Review on Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

"Nevertheless, we all of us, to varying degrees, believed that when you saw the person you were copied from, you'd get some insight insight into who you were deep down, and maybe too, you'd see something of what your life held in store."


Never Let Me Go(2005) is named after a song on an album named Songs After Dark by fictional singer Judy Bridgewater. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005, for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2005. Shortlisting is another terminology used in awards for displaying a noteworthy finalist. The movie adaptation of the book is set to release in 2010.

The author, Kazuo Ishiguro, displays a freedom of thought glancingly similar to James Joyce's stream of consciousness writing. Fortunately, and in line with my own personal preferences, it only faintly resembles such accolade. In this novel he is portraying three life segments of a young to middle aged girl named Kathy H..

Is it often that we stumble upon a male author writing award-winning material with their main character being the opposite gender? There are examples of this happening. Of the many examples, I believe the proportions to be vastly skewed in favor of both main characters that are male and unsuccessful attempts at capturing an undeniable element of femininity. In this case, Ishiguro is creative and clever, finding the niche where every individual character's mind may lie. To contrast between Ishiguro and what a female writer may have written, I find that Kathy H. is personified as being less vicariously empowered, and that because of this she is also inherently fragile. For the analysis go further indepth, it would lose direct connection to the content. I found it enjoyable to see limitation, a piece of the fabric of the story itself, becoming less of a handicap and moreso a rare bloom of life to behold.

A strong downside to reading Never Let Me Go is the necessary but unwanted homecoming on the facts of life related to juvenile behavior. Once in a while, a small refresher can add a mischievous spark to any literature, although it may come at the cost of target audiences not taking it seriously. On a rough estimate, 20-25% of this novel is blathering on in some form or another about sex. 'Sex sells' so the saying goes? Dubious. It is unfortunate that A: the author is clearly not a woman, and B: he wasted 1/5th of a novel on refuse I could care less about. It could be said that I'm no better for having written so much in opposition against it, but I can live with that.

Aside from all the hype and fuss, the straightforward bead on this paperback is that it is very realistic and very perfect in being delicate. The characters are sheltered, treasured and educated clones that must in the end be harvested for their organs to donate to people with identities in transplants. The world is cured of cancer, nobody has to feel the cold reaper at their back any longer. Nobody, except a caste of less-than-humans that may neither procreate nor experience true freedom. This is the indulgence of children that may never roam free.

I poked around and picked out a few books here and there in lists people declared as 'must reads'. Suffice it to say, grabbing at random from collections of people whom I've never met will land some interesting choices. I would not have picked this off the shelf spontaneously, though the actual decision-making of the past was exactly that. It might or might not have been a 'must read', I am at odds to judge it as either. It is a quick read and it leaves the reader with a ponderance of things long afterward. It does need to be mulled over on, so I guess it can't be all bad.