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Loading... Never Let Me Go (Movie Tie-In Edition) (Vintage International) (original 2005; edition 2010)by Kazuo Ishiguro
Work InformationNever Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Author) (2005)
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Another book that I had looked forward to reading and ended up disappointed ( ) Mixed feelings here. Very easy to read and rather compelling -- I felt drawn to it when I wasn't reading -- but overall I'm let down. It's hard to discuss without spoiling but I found the mysterious aspects of the plot disappointing in the end. I wish we had had more insight into the Guardians from the very beginning. The childhood/teenaged angst and love triangle with Kath/Ruth/Tommy was familiar to me and felt realistic (likely because I had a Ruth-like friend in high school!) but that too was ultimately unsatisfying. Not interested at all in seeing the movie but am interested in reading more Ishiguro. Finished Never Let Me Go a couple of days ago, just under a week, the fastest I've read a novel in I duneven know how long. I wouldn't even describe it as a page turner, just crisply written and well paced, with 10 to 12 page chapters (chapter length imo is underrated in a book's readability, the shorter the better, I just started Cry the Beloved Country and it has super-brisk 5 and 6 page chapters, I'm a fan). No science fiction, but there is for sure a fictional world aspect to it, that is to say that it's set in England in the 1970's to the 1990's, and the world is somewhat different from ours, although the difference is subtle and never quite spelled out the characters the book revolves around are rather on the horns of the difference. I'm certainly looking forward to reading more Ishiguro, at the very least Remains of the Day and the new one, which does promise from what I've heard just a bit of the Science Fiction (although again, he's very obviously not interested in "science fiction" any more than Lionel Shriver is interested in "parallel universes," if that makes any sense).
Ishiguro is extremely good at recreating the special, oppressive atmosphere of school (and any other institution, for that matter)—the cliques that form, the covert rivalries, the obsessive concern with who sat next to whom, who was seen talking to whom, who is in favor at one moment and who is not. The eeriest feature of this alien world is how familiar it feels. It's like a stripped-down, haiku vision of children everywhere, fending off the chaos of existence by inventing their own rules. "Never Let Me Go" is marred by a slapdash, explanatory ending that recalls the stilted, tie-up-all-the loose-ends conclusion of Hitchcock's "Psycho." The remainder of the book, however, is a Gothic tour de force that showcases the same gifts that made Mr. Ishiguro's 1989 novel, "The Remains of the Day," such a cogent performance. This extraordinary and, in the end, rather frighteningly clever novel isn't about cloning, or being a clone, at all. It's about why we don't explode, why we don't just wake up one day and go sobbing and crying down the street, kicking everything to pieces out of the raw, infuriating, completely personal sense of our lives never having been what they could have been. Belongs to Publisher SeriesIs contained inHas the adaptationHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a studyHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it. Within the grounds of Hailsham, Kathy grows from schoolgirl to young woman, but it's only when she and her friends Ruth and Tommy leave the safe grounds of the school (as they always knew they would) that they realize the full truth of what Hailsham is. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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