
She never got there. Tommy burst into thunderous bellowing, and the boys, now laughing openly, started to run off towards the South Playing Field. Tommy took a few strides after them—it was hard to say whether his instinct was to give angry chase or if he was panicked at being left behind. In any case he soon stopped and stood there, glaring after them, his face scarlet. Then he began to scream and shout, a nonsensical jumble of swear words and insults.
We’d all seen plenty of Tommy’s tantrums by then, so we came down off our stools and spread ourselves around the room. We tried to start up a conversation about something else, but there was Tommy going on and on in the background, and although at first we just rolled our eyes and tried to ignore it, in the end—probably a full ten minutes after we’d first moved away—we were back up at the windows again.
The other boys were now completely out of view, and Tommy was no longer trying to direct his comments in any particular direction. He was just raving, flinging his limbs about, at the sky, at the wind, at the nearest fence post. Laura said he was maybe “rehearsing his Shakespeare.” Someone else pointed out how each time he screamed something he’d raise one foot off the ground, pointing it outwards, “like a dog doing a pee.” Actually, I’d noticed the same foot movement myself, but what had struck me was that each time he stamped the foot back down again, flecks of mud flew up around his shins. I thought again about his precious shirt, but he was too far away for me to see if he’d got much mud on it.
“I suppose it is a bit cruel,” Ruth said, “the way they always work him up like that. But it’s his own fault. If he learnt to keep his cool, they’d leave him alone.”
“They’d still keep on at him,” Hannah said. “Graham K.’s temper’s just as bad, but that only makes them all the more care- ful with him. The reason they go for Tommy’s because he’s a layabout.”
Then everyone was talking at once, about how Tommy never even tried to be creative, about how he hadn’t even put anything in for the Spring Exchange. I suppose the truth was, by that stage, each of us was secretly wishing a guardian would come from the house and take him away. And although we hadn’t had any part in this latest plan to rile Tommy, we had taken out ringside seats, and we were starting to feel guilty. But there was no sign of a guardian, so we just kept swapping reasons why Tommy deserved everything he got. Then when Ruth looked at her watch and said even though we still had time, we should get back to the main house, nobody argued.
Tommy was still going strong as we came out of the pavilion. The house was over to our left, and since Tommy was standing in the field straight ahead of us, there was no need to go anywhere near him. In any case, he was facing the other way and didn’t seem to register us at all. All the same, as my friends set off along the edge of the field, I started to drift over towards him. I knew this would puzzle the others, but I kept going—even when I heard Ruth’s urgent whisper to me to come back.
I suppose Tommy wasn’t used to being disturbed during his rages, because his first response when I came up to him was to stare at me for a second, then carry on as before. It was like he was doing Shakespeare and I’d come up onto the stage in the middle of his performance. Even when I said: “Tommy, your nice shirt. You’ll get it all messed up,” there was no sign of him having heard me.
So I reached forward and put a hand on his arm. Afterwards, the others thought he’d meant to do it, but I was pretty sure it was unintentional. His arms were still flailing about, and he wasn’t to know I was about to put out my hand. Anyway, as he threw up his arm, he knocked my hand aside and hit the side of my face. It didn’t hurt at all, but I let out a gasp, and so did most of the girls behind me.
That’s when at last Tommy seemed to become aware of me, of the others, of himself, of the fact that he was there in that field, behaving the way he had been, and stared at me a bit stupidly.
“Tommy,” I said, quite sternly. “There’s mud all over your shirt.”
“So what?” he mumbled. But even as he said this, he looked down and noticed the brown specks, and only just stopped himself crying out in alarm. Then I saw the surprise register on his face that I should know about his feelings for the polo shirt.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” I said, before the silence got humiliating for him. “It’ll come off. If you can’t get it off yourself, just take it to Miss Jody.”
He went on examining his shirt, then said grumpily: “It’s nothing to do with you anyway.”
He seemed to regret immediately this last remark and looked at me sheepishly, as though expecting me to say something comforting back to him. But I’d had enough of him by now, particularly with the girls watching—and for all I knew, any number of others from the windows of the main house. So I turned away with a shrug and rejoined my friends.
Ruth put an arm around my shoulders as we walked away. “At least you got him to pipe down,” she said. “Are you okay? Mad animal.”
1. Kathy introduces herself as an experienced carer. She prides herself on knowing how to keep her donors calm, “even before fourth donation” [p. 3]. How long does it take for the meaning of such terms as “donation,” “carer,” and “completed” to be fully revealed?
