Never Let Me Go

If you think deciding what is moral or right is easy, read this novel and think again. What if you could save total populations from death by premature disease, from death by cancer, from birth defects and heart conditions. Would you do that? Of course. Would you do that if it required the extinction of another group of people? What if you could classify those people as not people at all? What if you could define the having of a soul and decide they do not have one?

Ishiguro tackles this issue without any preaching or proselytizing. He just lays out a story about three individuals, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, who grow up in a school called Hailsham; a group of children who have a predetermined future and a purpose they did not choose and of show more which they have no control. He delves into the lives of three young people who fail to fully understand how hopeless their future truly is and who fail to grasp how fully they stand outside the world they occupy. What they feel and think about their situation as it unfolds is both predictable and strangely unpredictable. I kept wanting them to run away, to escape, to reject this unfair fate, but in the end they were as tied to the society they lived in as those who would benefit were. This story ripped at my insides and made me wish to scream and flail and pitch the same tantrums for which Tommy was so markedly known, because it seemed the greatest horror here was that “normal” people could condemn these children to unbelievable suffering and anguish by simply labeling them as “different”, as inhuman.

Like all good horror tales, the most frightening aspect of this tale is its possibility. I cannot fear anything that I know cannot happen. This sends shivers because it mirrors our past and envisions our future. We have, dating back to the beginning of our recorded history, evidence that we can dehumanize others and use them for our own ends. The technology depicted here just serves as another way to reach that same end.

I finished this book collapsed in tears. I was crying for Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, for Miss Emily and Madam, who were helpless to change things, and for everyone whose dreams are futile and squashed before they have wings to fly. show less

Never Let Me Go was my first Kazuo Ishiguro.
It wasn’t at all what I was expecting but I wasn’t in the least bit disappointed.
Kathy, Tommy and Ruth become childhood friends at Hailsham School where they are encouraged by their guardians to embrace the arts through extensive reading and painting. It soon becomes clear that Hailsham is not your average boarding school and that the children are being reared for a dark, distorted purpose.
Never Let Me go is beautifully written. Deeply atmospheric, mysterious and sinister, intrigue builds as the trio are moved from Hailsham to The Cottages aged 16 where they start to question, understand and accept their incontrovertible future.
I got a real sense of place: far-reaching, barren show more countryside; decrepit tumble-down farm buildings; stark, sterile medical facilities and traditional seaside towns.
The story behind the title of this novel and the relationship between Kathy, Tommy and Ruth are incredibly moving, Tommy being the most sensitively and evocatively portrayed, from his fits of self combustion to his intricate pencil sketches.
Kazuo Ishiguro totally drew me into his imagined, alternate world and I’m looking forward to reading more of his books – The Remains of the Day will be next! show less

Hablar de la narrativa de Kazuo Ishiguro es hablar de un estilo maravilloso, precioso, no he podido encontrar el adjetivo adecuado porque la única palabra que me viene a la cabeza es "romántico", pero no se confundan el libro no es de este corte, uso este término como adjetivo, con una fluidez y un ritmo impecable, te va llevando palabra a palabra, tranquilamente, si, es muy inglés, con esa forma que tienen los ingleses tan particular de contar historias, pero también esta ahí muy marcado su influencia japonesa, esa manera que tienen los japoneses de hablar de sentimientos como si fueran muebles pero no por eso dejan de ser profundos, de saber contar las cosas mas horribles de un ser humano sin que suene a que éste es un show more monstruo, sin juzgar, como alejado del tema. Es maravilloso y cuando lo lees comprendes porque fue un digno ganador de un Nobel.

La historia no la puedo meter en un género en particular, podría ser distopía, pero aquí no vemos todos esos elementos tan deprimentes del género, porque Ishiguro no juzga a la sociedad de ninguna manera, únicamente nos cuenta los hechos por lo que son, porque así es y nada mas, aquí no hay malos ni buenos, sencillamente se trata de una supuesta realidad donde todos saben cual es su papel en la vida.

Por otro lado los personajes son increiblemente reales, esa manera en que los pinta como victimas sin serlo realmente, personas que viven como cualquier otro, tienen amigos, se enamoran, tienen sueños, pero no muchos, porque todos estan concientes de cual es su rol en la vida, no son victimas no se estan enojados ni con la vida, ni con las personas ni con nadie por lo que les tocó, a eso vinieron y lo hacen con mucha dignidad e incluso hasta con valor y con orgullo.

Es un libro que habla de sentimientos, de resentimientos, de amistad, de amor, lealtades y deslealtades, simplemente no se deja nada en el tintero.

Un libro que ha sido digno de leerse, que me ha dejado un excelente sabor de boca y con muchas mas ganas de seguir leyendo a este escritor.

Muy recomendable show less

Ishiguro's style is so calm and quiet it takes a while for the reader to realize the horror it depicts. There's little action in this book, lots of accurate sounding conversation, inward dialogue, and the depiction of the relentless wave of fate crushing the compliant characters. The question by most of the population at the end of the book is "Is there any point in educating non-people?" The question by the reader at the end of the book is "What makes a person a person, and is it in the interest of some of us to deny the humanity of others whom we can enslave?"

