Never Let Me Go

Kazuo's first novel, Never let me go, is an adventure of despair and a weird love triangle.
In this review, I will be diverting my attention and knowledge across different aspects of this collection of the English lexicon.

Though this book may or may not have been entitled 'bestseller' by various democratic propaganda new sources, such as The New York Times, the book manages to bore me even more every single page I read. Whenever I assume that there's no such distinct possibility of an even more delusional and pathetic chapter, it surprises me over and over.

Somehow, the author Kazuo has managed to make this 288-page book feel like a thousand-page book. This is even worse than the poets about Job's miserable life in The Bible, or the songs of Salomo. Both sections of The Old Testament have been an absolute agony for me to read, but compared to Never let me go, they're absolutely terrific.

Anyway, the book goes on about the life at Hailsham, the daily bullying of Tommy and Ruth's secret guard. Personally, despite that my opinionated opinion thinks it is incredibly obnoxious and mind-numbing, I do think that these parts of the book really show the origins of the characters and the character personalities and as reader, I could see the character development. But this does not excuse the tedious writing and long-winded rubbish that the readers have to endure.
In the first couple of chapters, the book is rambling about how Tommy was bullied, just because of a weird elephant drawing he made. He was on a field, waiting to be chosen in a team, but nobody chose him. He became enraged and stormed off. Kathy and Ruth go to him and talk with him.
A couple of chapters later, it's about the gallery and about how the students create art works and get a certain amount of tokens for their work, they can use the tokens to buy certain goods from a truck that comes along once a week or so.

Somewhat further in the book, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy move to another location, 'The Cottages', where they start having sexual intercourse and start developing actual romantic feelings for each other.

All this leads to the end of the book, where the author's intentions are finally revealed. Personally, while reading the book, I thought those scenes were pretty useless. It didn't contribute a lot to the plot (at least in my opinion) and was just written for more pain and suffering.
However, somewhere at the end of the book, Kathy and Ruth visit one of their old guardians and the guardians explain why they gave tokens in exchange for their art.
The guardians told Kathy and Ruth that as they weren't actually human, but clones, people didn't think they should be treated like humans. They said there were dozens of institutions around the world, where the students / clones were mistreated and not treated humanely, since they weren't actually birthed, but just copied from another human.

The guardians used the art to prove that their students or clones did actually have feelings, emotions and thoughts. That despite not being birthed, but just copied, they did show signs of humanity.

So this part, at the end of the book, is basically the only part where the author discusses the morality and humanity of clones. Personally, I found this the only enjoyable part, as I thought the discussion was interesting. And I think the scenes with Tommy becoming angry for not being chosen, the art that was taken from students, in exchange for tokens and the sexual and romantic parts of the book, were probably written, with the intention of letting the reader know that the clones have human feelings and emotions too. I was actually hooked to this part, because I was interested in seeing the different perspectives and the arguments used. But unfortunately, the ethical discussion about clones, barely lasted two or three chapters. It had happened in the blink of an eye, which is a pity, since the book could be way more interesting and attractive, if they would focus more on that part.

Anyway, though the plot and concept of clones being harvested for organ donation has a tremendous amount of potential, the author wastes it all, for the sake of a love story, which is a shame, since it could be a lot more fun to read.

I found Never Let Me Go in a basket full of paperbacks at Fretex in Ullevålsveien and thought “Surely that’s one of the 1001 books? Well, even if not it’s probably worth 10 kroner.” It was. Both.

Having seen the film Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins, based on Ishiguro’s novel by the same name, I guess I was expecting a similar sort of plot. You know, English realism or whatever one should call it. That is hardly how you’d describe Never Let Me Go, though. It’s another kettle of fish entirely. Very English, yes, and set in an England of sorts, but in a parallell universe (thanks be). It is going to be hard to say much about it, as if you are going to read it – and you really should – you should be allowed to unfold the premises of the setting with no spoilers from me (or anyone else). In fact, go read it now, then come back and read the rest of this post. I will try not to give too much away, but I cannot promise to succeed if I am to say anything at all meaningful.

Beautifully written, Never Let Me Go captured my attention in a way no contemporary novel has done for oh such a long time. Very, very hard to put down.

For me, Ishiguro’s greatest triumph is making Kathy, the narrator, so very loveable and human while also, somehow, subtly “other”. Whether nature or nurture is the cause, one can only guess. Very sneaky (Ishiguro’s achievement, that is) in a good way.

As it is, the novel is a chilling argument, one might almost say body of evidence, in the (still) current debate.

Still reading this review? Go read the novel. I will say no more.