Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4035 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-02
• Released on: 2006-03-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 276 pages

Synopsis
In one of the most acclaimed and strange novels of recent years, Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now 31, "Never Let Me Go" hauntingly dramatises her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, "Never Let Me Go" is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

Customer Reviews

A strange, disappointing read
This is a strange book. The plot unfolds very slowly - in places, too slowly - at first with hints, then with a little more; tasters of what's to come. And yet in the end, I felt there were too many unanaswered quesitons, and I felt cheated. The characters are two-dimensional and never really come alive. For me, a good novel has to have 3 main ingredients. It has to have at least one really sympathetic character, it should be well-written, and it must hold my attention. The best this novel did for me was to hold my attention, but only because I wanted explanations and answers, and in the end these were not forthcoming.

Adding my voice to the sound of disappointment...
I was excited to see this work by Kazuo Ishiguro, having read a good number of his previous novels and enjoyed them. Unfortunately, "Never Let Me Go" falls short of Ishiguro's usual high standard.

Whilst the premise of the story has great potential, the plot lacks pace and the delivery struggles to hold (my) the reader's interest. Who is the intended audience? I wonder. Not seasoned adult readers, surely.

I found "Never Let Me Go" a slow, tedious read, and while I did find myself wanting to discover if there were indeed any dark mystery, I resorted to speed reading to reach the end - a sure sign, for me, of a certain lack of quality.

Sorry to say, when there are so many spectacular reads out there, and so little time, this one gets a thumbs down from me.

Sensitive, ultimately credible
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a compelling portrait of people on the downside of a dystopia. Like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale or J G Ballard's Kingdom come, Never Let me Go is built around an abhorrent aspect of social organisation. Crucially, in all three books, the focus of the subject matter is merely an extension of a facet of our own society. Fertility issues provide the material for The Handmaid's Tale, while brainless consumerism fuelled Kingdom Come. Kazuo Ishiguro's subject matter has a medical focus that provides an essentially more credible idea than either of the two other works mentioned. Eventually Ballard's vision cannot be maintained by his scant material, whereas Margaret Atwood's is strengthened by the credibility of its own downside. Ishiguro's story line is strong enough in itself to maintain interest, credibility and drama from start to finish. There is real humanity in this story.

The book begins in Hailsham, an obviously special school set in an idyllic corner of the English countryside. But this is clearly no ordinary education. We follow the fortunes of three of its students, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy. We see them grow up, make their fumbling transformation from childhood to adolescence and then embark upon the stuttering unpredictability of young adulthood. Hailsham's students have to learn how to deal with their own shortcomings and how to manage their talents. They must cope with sometimes strained relations with their teachers, especially in the area of reconciling what they want to do versus what seems to be demanded of them, and thus what they are allowed to attempt. They become aware of sex and introduce themselves to its world in their own ways at different times, each of them reacting differently to their experience.

So what makes these people so special? Well, for a start they live protected lives. They never appear to need any money, nor possessions, for that matter, what little they do have being recycled ad infinitum via a system of almost formal barter. They seem to be protected from fashion, consumerism, family break-up, mass media and even street life. Surely there is something strange about them, despite their apparently normal physical, mental and psychological characteristics.

Not until about half way through the book does the reader start to fill in the blanks. But by the end the dreadful picture is complete, and rendered even more frightening by its complete credibility. To find out the nature of the plot, you will have to read the book, but, though I have stressed the importance of the overall concept's contribution to the book's success, it is not the subject matter that makes this a superb novel. It is the characterisation, the empathy that the reader develops with Kathy and Tommy and the sympathy that their tragedy eventually engenders. The context served to amplify these responses, not blur or confuse them. It is this quality that makes never Let Me Go a completely memorable and highly moving read.