2. Kathy addresses us directly, with statements like “I don’t know how it was where you were, but at Hailsham we used to have some form of medical every week” [p. 13], and she thinks that we too might envy her having been at Hailsham [p. 4]. What does Kathy assume about anyone she might be addressing, and why?
3. Why is it important for Kathy to seek out donors who are “from the past,” “people from Hailsham” [p. 5]? She learns from a donor who’d grown up at an awful place in Dorset that she and her friends at Hailsham had been really “lucky” [p. 6]. How does the irony of this designation grow as the novel goes on? What does Hailsham represent for Kathy, and why does she say at the end that Hailsham is “something no one can take away” [p. 287]?
4. Kathy tells the reader, “How you were regarded at Hailsham, how much you were liked and respected, had to do with how good you were at ‘creating’” [p. 16]. What were Hailsham’s administrators trying to achieve in attaching a high value to creativity?
5. Kathy’s narration is the key to the novel’s disquieting effect. First person narration establishes a kind of intimacy between narrator and reader. What is it like having direct access to Kathy’s mind and feelings? How would the novel be different if narrated from Tommy’s point of view, or Ruth’s, or Miss Emily’s?
6. What are some of Ruth’s most striking character traits? How might her social behavior, at Hailsham and later at the Cottages, be explained? Why does she seek her “possible” so earnestly [pp. 159–67]?
7. One of the most notable aspects of life at Hailsham is the power of the group. Students watch each other carefully and try on different poses, attitudes, and ways of speaking. Is this behavior typical of most adolescents, or is there something different about the way the students at Hailsham seek to conform?
8. How do Madame and Miss Emily react to Kathy and Tommy when they come to request a deferral? Defending her work at Hailsham, Miss Emily says, “Look at you both now! You’ve had good lives, you’re educated and cultured” [p. 261]. What is revealed in this extended conversation, and how do these revelations affect your experience of the story?
9. Why does Tommy draw animals? Why does he continue to work on them even after he learns that there will be no deferral?
10. Kathy reminds Madame of the scene in which Madame watched her dancing to a song on her Judy Bridgewater tape. How is Kathy’s interpretation of this event different from Madame’s? How else might it be interpreted? Is the song’s title again recalled by the book’s final pages [pp. 286–88]?
11. After their visit to Miss Emily and Madame, Kathy tells Tommy that his fits of rage might be explained by the fact that “at some level you always knew” [p. 275]. Does this imply that Kathy didn’t? Does it imply that Tommy is more perceptive than Kathy?
12. Does the novel examine the possibility of human cloning as a legitimate question for medical ethics, or does it demonstrate that the human costs of cloning are morally repellent, and therefore impossible for science to pursue? What kind of moral and emotional responses does the novel provoke? If you extend the scope of the book’s critique, what are its implications for our own society?
13. The novel takes place in “the late 1990s,” and a postwar science boom has resulted in human cloning and the surgical harvesting of organs to cure cancer and other diseases. In an interview with January Magazine Ishiguro said that he is not interested in realism.* In spite of the novel’s fictitious premise, however, how “realistically” does Never Let Me Go reflect the world we live in, where scientific advancement can be seemingly irresistible?
14. The teacher Lucy Wainright wanted to make the children more aware of the future that awaited them. Miss Emily believed that in hiding the truth, “We were able to give you something, something which even now no one will ever take from you, and we were able to do that principally by sheltering you. . . . Sometimes that meant we kept things from you, lied to you. . . . But . . . we gave you your childhoods” [p. 268]. In the context of the story as a whole, is this a valid argument?
15. Is it surprising that Miss Emily admits feeling revulsion for the children at Hailsham? Does this indicate that she believes Kathy and Tommy are not fully human? What is the nature of the moral quandary Miss Emily and Madame have gotten themselves into?
16. Critic Frank Kermode has noted that “Ishiguro is fundamentally a tragic novelist; there is always a disaster, remote but urgent, imagined but real, at the heart of his stories” [London Review of Books, April 21, 2005]. How would you describe the tragedy at the heart of Never Let Me Go?
17. Some reviewers have expressed surprise that Kathy, Tommy, and their friends never try to escape their ultimate fate. They cling to the possibility of deferral, but never attempt to vanish into the world of freedom that they view from a distance. Yet they love the film The Great Escape, “the moment the American jumps over the barbed wire on his bike” [p. 99]. Why might Ishiguro have chosen to present them as fully resigned to their early deaths?
18. Reread the novel’s final paragraph, in which Kathy describes a flat, windswept field with a barbed wire fence “where all sorts of rubbish had caught and tangled.” She imagines Tommy appearing here in “the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up” [p. 287]. What does the final sentence indicate about Kathy’s state of mind as she faces her losses and her own death—stoicism, denial, courage, resolution?
