Let me start by saying that my review might contain some plot spoilers. However I personally don't think that knowing the plot in advance will in any way diminish the enjoyment of this story. The beauty of this book is not in the plot, but in its execution.

Another friendly warning: Never Let Me Go is for some reason often classified as science fiction. This is why so many readers end up disappointed I think. This novel is literary fiction at its finest. So if you look down on literary fiction and consider books written by authors like Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood, and Jose Saramago pretentious, this is not a story for you.

Now to the novel itself. Kathy, now 31, is a former student of an English boarding school Hailsham. Hailsham is a school for kids with special purpose. All education in this school is geared towards conditioning its student to accept their "special" destiny as a given. As Kathy is getting ready to make her first donation while being a carer for other donors, she recounts her life in Hailsham and on her own, mostly in a form of anecdotes about herself and her best friends Ruth and Tommy, their rivalries, jealousies, and affection for each other. There is nothing particularly shocking, gruesome, or intense about Kathy's story, and yet it leaves you with a sense of being a part of a nightmare.

After reading quite a few reviews of the book, I can say that I loved the aspects of it that many abhorred. What other readers say about Kathy - her detachment, her lack of fire and rebellion, about broke my heart. What can be more heartbreaking than witnessing human lives wasted? Let me tell you - witnessing lives taken away from people who do not even realize what is being taken away from them, people who do not understand the value of their existence, people who do not know they have a right for more.

There is of course, much more to the story. The novel explores the futility of human life, its un-bargainable eventual "completion" and how we all choose to deal with the inevitable end. But for me personally the pain of Kathy's quiet resignation to her fate was what stood out and touched me the most.

In many ways Never Let Me Go reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Only Kathy is a step further from Offred. If Offred knows what horrors she is subjected to, but has no strength or will to change her circumstances, Kathy doesn't even know that her life "purpose," her destiny is inhumane. This work is also, to me, very reminiscent of Ian McEwan's Atonement. McEwan is a master of subtle build-up to an almost unbearable, life-shattering moment, but Ishiguro is a master of subtle telling without telling, foreshadowing, and emphasizing the gravity of the unsaid.

What else can I say about this novel? Never Let Me Go is a masterfully written work of fiction which raises questions of what it is to be human, what you choose to do in the face of an impending death and what happens when science is not accompanied by ethics. Subtle, eerie, chilling, and poignant. One of the best books I have read this year.

DIALOGUE:

Imagine a restaurant, London, mid-2003.

Publisher: Hey, K, we need another novel and we need it quick.

K: I know, I know.

Publisher: Another “Remains of the Day”. Something Hollywood can turn into a hit.

K: I’m working on it.

Publisher: Any ideas?

K: Well, I’ve been reading some Jonathan Swift.

Publisher: Who?

K: You know, “Gulliver’s Travels”.

Publisher: Oh, yeah, Jack Black. It's in pre-production.

K: Well, he had a modest proposal about how to stop the children of the poor being a burden…

Publisher: I’m with you, yep, delinquents, sounds good.

K: …he wanted to stop them being a burden to their parents…

Publisher: Yep, with you.

K: … and the Country.

Publisher: Yep, a Thatcherite angle, I think it’s Maggie’s time again.

K: Anyway, he had this idea that you could kill two birds with one stone…you could end the kids’ misery and the poverty of their parents at the same time…

Publisher: Let me guess, you could eat them, ha ha.

K: You’ve read it?

Publisher: No… wait, you’re kidding me, aren’t you?

K: No, that’s the whole point of the story.

Publisher: What, eat your kids?

K: No, not your own kids, other people’s kids.

Publisher: How could anyone do it?

K: He goes into that… stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled…

Publisher: Yuck.

K: He even talks about making them into a fricassee or a ragout.

Publisher: It’s a bit out there, K.

K: I was thinking of updating it a bit.

Publisher: How would you do that?

K: I was thinking I could tell the story from the point of view of a midwife who…

Publisher: Someone who has to care for the kids?

K: Yeah, until they turn 12 months or something...

Publisher: Let me guess, then she hands them over to a child butcher or something?

K: Yeah.