Recommended for people asking those questions, and also, strangely, for anyone interested in the animal rights movement.

Kathy H, a simple and likeable woman of 31, tells in a "talking heads" style monologue of her life so far, and in particular of her adolescence at Hailsham, a seemingly happy boarding school somewhere deep in the English countryside.

Kathy's style is of an everyday sort, artlessly constructed by the author to show her ordinary humanity. Her vocabulary is limited, her story repetitive and discursive; she's the sort of chatty young woman you might bump into any day of the week in Tesco or, in the course of her actual job, sitting over a coffee and doughnut in some impersonal motorway café as she flits her lonely way around the country. But, as we gradually learn, Kathy, her friends and her world are far from ordinary. The truth drips out show more little by little. Hailsham teaches its students to be creative, but not how to cope with life in the outside world. The nature of the terrible destiny planned for these children, carefully isolated from the everyday world outside, emerges only partly for them; a rumour here, a slip of the tongue there, now and then a glimpse of something far off. By the time Kathy, once a caring and compassionate child, is telling her story she has accepted her fate and is resigned to it.

Early in Kathy's narrative I wanted to give her a good slap and tell her to get to the point, but she never really does. The pace never changes, there are no great crises and no great climactic moments. It breaks all the rules of formula fiction. And yet to condemn Kathy's story for its humdrumness is to miss the point; it's carefully crafted that way to bring out the true horror behind it in the most chilling way possible.

What kind of book is this anyway? Ishiguro makes no attempt to present any scientific basis of what's going on or to place it in any real way in our world, but that just makes it more achingly plausible. Children brought into the world with one particular purpose in mind, people who by class or caste are detached from civil society and give prescribed roles, nevertheless have a fundamental need for love and belonging and those who – no, we who have been outsiders can recognise the inevitable conflict that results. On one level this is fantasy; as allegory its premise can be extended to any number of isolated and excluded groups and ring with terrifying truth.

Does it work? Hell, yes! It's a long time since I read the last pages of any book through a film of tears. There are books you can't put down and there are books you eventually have to walk away from for a while to catch your breath. And maybe to spin it out for a little bit longer just as Kathy, alone now in the world, tries to defer the moment when she will walk away quietly to her fate.

Gobsmacking. Top marks all the way; a sure future classic and a Brave New World for our time. show less

I went into this novel after already having watched the movie about 2 years ago. I thought that because of this I wouldn't enjoy it as much, considering I knew the entire plot and ending but I was pleasantly surprised .
This book follows a first person narrative, the narrator being a woman named Kathy H. Without spoiling too much, I'll say that the book is about Kathy and her memories of her life through childhood in a suspicious boarding school called Hailsham to her adult years and we learn about her relationship with her two friends Ruth and Tommy. I know that says hardly anything about the plot of the book but it's almost impossible to say anything about the book without spoiling it. Some people categorize it under the genre show more science fiction but if you're going into it solely for the scifi aspect you will be majorly disappointed. This is more literary fiction and it's definitely more character driven than plot driven.
I loved this book so so much! The characters were so real to me and so fleshed out; all of them had their flaws and I could see them as real people that I could meet in real life. Kazuo Ishiguro has such a beautiful writing style. Throughout the whole book, you can feel an air of sadness and nostalgia just through reading his words. Ishiguro is not scared to delve into some dark topics in this text like the imminence of death and how little time we have on this earth. But he does it so well, this is definitely a book that will make you think for days after reading it. I would recommend it to anyone who is into literary fiction and enjoys strong character driven novels.
5/5 show less

On the surface, this is a simple story of growing up - the trivial events of childhood that mean so much at the time, making and losing friends, adolescence, leaving school, going to university, and then life without the security of comforting routines and no fear of the future. But what makes Kazuo Ishiguro's novel so unique and poignant is the disturbing alternate reality of clones and organ farming around which he crafts such an ordinary and familiar tale. I don't know what I was expecting, when I saw a trailer of the film adaptation and was tempted into reading the book, but this wasn't it!

Kathy H. and her friends Tommy and Ruth spend the golden days of their childhood at Hailsham, an experimental boarding school where the pupils show more and their 'guardians' have no last names and no real sense of identity. They have no possessions of their own, but can buy each other's work at the 'Sales', and the shadowy headmistress, known only as 'Madame' visits regularly to take away the best creations for her 'gallery'. The children also know that they are being trained for a very special future, first as 'carers' and then as 'donors'. On their fourth donation, they will have 'completed', but the harvesting process won't even end there.

Kathy, Ruth and Tommy understand what the future holds for them, but they still live as normal teenagers, pairing off and finding new friends at the 'Cottages', a sort of college placement after Hailsham, always trying to make sense of their lives and their feelings. The imagery is very effective, simple yet haunting, and although the truth about Kathy and her friends is there from the first chapter, the slow unravelling of the facts is scarily daunting, because it honestly could happen, in some well-meaning, post-apocalyptic future. I also appreciated the nuances in the first person narrative and dialogue, because it revealed how sheltered and naive these test-tube children are without dumbing them down.

And after reading Kathy's story with the film trailer in mind, I think Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley will be perfect in their respective roles as Kathy and Ruth, and can't wait to watch the film! show less