“Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Book Title: Never Let Me Go
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Publication Date: 2005
Genres: Adult Fiction, Sci-Fi
Goodreads Rating: 3.81 Stars
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love.
As a child, Kathy – now thirty-one years old – lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.
And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed–even comforted–by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing façade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now.
A tale of deceptive simplicity, Never Let Me Go slowly reveals an extraordinary emotional depth and resonance–and takes its place among Kazuo Ishiguro’s finest work.
1. This book was exhausting. I’ll preface this by saying this book is a bit exhausting. For such a slow-paced book, it was difficult to follow. The author would start a story in the middle, then backtrack to the beginning. Over and over. Every story (and I do think this novel is made up of short stories from Kathy’s memory) was started in the middle or at the end, and then the author would say something like, “I guess I should start at the beginning…” or “I mentioned before thisandthat, but I guess I should tell the whole story…”. I really think his writing style, more than the story itself, was what won awards and made this a critically acclaimed book. It was so unlike anything I’ve ever read.
2. I didn’t read the blurb. At all. I went into this book knowing the hype and not knowing what this book was about. At all. So when Kathy first mentions Hailsham, I didn’t really realize it was a school. I had no idea of the significance of Ruth and Tommy on Kathy’s life, and, because the whole book is a flashback (or memory, I guess), I completely trusted the author to eventually reveal all to me. And he did. Beautifully. I’m so glad I had no clue what was going on in the beginning because I feel like it was revealed so delicately, just like it was revealed to Kathy.
3. The characters and their lives. I really didn’t/don’t understand most of Kathy’s motivations throughout the book, but I think that’s the point. The world that they are in, and their purpose in it, is something that they seem to accept without question, and I can only imagine that is why Kathy and Ruth are friends. So many people on Goodreads are wondering why the main characters didn’t run away or try to fight the system, but I think that’s the point. The system was put in place and they felt like this was their purpose in life, despite being put down and looked at as less than.
4. Trying desperately to avoid spoilers. And for this book, that’s nearly impossible. I recommend reading it (especially if you have some time to really sit with it). Also, the quotes down below are a bit spoilery as well, so avoid those if you want to read this book!
This novel is like nothing I’ve ever read before, and it has left me with so many questions about the world these characters live in (while also giving commentary on the world we currently live in).
“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart. That’s how it is with us. It’s a shame, Kath, because we’ve loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can’t stay together forever.”
“Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it’s a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.”
“What I’m not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we’ve lived through, or feel we’ve had enough time.”
“I half closed my eyes and imagined this was the spot where everything I’d ever lost since my childhood had washed up, and I was now standing here in front of it, and if I waited long enough, a tiny figure would appear on the horizon across the field and gradually get larger until I’d see it was Tommy, and he’d wave, and maybe even call.”
“It was like when you make a move in chess and just as you take your finger off the piece, you see the mistake you’ve made, and there’s this panic because you don’t know yet the scale of disaster you’ve left yourself open to.”
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