Publisher: Look, I can see where you’re going with this, but it all sounds a bit grotesque.

K: That’s the whole point. It’s an allegory for our times.

Publisher: I just don’t know whether it’s got legs.

K: Legs? You’re kidding me…it’s got every damned limb and organ you can think of.

Publisher: I don’t want to think of it, I can just imagine the reviews. They’ll call it “The Remains of the Meat Tray”.

K: Ha, I hadn’t thought of that, I was going to call it “The Remains of the Creche”.

Publisher: It gets worse.

K: No, honestly, I was thinking of “Never Let Me Grow”.

Publisher: You mean, like…never let me grow up?

K: Yeah.

Publisher: Do you think you could turn the people into pigs or something, you know, like “Animal Farm”?

K: I was sort of hooked on the idea of using people and narrating the story in a really dead pan voice…

Publisher: I don’t know about dead pan, it sounds more frying pan to me.

K: …If it’s dead pan, people won’t be able to tell whether it’s set in the future or the present. They won’t know how close to reality it is.

Publisher: I just don’t know what I think about this eating babies stuff.

K: But it’s like sci-fi, you can do anything in sci-fi.

Publisher: Look, if we let you do this, they won’t be calling it sci-fi, they’ll be calling it sci-fry.

K: If you let me do it, I guarantee we’ll be able to get Helen Mirren to play the midwife.

Publisher: Who?

K: Helen Mirren, you know, the Queen.

Publisher: No, no. Look, if you can tweak it, you know, think about my idea for a second, set it on Animal Farm, make it about cloning pigs, so they can grow body parts for other pigs or something…

K: I know, put some wizard animals in it and call it “Hogparts”?

Publisher: Come on take me seriously, K, just clone it up and tone it down.

K: I’ll think about it.

Publisher: I’ll see if I can get Keira Knightley to voice one of the pigs.

K: She’s hot.

Publisher: You could call it “Never Let Me Go”.

K: What does that mean?

Publisher: It’s a song my mother used to play. Jane Monheit sang it.

K: I could get used to it. Don’t know what I think about the name Monheit though.

Publisher: It does sound a bit German, doesn't it?

K: What would you think if I called her something more English in the book.

Publisher: Like Judy Bridgewater?

K: Who’s Judy Bridgewater?

Publisher: It’s my mother’s maiden name.

K: Sounds good to me.

Publisher: Look, I normally like to respect an artist’s integrity, but hey, you’re the artist, so I guess that makes it OK.

K: Do you think I could get to meet Keira Knightley?

Publisher: I think so… look I’ve been thinking about it, maybe it’s not such a good idea to turn Keira Knightley into a pig.

K: Sometimes you can’t really see the depth of your own characters, until you can imagine who’s going to play them.

Publisher: So, no pigs?

K: No pigs. I don’t mind the cloning bit though.

Original Review: April 16, 2011


CRITIQUE:

Some More Serious Thoughts

I wrote the above dialogue before I even finished the book.
I wanted to read the book before seeing the film, which I will probably do in the next week or so during the holidays.
When I wrote the dialogue, I probably had about 50 pages to finish, but the dialogue had taken shape in my head, and I didn't want to risk losing it.
There might have been a chance that it would be superseded by my final thoughts on the novel itself.
I had high expectations that I would finally get to appreciate the novel more when I had finished it and absorbed the denouement.
Unfortunately, it left me feeling dissatisfied.

Narrative Style

I didn't find the narrative style appropriate or convincing.
It is told in the first person, by way of recollection of three different periods of Kathy's life.
The periods are discussed chronologically, although during each period, there are occasional allusions to each other period.
There is a lot of internal detail about each period, what was going on in Kathy's head.
Dialogue between the characters is infrequent and sparse.
The novel is overwhelmingly an interior monologue.
Occasionally, there are lapses or flaws in Kathy's memory that she self-consciously draws attention to.
Part of me wanted to say to the author, "It's your story, just get it right, you can remember anything you like, because you're making it up anyway."
But then I guess we have to differentiate between Ishiguro and Kathy.
We have to expect some flaws in the glass, rather than a word and memory perfect narrative.
Still I was never really confident who Kathy was talking to, it wasn't just an interior monologue, there were occasional mentions of a "you", a second person to whom she was talking.
If you had sat down to tell this story to someone else, I think you could or would have told the story far more succinctly and selectively.
The detail and the repetition of environment, atmosphere and mood bulk up the painting, but they don't add to the depth.
Each new layer of paint is superimposed on the previous layer, so that while there might be a lot of paint on the canvas, it is physically, rather then metaphorically, deep.

