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hdkreads 's review for:
Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
This is a beautiful book. Since Ishiguro is so beloved, I’ve been surprised in the past when his books haven’t resonated with me, so I’m glad to have found something that did! In both The Buried Giant and Klara and the Sun I felt like as a reader I was somehow kept at a remove from the emotional experiences of the character. Here, I felt completely immersed in Kath’s world and it allowed me to fully enjoy what Ishiguro seems to be so good at: building these beautiful, melancholy worlds that are somehow simultaneously vivid and hazy.
This book had a couple of memorable scenes on hilltops or overlooks, and it reminded me of important moments in his other two books that were oriented in a similar topography. It makes me curious to know more about Ishiguro’s writing process and how he builds setting into his storytelling. For me, these hilltop settings mirror how, although all three of my reads were set in a particular and slightly otherworldly context, it often feels like Ishiguro is directing me to see the story from a birds-eye view to emphasize a more universal experience or truth. I thought Never Let Me Go did this especially effectively. Even as themore dystopian aspects of the book were gradually revealed, so many of the students’ thoughts and experiences read like an authentic and universal portrayal of how it feels to grow up and learn to navigate the world. I think it must take some authorly sleight of hand to write a believable narrator that readers follow from childhood to adulthood, but for me Kath rang very true. Even when her narration continued to revisit these images of holding on/letting go in many different contexts (her cassette tape, the balloons, the river, tides, a physical embrace), these moments gave the book a meditative rhythm while somehow never feeling heavy-handed.
This book had a couple of memorable scenes on hilltops or overlooks, and it reminded me of important moments in his other two books that were oriented in a similar topography. It makes me curious to know more about Ishiguro’s writing process and how he builds setting into his storytelling. For me, these hilltop settings mirror how, although all three of my reads were set in a particular and slightly otherworldly context, it often feels like Ishiguro is directing me to see the story from a birds-eye view to emphasize a more universal experience or truth. I thought Never Let Me Go did this especially effectively. Even as the