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kelseyland 's review for:
Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is, frankly, a brilliant novel. I won't spoil anything because a.) you should definitely read it, and b.) getting to the heart of what exactly is going on is a major part of what this book is all about.
Essentially, Never Let Me Go is a coming of age novel set in a vaguely dystopian present-day Britain. The novel's narrator, Kathy, relates experiences from her childhood at an idyllic boarding school called Hailsham, most of which involve her complicated friendship with a girl named Ruth and a boy named Tommy. Using Kathy as the narrator gives readers a very narrow and perhaps skewed perspective on the world the novel depicts: you might be able to sense that there is more to Hailsham than meets the eye, but as long as Kathy remains naïve about the truth, so do you. Ishiguro's masterful storytelling allows you to experience Kathy's gradual awakening and loss of innocence right along with her in a powerful and heartbreaking way.
As a narrator, Kathy is a little bit of a tease: she has the upper hand over readers because she already knows everything and we know nothing, so she gets to decide what to reveal and when. She often makes vague references to facts or events only to make some statement along the lines of, "I'll get to that later," which normally is a pet peeve of mine but in this case I didn't mind it so much because everything else was so perfectly executed.
In fact, "more on that later" worked well as a stylistic choice in a couple of ways. First, it added a sense of realism to Kathy's narration as an adult reliving childhood memories. Memory hardly ever works in a linear way, or in a manner that would seem logical to an outsider: Thinking about a certain person, place or event might trigger a series of related memories that someone who didn't have the same experiences would be at a loss to understand. So telling one story about a treasured childhood possession evokes a whole set of memories and emotions for Kathy, but because she is doing her best to describe events in the order that they happened, she has no choice but to delay explanation.
Second, "I'll tell you more later" puts readers in the same childlike state that Kathy and her friends occupy for a large part of the story, doing their best to make sense of the world but constantly thwarted by a lack of information from adults in authority positions. It's frustrating and uncomfortable because as readers, we're used to knowing at least as much as the characters, if not more. In the early parts of Never Let Me Go, a strong desire to find out what was going on was my main motivation to continue reading, and I kept turning the page long after my eyelids had grown heavy and I normally would have called it a night.
By the time I finally did figure everything out, I was surprised to find myself intensely emotionally invested in the characters and their fates. Ishiguro does a fantastic job conveying the tragedy of growing up, of love and loss and trying to find your place in the world. This novel really made my heart ache in a way that only the best and truest writing can; the closest comparison I can think of is [b:The Waves|46114|The Waves|Virginia Woolf|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328875073s/46114.jpg|6057263] by one of the absolute all-time greats, Virginia Woolf. The science fictional elements of Never Let Me Go are necessary but ultimately secondary to a story that gets at the heart of the human condition.
Essentially, Never Let Me Go is a coming of age novel set in a vaguely dystopian present-day Britain. The novel's narrator, Kathy, relates experiences from her childhood at an idyllic boarding school called Hailsham, most of which involve her complicated friendship with a girl named Ruth and a boy named Tommy. Using Kathy as the narrator gives readers a very narrow and perhaps skewed perspective on the world the novel depicts: you might be able to sense that there is more to Hailsham than meets the eye, but as long as Kathy remains naïve about the truth, so do you. Ishiguro's masterful storytelling allows you to experience Kathy's gradual awakening and loss of innocence right along with her in a powerful and heartbreaking way.
As a narrator, Kathy is a little bit of a tease: she has the upper hand over readers because she already knows everything and we know nothing, so she gets to decide what to reveal and when. She often makes vague references to facts or events only to make some statement along the lines of, "I'll get to that later," which normally is a pet peeve of mine but in this case I didn't mind it so much because everything else was so perfectly executed.
In fact, "more on that later" worked well as a stylistic choice in a couple of ways. First, it added a sense of realism to Kathy's narration as an adult reliving childhood memories. Memory hardly ever works in a linear way, or in a manner that would seem logical to an outsider: Thinking about a certain person, place or event might trigger a series of related memories that someone who didn't have the same experiences would be at a loss to understand. So telling one story about a treasured childhood possession evokes a whole set of memories and emotions for Kathy, but because she is doing her best to describe events in the order that they happened, she has no choice but to delay explanation.
Second, "I'll tell you more later" puts readers in the same childlike state that Kathy and her friends occupy for a large part of the story, doing their best to make sense of the world but constantly thwarted by a lack of information from adults in authority positions. It's frustrating and uncomfortable because as readers, we're used to knowing at least as much as the characters, if not more. In the early parts of Never Let Me Go, a strong desire to find out what was going on was my main motivation to continue reading, and I kept turning the page long after my eyelids had grown heavy and I normally would have called it a night.
By the time I finally did figure everything out, I was surprised to find myself intensely emotionally invested in the characters and their fates. Ishiguro does a fantastic job conveying the tragedy of growing up, of love and loss and trying to find your place in the world. This novel really made my heart ache in a way that only the best and truest writing can; the closest comparison I can think of is [b:The Waves|46114|The Waves|Virginia Woolf|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328875073s/46114.jpg|6057263] by one of the absolute all-time greats, Virginia Woolf. The science fictional elements of Never Let Me Go are necessary but ultimately secondary to a story that gets at the heart of the human condition.