The Geometry of Love

SPOILER ALERT

While Kathy, Ruth and Tommy live in an horrific environment (perhaps a metaphorical equivalent to a concentration camp), the novel deals with the quality of their humanity under these circumstances.
The guardians might have been trying to work out (incidentally) whether they had souls, but ultimately what we learn is that the positive aspects of human nature can survive or prevail despite the circumstances.
It's interesting that the characters' quest for love initially seemed to be motivated by a belief that it would postpone their donations and prolong their lives.
While this belief turns out to be mistaken, Kathy discovers that love is worth seeking in its own right, regardless of any consequences or notions of cause and effect.
Ruth promoted the belief in the life prolonging effect of love.
In effect, Kathy acquiesced in it and never deliberately interfered in or disrupted the relationship between Ruth and Tommy.
However, when she comes to the end of the story, perhaps she realises that she should have been less acquiescent and let herself express her love for Tommy.
So ultimately, "Never Let Me Go" is a love story, a triangular one at that.
Life is short, you just have to get on with it, you have to take your (true?) love wherever you can find it, even if someone else gets hurt in the process.
When we pair up in love, there is always a chance that someone will miss out or get hurt.
Three into two won't go.
Perhaps, this is actually calculus rather than geometry, but you know what I mean.

A major disappointment. Ishiguro starts with an interesting premise but makes very little out of it, and ends up with a limp, unsatisfying story.

Some of the positive reviews about this book seem a little strained -- we're supposed to reflect on the similarity of our own "doomed" lives to those of the clones. But it doesn't really wash. There's never a sense that any of the characters are struggling with the dead-serious issues that make life worth living; they're herded from stage to stage like cattle, mooing articulately and chewing their cuds with a vague sense of malaise, but never actually taking their lives in hand. Their own impending fates don't seem to mobilize them into action, or concentrate their minds at all.

So it's a frustrating read. Ishiguro's deliberately sketched this story in a low key way (which is cool to read), but there are way too many holes in the story and the drama just leaks out steadily. With few genuinely provocative ideas and a wispy narrative line, you hope for a climax that's going to pull it ll together. But when it arrives, it's a drippy and embarrassing affair, with much preaching and obviousness. Any impact the story might have had gets instantly diluted.

Hate to sound harsh. But by the time the book ambled to a close, I felt like the characters might as well be carved up for their innards -- they didn't seem to be willing to take the risks necessary to have an actual life.

(Book 1 From 1001 books) - Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go, is a 2005 dystopian science fiction novel, by Nobel Prize-winning British author Kazuo Ishiguro.

The story begins with Kathy, who describes herself as a carer, talking about looking after organ donors. She has been a carer for almost twelve years at the time of narration, and she often reminisces about her time spent at Hailsham, a boarding school in England, where the teachers are known as guardians.

Along with classes, they often emphasize the importance of being healthy to their students—smoking is considered to be taboo, almost on the level of a crime, and working in the vegetable garden is compulsory.

The curriculum appears to be like that of any other school, but there is great encouragement for the students to produce art. The art is then displayed in an exhibition, and the best artwork is chosen by a woman known to the students as Madame.

The students speculate that she keeps their work in a gallery. The story revolves around three Hailsham students: Kathy and two others, Ruth and Tommy, who develop a close but complicated friendship.

Kathy develops a fondness for Tommy, looking after him when he is bullied and having private talks with him. However, Ruth and Tommy begin a romantic relationship during their time at the school that continues when they leave. ...