19. In a recent interview, Ishiguro talked about Never Let Me Go: “There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? As time starts to run out, what are the things that really matter? Most of the things that concern them concern us all, but with them it is concertinaed into this relatively short period of time. These are things that really interest me and, having come to the realization that I probably have limited opportunities to explore these things, that’s what I want to concentrate on. I can see the appeal of travel books and journalism and all the rest of it and I hope there will be time to do them all one day. But I just don’t think that day is now.” How do these remarks relate to your own ideas about the book? [Interview with Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian, February 2, 2005.]
poosie
Posted September 10, 2010
I Also Recommend:
This amazing, intriguing novel really works the mind and is intricately plotted and very well thought-out. A group of human clones are trapped in a society devoid of moral conscience. The characters grow, blossom, fight and love. There are so many human emotions to deal with. At one level this is a deeply moving and sad love story told by a young woman, the sole survivor of a love triangle. At another level, it's an accumulative horror story. In a special boarding school where, in total isolation, they are being prepared for an early death by organ donation to the terminally ill. The plot is rather simple, a woman in her 30s starts recalling her youth at this boarding school after meeting up again with an old friend and her friend's ex-boyfriend, who she had a crush on. Through her work, she cares for both of them and learns more about why they were born, and what is in store for them. There is sorrow, poignancy, mystery and suspense, not to mention totally unique!
17 out of 22 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.The thing about Never Let Me Go is that it is best to go in completely blind. I had no clue what the book was about, I wanted to see the movie, so I figured I'd read the book first. Going in blind about the plot, about the entire novel, made it that much better for me.
Told by Kathy, a thirty one year old 'carer,' in reverent back and forth memories from her present to all the tiny, yet meaningful moments that spattered her life in the past, makes the book feel very conversational which makes it more personal; like Kathy is reliving her past with the reader. She recalls her days at Hailsham, the boarding school that she shared with others like her; with Tommy and Ruth, her two closest friends. Getting to know these three is like getting reacquainted with an old friend, but the fact that they are special never eludes the reader.
The plot for the book is not hard to guess once you begin reading it. The hints about what is going on are not very subtle at all, but the execution of getting to the final reveal is done so beautifully and delicately. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy's fate is inevitable. They know it, but we, as readers, will understand it more than they ever seem to. We are the ones who feel the ache of innocence lost and the heartbreak of the future to come.
Life, love, and death are all monumental moments in our lives, but this book tackles the brevity of life and the notion that we are stuck in our roles, in the lives that have already been forged for us. Hailsham students have a purpose and it may not be one we are all comfortable with.
Ishiguro goes beyond the loss of innocence and makes you question the meaning of life, who deserves it, and just how large a role fate plays in life. Never Let Me Go is a powerful, moving portrait of humanity at its best and worst; with all the splendor of childhood innocence and the harsh reality of the cruelties the world has to offer. It's not simply a book about human mortality and loss; it is about the nature of human beings and the ethical dilemmas that could easily arise in the world we are developing. This book will make you feel something and only the best ones can do it so well. It's been hailed as the best novel of the decade and I can only agree because this is truly a masterpiece.
Opening line(s): My name is Kathy H. I'm thirty-one years old, and I've been a carer now for over eleven years. ~ pg. 3
Favorite lines/passages (I've got two):
"One day, maybe not so long from now, you'll get to know how it feels." So you're waiting, even if you don't quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don't hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you - of how you were brought into this world and why - and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. ~ pg. 36
And this one:
It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven, could unravel and separate over a thing like that.
But the fact was, I suppose, there were powerful tides tugging us apart by then, and it only needed something like that to finish the task. If we'd understood that back then - who knows? - maybe we'd have kept a tighter hold of one another. ~ pg. 197
14 out of 16 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 19, 2005
What makes this book a page-turner (I read it in two-days) is the way the author lets the details of the story unfold so gradually, constantly making the reader want to know more. The book is very well written, and though I've not read anything else of Ishiguro's, my interest in his work has been piqued by this novel. My only complaint is the rushed ending, which seems rather staged and hollow, not at all in keeping with the rest of the book. Still, a fascinating read, incredible subject matter (I won't give anything away, because for me, at least, it was perfect going into this read with no preconceived ideas) and a must on your bedside reading table!
8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This book was an absolutely devastating read. I knew after the first or second chapter exactly what the "reveal" was, but it isn't a story meant to conclude when you learn what happens behind the curtain.