هرگز رهایم مکن - کازوئو ایشی گورو (ققنوس) ادبیات؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: نوزدهم فوریه سال 2012میلادی

عنوان: هرگز رهایم مکن؛ نویسنده: کازوئو ایشی گورو؛ مترجم: سهیل سمی؛ تهران، ققنوس، 1385، در 267ص؛ شابک 9643116271؛ چاپ دوم 1386؛ چاپ سوم 1389؛ شابک 9789643116279؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده 20م

عنوان: هرگز رهایم مکن؛ نویسنده: کازوئو ایشی گورو؛ مترجم: فاطمه امینی؛ تهران، نوید ظهور، 1394، در 352ص؛ شابک 9786008008132؛

با آنکه عنوان کتاب عاشقانه است، اما داستان عاشقانه نیست، از عشق سخن میگوید، اما عاشقانه نیست؛ «کتی اچ.» سی و یک ساله داستان زندگیش را برای خوانشگر روایت می‌کند؛ «کتی»، «تامی» و «روت» دانش آموزان مدرسه ی شبانه ‌روزی نامعمولی به نام «هیلشم» هستند؛ در «هیلشم» دانش آموزان، به یادگیری و آفرینش هنرهایی همچون «نقاشی»، «سفال‌گری» و «کاردستی» می‌پردازن،د و بر سلامتی بچه ‌ها نظارت شدیدی اعمال می‌شود؛ همچنان‌که «کتی» داستان بزرگ شدن خود و دوستانش، عشق ناگفته ‌اش به «تامی»، و دوستی پر فراز و نشیبش با «روت» را پیش می‌برد، خوانشگر نیز به آهستگی، پی به حقیقت وجود بچه ‌ها می‌برد؛ این دانش آموزان «هیلشم» به گونه ای هستند، که متولد شده اند تا اعضای بدن خود را اهدا کنند، و به تدریج بمیرند؛ آنها پیش از اهدای عضو، مددکار میشوند؛ این اثر «ایشی گورو»، رمان تکان ‌دهنده ‌ای است، آکنده از احساس شکنندگی انسان معاصر، خاطرات به یادماندنی شخصیت‌هایی که رفته ‌رفته، به حقیقت دوران کودکی به ظاهر شاد، و نیز آینده خود پی می‌برند

نقل از آغاز داستان: (اسمم «کتی اچ.» است؛ سی و یک سال دارم، و بیش از یازده سال است که پرستارم؛ میدانم؛ یک عمرست؛ اما راستش، میخواهند هشت ماه دیگر هم ادامه بدهم، یعنی تا آخر سال؛ با این حساب میشود دوازده سال تمام؛ حالا میدانم که سابقه ی کار طولانی ام، ضروزتا به این معنا نیست که کارم از نظر آنها محشر است؛ پرستاران خیلی خوبی را میشناسم که در سه سال، عذرشان را خواسته اند؛ و دست کم یک پرستار را هم میشناسم، که به رغم بی مصرف بودن، چهارده سال آزگار به کارش ادامه داد؛ پس قصدم لاف زدن نیست، اما به هر حال حتم دارم که از کارم راضی بوده اند، و در کل، خودم هم همین طور -فکر میکنم-؛ بهبود بیمارانم، همیشه بیش از حد انتظار بوده؛ دوره ی نقاهتشان به نحو قابل ملاحظه ای کوتاه بوده، و تقریبا هیچ کدامشان ذیل گروه «پریشان»، دسته بندی نشده اند؛ حتی تا پیش از اهدایی چهارم.؛ شاید حالا دارم لاف میزنم؛ اما همین که میتوانم کارم را درست انجام دهم، برایم خیلی مهم است، بخصوص «خونسرد» نگاه داشتن بیمارانم؛ در مورد آنها نوعی شناخت غریزی پیدا کرده ام؛ میدانم چه موقع به سراغشان بروم، و تسلایشان دهم، چه موقع آنها را به حال خودشان -وا- بگذارم، چه وقت به گفتنی هاشان گوش بدهم، و چه موقع شانه بالا بیندازم، و بگویم تمامش کنند.)؛ پایان نخستین پاراگراف از متن ترجمه جناب «سهیل سمی»؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 13/06/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 13/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

You know those random stock characters in sci-fi/action movies, the ones who never get names or any lines? They're always spending their precious few minutes of screen time getting shoved out of the way as the hero hurtles desperately down a hallway, or watching from a safe distance as a climactic fight goes on, or diving out of the way whenever a murderous cyborg smashes through their office window. Have you ever wondered what those people's lives were like? Have you ever thought to yourself, "Man, this movie's interesting and all, but I want to know more about that guy who owned the hotel where Sarah Conner hid from the Terminator. I bet he leads a fascinating life." (believe me, he doesn't.)

Imagine if someone decided to write a book about this kind of person. The result is Never Let Me Go.

(semi-spoilers ahoy, you've been warned) So the book is about a sort of alternate-universe England, where people are cloned and the resulting kids are raised in isolated boarding schools, spending all their time painting and playing sports and getting vague hints about how when they get older they'll have to make "donations." We learn (eventually and with no drama whatsoever) that these kids were created specifically as future organ donors, and that's all they're meant for. Ishiguro introduces us to Kathy, the narrator, and her friends who lived at one of these schools with her - Ruth and Tommy. As I said, we gradually and laboriously learn about the school's real purpose, but it seems almost like a subplot, because the majority of the book is just Kathy nattering on about her school and how she and Ruth got into a fight this one time and also she had a crush on Tommy but he and Ruth were dating so Kathy had sex with some other random guys and oh my god can we get back to the organ donor thing? Seriously the whole book is like that - we get the sense that there's some creepy futuristic stuff going on in the background, but our protagonists don't care because they're too busy telling us about that one time Kathy lost her favorite cassette tape and it was very upsetting.

Even when it seems like a plot's about to start, it's always a false alarm. The trip to a nearby town that the three characters take to find a woman they think may be Ruth's "possible" (a person she may have been cloned from) doesn't pan out, and we realize that the real point of the trip was an attempt to convince the reader that Tommy and Kathy have some sort of romantic attraction to each other. Ruth's possible, and everything it might have meant, is abandoned so that Ishiguro can have another chance to demonstrate his astonishing inability to create any kind of chemistry between two characters.

And the end. Without giving anything away, I'll just say that Kathy and Tommy finally get all the answers about their school and what was actually going on, and they respond by...going about their lives in the exact same way as before.

I mean, good God. Even though this is supposed to be some sort of more intellectual science fiction, I don't care. There's cloning and dystopian undertones; ergo it is sci-fi. And I like my sci-fi loud, shiny, and dramatic, with lots of explosions and computers that talk.

There's a reason Harry Potter starts when he gets his Hogwarts letter, folks. Because no one wants to hear about ordinary people being ordinary - that's kind of the whole point of fiction.

Ah f**kin' British writers! My inclination to adore everyone from Evelyn Waugh to Charles Dickens, from Alex Garland to Zadie Smith seems very ingrained (VERY DEEP) inside me, primordial, & there must be SOME bloody reason why I find most English fiction so alluring. I think it has mostly to do with mood. It may linger deliciously...

The best book I've read all year (though not including Graham Greene's "The Quiet American") is about a microsociety of students in a boarding school hybrid named Hailsham. While there they do rounds and rounds of arts and crafts and come of age together, grow up, & yet there is something so not right with their seclusion and it takes page upon page to discover why it is that they are there. It is horrific, it is bizarre, this secret is handled with so much craft that it is indeed this attribute that marks this outstanding (quite brutal) masterpiece apart from all others.

There is an incredibly subtle mastery of several different genres here. Sci-fi meshes impeccably with allegory which is played out in the manner of a Gothic romance. Because the characters are trapped in all of this, the end result is (The Genre Supreme:) Tragedy. I feel so bad for Ruth, Tommy & especially for Kath, the wise but all-too-frail narrator, but at least their petition, which is the book's title, is true. This one is now on the list of all those I cannot let go or do without.

Despair. That's what I felt after reading this book. The kind of despair that suffocates you, that makes you want to break things, or, at the very least, go out for a run so you can let out the agony bubbling inside you.