It also isn't science fiction, which, upon learning the substance of what challenges the characters, one would assume it to be. It's hard to pigeon-hole it as anything definite - neither political, dramatic, etc; it seems, instead, to explore a number of themes. The story itself has a life and no life can really be explained away as being mono-thematic.
I was particularly disturbed after finishing the book, having never felt such sadness and loss after reading something. It was a loss that seemed irreconcilable and irredeemable, and I didn't know quite how to feel about it. I had a lot of questions that I felt were purposely ignored, that bothered me throughout the book, and yet that didn't seem to ruin the story for me. I think the question that will pop up for whomever decides to read this - where is the survival instinct? how are these people so expressive in their humanity, and yet without the will to escape? - is meant to leave you feeling the way you do, as you can assume it probably leaves the characters you are reading about feeling the very same way. There is the question of nature versus nurture (are we born believing we possess certain rights innately? or is this something we are taught? are we born to believe we must strive to live on and on, even if someone tells you that is not the case, from the very moment you are born?) and the question, cliched as it seems, of what it means to be human, but more importantly, what it means to live, what is a life, what events define it, what must occur for one to definitively say "I have lived a life in full."
6 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.ScarlettTe
Posted July 23, 2012
To start off, this book is not about clones, or stem cell research. I cringe when I read reviews that focus only on the Sci-Fi aspect of this book. IT'S NOT ABOUT THAT! If that was the only thing you noticed about this book, then you only read it superficially. The reason everything surrounding the clones and program was so laid out for the reader, was so he or she could focus on other, more pertinent points of the book. The author is not trying to make a point of whether or not something such as these 'clones' is ethical, but the book is supposed to provoke you into thinking of humanity, and how you live your life. This book, by the end, will make you want to have someone to talk through the book with, to better comprehend and realize the majesty of this great novel. It's also necessary to point out to the reader that the author is Japanese (though also English). Therefore his story does not have the Northern American "can-do" attitude. Many readers argue that the students should have rebeled, and escaped their fate. That's what any U.S. citizen would have done. But, in Japan, it is thought more noble and heroic to accept your fate. You can kick and buck against this novel, but it's useless. Never Let Me Go is a beautifully worded, thoughtful book. I GREATLY recommend this book to anyone who is over the best-selling fluff out today.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.nickWILSON
Posted October 18, 2010
I realized what was going on in the first couple chapters, as I hope anyone else would!
The writing style is SO repetitive. Its like a 6th grader wrote this- and not a very bright one. The one time in 280 pages ishiguro tries to use some interesting imagery, the author destroys it by basically explaining the metaphor/symbolism step by step for you in the very next paragraph! So: the plot is terrible- the writing style is pathetic, the whole book is terribly boring, I don't know what else to say except I'm furious I wasted my time on this dribble.
3 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 20, 2012
NEVER LET ME GO stands out as one of the most remarkable books I have ever read. It is difficult to say whether this book is sci-fi or plain fiction. Whatever, it is unique in the sense that it would satisfies any high-minded reader who is versed with present day developments and what could happen in the future. The lesson learnt is that the meaning of life is best achieved when we find joy, joy which comes from the soul. That joy from the soul surpasses blind faith, unsubstantiated materialism and an idealistic purpose of life that is based on discrimination. Ishiguro successfully weaved this story through characters that we can easily relate to, characters who in their pathetic states mirror man at the height of his false sense of achievement. In its portrayal of the futility of life, I got reminded of Disciples of Fortune, Frankenstein. This is a recommended read for a deep-thinking person.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 4, 2012
I first heard about the movie then learned it was adapted from a novel so I thought I read it first. It was an interesting novel, definitely never read anything like it before. The ending was sad, though for some reason I couldnt get attached to the novel, I found myself at times forcing myself to read it because I wasnt really into it. But still a nicely done book.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.This novel is about young people who are called special and they are all Hailsham students. Hailsham is some sort of an orphanage because the students don't have any family. They are clones and were created to donate organs to cure 'normal' people. Their life span is about 30 years and yet they get an education at Hailsham as if they were destined to a fulfilling live as intellectuals.
It's rumored among the students of Hailsham that when a boy and a girl love each other sincerely, they are allowed to have two years for themselves before the final stage of their short life. The two main characters find the person who can give the permission but she says that it was only a rumor, nothing more. This makes me angry and sad. Something you and I take for granted are not allowed to this persons and the fact that they are 'special' becomes an empty phrase. They were never given a fair chance to lead their own lives.
What is the meaning of this novel? I said that they were never given a fair change to lead their own lives but are we able to do so? We have our loved ones to take care of, we live in a troublesome society and we are easily destroyed by incurable diseases. Is our live better or easier? I believe that in the end, Kazuo Ishiguro has written a symbolic novel about the fragility of our lives regardless of what or who we are.