It's ironic, but Never Let Me Go is about three friends who are destined to let go of everything - their bodies, their dreams, their lives and the people they love. And there's NOTHING they can do to avoid that fate.

I hate what this book did to me. I hate the author for creating a semblance of hope, only to completely crush it later.

And that means I hate this book for all the right reasons.


“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.”

Edit July 2024: I finally got the time to peruse the NY Times The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.I am happy that Never Let me Go got a deserved place in Top 10 (no.9).


Just announced as Winner of the Nobel Prize 2017!!! Well deserved.

****

I believe a good book transmits a feeling, happiness, sadness, outrage etc. Of i do not feel anything after I read a certain book I do no consider it was worth it. And this book defenitely made me feel something. What? I cannot put it into words. A feeling that made me take a break from the for two weeks but also made me return to it when I felt I was in the right spirits. I do not know why but I really liked this book. It is quite different than anything I've read before.

Con Kazuo Ishiguro me siento un bicho raro: no me gusta, sus iniciales puntos de partida son interesantes pero no bien llevados y la historia termina por desinflarse.

También es el caso de esta. Su principio es intrigante, atractivo, con un sin fin de buenas posibilidades para desarrollar. Y el autor no escoge la mejor de ellas. A partir del momento en el que se resuelve la clave principal del relato la cosa decae, y el descenso va adquiriendo velocidad a medida que vamos descubriendo todas las demás.

Uno de los motivos principales de mi desafecto es la caracterización de los personajes: no me los creí en ningún momento. Me resultó escandalosa su falta de curiosidad y de rebeldía; la fácil y hasta satisfactoria aceptación de lo inaceptable; los lazos sentimentales tan endebles que se establecen entre ellos y hasta la frialdad de sus comportamientos.

n  n
Kazuo Ishiguro tells us the story of a clique of students living in the congenial atmosphere of Hailsham, an English boarding school far away from the city. Is there something flagrant or collusion happening behind the consonant nature of this school? Are the students of Hailsham different in some sort of way? The author tries to tell it through the eyes of Kathy, who was a schoolgirl who leaves the school after she grows up into a young woman. How will the products of Hailsham face the stark realities of their future? This novel explores hope and hopelessness, love and betrayal simultaneously. The author is also trying to discuss the importance of ethics in science. This novel is a conglomeration of literary fiction, science fiction, and romantic fiction.

n  What I learned from this book n
n  1) What should we do if things are not going according to our plans in our life? n
If things are not going according to our wishes, we should try hard to get things back on track. Even after we try our best, if it is still not going to our wish; then, we should learn to let it go.

"You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process."

"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."

n  2) The importance of solitude n
Everyone is so vocal about the problems of loneliness and how loneliness can lead to anxiety and depression. It is indeed an important topic that needs discussion. But most of us are forgetting about the importance of solitude. Solitude is also a vital ingredient to make a person sane, just like companionship.

n “The solitude, I've actually grown to quite like... I do like the feeling of getting into my little car, knowing for the next couple of hours I'll have only the roads, the big gray sky and my daydreams for company."

n  3) The purest form of Love n
The author tries to discuss love from multiple angles in this novel. If we try to read between the lines, we can see love from a different angle that we haven't seen anywhere else, which is unique, pristine in its purest form, and has the propensity to touch our hearts and bring tears to our eyes.

“You say you’re sure? Sure that you're in love? How can you know it? You think love is so simple? ”

n  My favourite three lines from this book n

"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."

"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."

“It might be just some trend that came and went," I said. "But for us, it’s our life.”

n  What could have been better?n
The pace of this novel, especially in the initial part, was a little slow. This is one of those rare novels which slowly grows on you.

n  Rating n
5/5 This is a must-read book for all those who loves to read literary fiction.

As a child, Kathy H. attended Hailsham, an elite boarding school where children were raised to be both healthy and artistic and taught to believe that both their health and creativity were essential to themselves and to the world they would one day enter. Now an adult, Kathy reflects back on her life. She charts the very slow progression of her growth, her friendships with fellow students Tommy and Ruth, and her knowledge, as she herself gradually began to learn about her role in the outside world—and what this role dictates about her identity. A combination of heavy introspection and soft-scifi, Never Let Me Go has a thought-provoking premise and is brilliantly written, but fails to reach its potential, spending all its time in excruciatingly slow buildup and none of it in impact, theory, or debate. Enjoyable, but somewhat empty, and so moderately recommended.