2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted July 29, 2008
Expertly crafted and paced, NEVER LET ME GO is nothing like the other author's book, REMAINS OF THE DAY. I loved the character development and way that all the people reacted to situations. It was at once real and at the same time atmospheric and surreal.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 18, 2007
This book was a total disappointment. I cannot believe that so many reviewers praised it highly and were 'surprised' by the truth revealed in the last pages. Really? In the first few pages, the now-grown children are referred to as 'Donors' and 'Carers'--what did you THINK that meant? No surprises for me--just a lot of boring details about adolescents in an exclusive school with a supposed 'secret.' I stuck with it, but when I was done, I wished I had spent my time on something else.
2 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 14, 2005
In simple prose Ishuguru weaves his story slowly giving out one detail at a time.It is a story of childhood friendship,love and quite original.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.A short and easy read, yet very enjoyable. There was never a point where I felt bored, and I was practically glued to the pages as I tried to gather more and more clues as to the mystery of what was taking place in this dystopia-like society. Although it was very simple, I felt that my emotions were significantly impacted, which I love in books.
The only criticism I had was that the writing style was not a particular favorite of mine. It read more like young adult fiction than I prefer, but the overall story made up for it. Every now and then it was hard to keep up with what the narrator was talking about, since it tended to switch focus rather quickly, but whenever that happened it was easy to get back on track. I'd say it's worth reading.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted July 14, 2012
This book is crushing in a way that will have you thinking for a very long time. How much of who we are is moulded by our culture? Individual freedom is a fantasy? Very disturbing and much more than cloning.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted July 10, 2012
1 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted June 18, 2012
This was a great book i am about to be a freshmen and 1 book was a requirement to read so I choose this book because the cover looked interesting and when I got into it I actually stared liking it and I must say this book is for 13 year old and up I recomend it to you guys I know it seems ife to get but trust you will like it :p
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted May 27, 2012
I wish I hadn't watched the movie first I think the mystery would have been really good if i hadn't known all the little secrets already. I love this book it is so haunting and really puts perspective on life and living it. It is dark and moving book that has left an impression. Read it...
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 3, 2012
I had to read this book for class and i absolutly hated it the authir did such horrible job on writing this book you get confused throughout the while book
Jelena forever
1 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted September 19, 2008
In the story Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro raises important issues about today¿s society and the definition of life and when it begins and ends. The story takes place in Kathy¿s childhood home of Hailsham, a prestigious boarding school. There she met Tommy and Ruth, two of her best friends that help her through some of the toughest and most confusing times she has throughout her childhood. The school was in the secluded English country side where no-one from the outside world, except maintenance workers and the head of the boarding school itself, was allowed into the premises. This seclusion brought up many questions over their years at Hailsham, but the ¿guardians¿ were sure never to give the students more information than they needed to know. That is until one day when a guardian named Mrs. Lucy told them the dark secret of the place they called home. She told them that they were all clones and that when the time came they were going to go through the process of donations the donation of their vital organs to those who needed them from the outside. All the years of the teachers telling them that they were special finally made sense. They were indeed special, but only in their ability to prolong the lives of others at the expense of their own lives. Throughout this story Kazuo Ishiguro brings up important issues that are going on in today¿s society. For one, we can¿t play God. It¿s immoral to make clones of someone and then when they have experienced life brutally kill them by harvesting their vital organs. This brings up the point of, when does a life, really become a life. Just like when is it wrong to harvest stem cells from the fetus, when is it wrong to harvest organs from a clone? Ishiguro uses the interesting story of Kathy and her life, and the life of her friends to make a point. I would recommend this story to anyone who feels strongly about the topic of cloning, or to anyone who just really likes a good sci-fi suspense story.
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted September 26, 2008
Never Let Me Go is a book I would recommend for no one, mainly because it lacks an explosive beginning. also, though you are entitled to your own opinion, I do not agree with Debra Bruno of the Chicago Sun-Times when they said that 'This is a novel worth reading. It's disturbing, mesmerizing, thought-provoking.' also, I do not think that I would recommend this book for freshmen in college. One review that I do agree with is Mark Harris of Entertainment Weekly, 'After you read it, give it to a friend. You'll want to have someone to argue with.' [8 April 2005, p. 69], yeah ya'll would argue, about how bad this book is.
1 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
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Overview
From the Booker Prize-winning author of The Remains of the Day comes a devastating new novel of innocence, knowledge, and loss. As children Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.
Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for...