This book's greatest strength is its writing style, but it is also one of the most irritating aspects. Kathy, the narrator, is intensely thoughtful and analytical, breaking down her personal history into eras, important moments, and developing themes. She walks the reader through the story of her life much in the way she lived it, slowly, very slowly, bringing to light her final realizations. In other words, there is a lot hidden in this book, and it takes the book's entire length—literally until the last fifteen pages—to reveal it all. In between are circuitous examples, where Kathy starts to talk about one event, goes back a bit to explain why the event was relevant, explains the event itself, and then goes on without having drawn a major conclusion—instead, she's just mapped another point on her gradual arc or argument. The resulting pace is excruciating, both artful, brilliantly thought-out and executed, and simply painful as the reader is lead along, disappointed, and lead along again. The book's pace bring the characters to life (although both Ruth and Tommy lack some dimension) and, with it, the life that they lived, through Hailsham and beyond. As such, it is the highlight of the book, worked like an artform, but it is also intensely irritating and makes the book (which actually reads quite quickly) seem longer than it is.

There are a near-infinite number of issues, from the ethical to philosophical, that could be brought to question and debate in this book. The very premise almost begs them—both the science of the base culture and the purpose of Hailsham itself. Unfortunately, however, none of these topics are brought to issue in the text. Instead, the book is consumed by the very slow progression of the story, the creep towards the "twist" revelations of who the children are and what purpose they serve. When finally revealed, these revelations are not all that big—not because they lack the potential to be, but because they pale in comparison to the immense buildup that leads to them. The characters just barely exceed the gradual revelation of the book's premise and are largely just passive carriers of the story, and so the other various issues, the possible debates, never enter into the text. So when other reviewers talk about the questions this book raises, what they're really talking about is the potential for questions—and that is not the same thing. The burden of meaning for this book, everything that the reader could take away and continue to think about, rests entirely on the reader, who must pull out the themes and ask the questions himself, carry on the debates himself. The author shirks his responsibility, and the book suffers for it, failing to live up to its potential.

My final complaint with this book is that the underlying concept seems, blandly, unrealistic. **SPOILERS** follow, so be warned: The fact that in the book's contemporary culture the clones are considered non-human despite looking, acting, and living like humans seems entirely impossible. Consider: Humans never viewed the first cloned animals as different than their original counterparts; indeed, we were amazed and drew attention to the fact that they were identical, that they were clones. So why would cloned humans be any different (especially that these clones pass in human society as normal and indistinguishable)? Outside of the huge wastefulness of cloning entire humans just to harvest their organs, the fact that the cloned humans were not considered humans seems unreal to me, no matter who the gene donors were, no matter what brief attempts Ishiguro (though Ms. Emily) makes to justify it. **END SPOILERS** This is the underlying basis of the book's conflict and plot, and so problems with this concept create problems throughout the book. They weaken the foundations, making it difficult to accept the book and, as a result, even more difficult to take on the work of finding and analyzing themes, which the author fails too do. In the end, Never Let Me Go has a thoughtful premise with heavy potential for thought, theory, and debate, and it is skillfully, even artfully written, but the book fails to live up to its potential: the author does not tackle his own themes, and no matter how interesting the premise, it is an unreasonable one. I wanted to enjoy this book, and I did, but I felt cheated at the end: the final product was surprisingly empty, with the burden of meaning placed entirely and unfairly upon the reader alone.

Sometimes I don't choose a book but it chooses me. Sounds weird?

In the beginning, I don't understand and was a bit confused by the words such as donor, and carer.

I may say this book is a bit slow, boring, and mundane but it is growing interesting when you continue discovering it.

The imaginative or sci-fiction story of Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth makes me reminisce about my life and I am grateful that we can live in a free world.

Remember, we never take the "free world" for granted. We must protect it. Sorry, a little bit of politics here.